Google Age Discrimination Lawsuit Returns to Trial Court After California Supreme Court Ruling

The California Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously agreed that stray remarks from colleagues may have been considered evidence of bias and ruled that a trial court erred in dismissing an age discrimination lawsuit against Google, Inc.

The Internet’s most popular search engine must now face charges from former manager Brian Reid who claims he was fired by Google for being too old. Reid was hired in 2002 as director of operations and engineering. Less than two years after being hired, Reid was told that he was not a good “cultural fit” and was fired.

Thursday’s ruling upheld an earlier state appeals court decision that the trial court had erred in dismissing the original Google age discrimination lawsuit. The California Supreme Court stated that remarks from Reid’s co-workers, including episodes of colleagues calling Reid “old man” and “old fuddy-duddy” should have been considered to be evidence of bias.

The California ruling sends the case back to trial court.

Google denies that Reid was laid off because of his age and plans to prove that Reid was removed for legitimate reasons.

“We look forward to demonstrating in court the legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons why Mr. Reid was let go,” said Andrew Pederson, a spokesman for Mountain View, California-based Google.
Reid, a former electrical engineering professor at Stanford University had been a part of the team that developed the AltaVista search engine. During his employment with Google, Reid claims that he was repeatedly berated by a younger vice-president who accused Reid of being “sluggish,” “slow,” “lethargic” and “fuzzy,” and told Reid that his ideas were “too old to matter” and “obsolete.”

Reid claims that other Google staff members also berated him because of his age.

The California Supreme Court had to decide whether a federal court doctrine, coined in 1989 by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, applied to the California-based Google age discrimination lawsuit. The federal court doctrine denies the right to submit as evidence “stray remarks” made by colleagues or supervisors who are not included in decision-making procedures.

California Supreme Court Justice Ming Chin said that in light of the fact that there is significant disagreement on how the stray remarks doctrine applies in non-federal cases, it is better to consider these remarks in the context of other facts in a case. In this case, Chin points out statistical evidence of bias within Google and questions the rationale for Reid’s firing when a performance review stated that Reid “consistently met expectations.”

Chin also pointed to E-mails between the executive who hired Reid, Wayne Rosing, and Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt regarding a proposal about “Getting Reid out.” Additional E-mail evidence was submitted involving Google co-founder Sergey Brin who wrote about the search for “a senior Director (note I did not capitalize Sr.) or VP level person to run this operation.”

“The Court of Appeal properly considered evidence of alleged discriminatory comments made by decision makers and co-workers along with all other evidence in the record,” Chin wrote in his 44-page ruling.

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