In Puleo v. Masonic Medical Research Institute et al, 2025 WL 45393 (2d Cir. Jan. 8, 2025), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the lower court’s determination that defendants were entitled to summary judgment on plaintiff’s age discrimination claims.
From the decision:
Puleo’s claim for age discrimination under the ADEA is subject to the same three-part McDonnell Douglas framework, with one exception. See Gorzynski v. JetBlue Airways Corp., 596 F.3d 93, 106 (2d Cir. 2010). At step three, an ADEA plaintiff “must prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that age was the but-for cause of the challenged adverse employment action and not just a contributing or motivating factor.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). We agree with the district court that Puleo has not made such a showing here.
To rebut Defendants’ nondiscriminatory reasons for her termination, Puleo relies primarily on the fact that the man who filled the Animal Care Assistant position was thirty-three years younger than she was. But without more, the mere fact that the person hired was younger is not enough to establish that MMRI’s stated reason for firing was pretextual. See Fagan v. N.Y. State Elec. & Gas Corp., 186 F.3d 127, 134 (2d Cir. 1999) (“The replacement of an older worker with a younger worker or workers does not itself prove unlawful discrimination.”). Moreover, as noted above, Puleo does not dispute that the person hired as the Animal Care Assistant was qualified for the position and that Puleo herself did not even apply for the job after MMRI’s transition to a small-animal testing facility. Considering the record as a whole, we cannot say that Puleo has met her burden at step three to create a genuine dispute that age discrimination was the but-for cause of her termination.
With respect to the research assistant position, Puleo’s evidence is even thinner. Although she insists that all of the women terminated during the chief financial officer’s tenure at MMRI were over the age of forty, she again overlooks the fact that the chief financial officer played no role in her termination. She likewise provides no evidence about the composition of MMRI’s workforce as a whole, thus preventing a reasonable factfinder from drawing any inference of age discrimination. More specifically, the record is silent as to the ages of the two research assistants who were retained instead of her. Given this dearth of evidence, no reasonable factfinder could conclude that MMRI’s stated reasons for firing Puleo were pretextual and that age discrimination was the but-for cause of her termination. See Gross v. FBL Fin. Servs., Inc., 557 U.S. 167, 174 (2009) (“Unlike Title VII … a plaintiff may [not] establish [ADEA] discrimination by showing that age was simply a motivating factor.”).
Based on this, the court agreed with the district court that defendants were entitled to summary judgment.