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A $57 settlement reached in May between Sprint Nextel Corp. and former employees who claimed they were fired because of their age was deemed fair and reasonable by a federal judge last week.
Forced Rankings
The approval brings to conclusion a complex, paper-intensive, four-year battle over the firing of nearly 1,700 former employees over the age of 40. Central to the case was the notion of “forced rankings”—a system in which employees are ranked and those who fall in the bottom 10 percent are dismissed.
According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs' rankings were changed from good to a lower category to justify their layoff. The firings in this case occurred between October 2001 and March 2003.
Settlement
None of the plaintiffs opted out of the settlement, which will be disbursed according to a predetermined scale. Disbursement amounts range from $4,226 to $35,738, with the average settlement working out to about $20,330.
This is not Sprint's first settlement in an age discrimination case. Last year, a similar action against the company was settled in Georgia for $5.5 million, with individual plaintiffs recovering on average $6,000.
(Source: The Kansas City Star online)
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