In Tillman . Grenadier Realty Corp., GRC Management, 2025 WL 2910611 (2d Cir. 2025), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the lower court’s award of summary judgment to defendant on plaintiff’s claim of age discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).
From the decision:
On appeal, Tillman argues that the district court improperly granted summary judgment on her ADEA claim by determining that she failed to establish a prima facie case of age discrimination or, in the alternative, to rebut the legitimate, non-discriminatory explanation proffered by Grenadier. In particular, she asserts that the inference of discriminatory intent as to her termination is supported by the disparate treatment she suffered leading up to that termination, as well as other evidence in the record purportedly demonstrating age discrimination with respect to other employees. We conclude that, even assuming that Tillman established a prima facie case, the district court correctly held, in the alternative, that no rational jury could find that Grenadier’s proffered reason for her termination—namely, that the Company faced significant financial hardship, resulting in a complete reconstructing that included terminating Tillman’s position—was pretextual and that age discrimination was the but-for cause for her termination.
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Tillman also contends that the district court failed to properly consider evidence of disparate treatment leading up to her termination, including “evidence that Moorehead demoted Tillman by placing her under LoRusso, who was much younger than her and had a lower title, in a department that did not ‘make sense.’ ” Appellant’s Br. at 25. We disagree. Tillman’s speculation about the motive for Grenadier’s restructuring decision did not undermine the uncontroverted evidence that the reassignment was prompted by the cost-cutting measures arising from Javelin’s review of the Company’s operations. Indeed, Tillman acknowledged that economic motivation, noting that that LoRusso was not “making … as much money as [she] was,” and as a result, by restructuring her position to fall underneath LoRusso’s department, Grenadier may have “got[ten] a better deal.” App’x at 1259; see Criley v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 119 F.3d 102, 105 (2d Cir. 1997) (per curiam) (“[A]n employer’s concern about the economic consequences of employment decisions does not constitute age discrimination under the ADEA, even though there may be a correlation with age.”). Furthermore, the fact that Tillman was given a cubicle for her new position, rather than an enclosed office, raises no inference of age discrimination where, as the district court observed, there was uncontroverted evidence that “[f]ollowing the loss of the Starrett City contract, Grenadier was required to vacate its office space on the Starrett City property and move to a one floor space in Industry City that largely consist[ed] of open office space with only eleven enclosed offices” and several other director-level individuals also did not receive an enclosed office in the new space.1 Tillman, 2024 WL 3758803, at *8 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
In addition, although Tillman attempted to provide statistical information that purportedly showed that Grenadier had a pattern of terminating older employees, those statistics did not actually show that Grenadier disproportionately terminated older rather than similarly situated younger employees. Moreover, any possible inference that age played a role in Grenadier’s termination of the former CEO in April 2019 does not create an issue of fact as to the motivation for Tillman’s termination months later so as to preclude summary judgment, especially in light of the uncontroverted evidence regarding the reasons for Tillman’s termination.
The court concluded by rejecting plaintiff’s argument that the district court erred by relying on the testimony of “interested” witnesses claiming that finances were the reasons for plaintiff’s firing, noting that “the interested witness testimony regarding the economic reasons that prompted Tillman’s termination is substantially corroborated by contemporaneous documentation contained in the record” and plaintiff ” failed to offer any evidence that undermines the credibility of these interested witnesses or the extensive documentation supporting their testimony, such as conflicting sworn testimony or documents, or strong evidence of discriminatory motive that calls into question those witnesses’ credibility.”