Photo: John Disney/ ALM

A federal judge has ruled that a waiver prohibiting age discrimination claims signed by an ex-employee suing AT&T is not valid.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Rice of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted partial summary judgment in favor of plaintiff Alison Ray, who sued AT&T under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

Ray, a former sales director, was terminated after AT&T initiated a wave of layoffs in 2017. The dispute centered on the decisional unit, or the reason certain employees are chosen to be laid off.

“Because I find AT&T failed to meet the statutory requirements for a valid ADEA waiver by failing to disclose the decisional unit involved in the reduction-in-force, I find the release invalid and unenforceable, and therefore grant partial summary judgment in favor of Ray,” Rice said in his Jan. 11 opinion.

Ray was given the option to sign a release that would give her severance benefits, however she argued the waiver did not properly identify the decisional unit.

“Ray argues that AT&T's identification of the decisional unit involved in its reduction-in-force was insufficient to provide any meaningful understanding as to its composition,” Rice said. “I agree. AT&T's purported decisional unit definition, even combined with the attached list of employees sorted by age and job title, was not understandable to the average worker, and therefore failed to provide Ray with sufficient information to assess whether she was being discriminated against because of her age.”

Rice added that upon receiving a letter, Ray was informed she was losing her job in connection with a “reduction-in-force,” and that the pool from which the terminated employees were chosen was “the combined affected work group(s)” in the ADEA Listing.

“The ADEA Listing then defined 'affected work groups' as being 'comprised of positions at the same level with similar definable characteristics from which the surplus employees are selected,' and states that the affected work groups may be 'any portion of an organization, described in terms of level, job title, similar job functions, geography, lines of organization or other definable attributes based on needs of the business,'” Rice said. “This vague and circuitous definition fails to provide the average terminated employee with any meaningful information as to how the process of identifying those included in the reduction-in-force was conducted.”

Daniel Orlow of Console Mattiacci in Philadelphia represents Ray and did not respond to a request for comment. AT&T's lawyer, Alex Maturi of Paul Hastings in Chicago, also did not respond to a request for comment.

AT&T spokesman Marty Richter said in an email, “We're reviewing the ruling and considering our options. We are widely recognized for our commitment to diversity and do not tolerate discrimination of any kind, including for an employee's age. We continue to dispute any discrimination claims.”