As reported by Reuters via Yahoo Finance, in a recent decision, a federal judge in San Francisco has authorized approximately 150 older employees who were laid off by the social media platform X during Elon Musk's acquisition of the company to pursue a class action lawsuit for age discrimination, potentially exposing the company to significant financial liability.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, in a ruling issued late September 3rd, highlighted the case's central question regarding the impact of a large-scale layoff in 2022 on workers aged 50 and above.
One of the plaintiffs, John Zeman, who was part of X's communications department when the company was known as Twitter, filed the lawsuit in 2023. He asserted that X terminated 60% of employees aged 50 or older and nearly three-quarters of those over 60, in contrast to 54% of younger employees.
"Plaintiff has shown beyond mere speculation that Twitter may have discriminated against older employees in the November 4, 2022 (mass layoff), which constitutes a single decision that affected all members of the proposed class," Illston stated.
Following the ruling, Zeman's legal representatives can inform potential class members about the lawsuit, offering them the opportunity to participate in the case.
At the time of writing, X had not provided a comment in response to the ruling. The company has refuted allegations of discrimination, stating that it discontinued the entire communications department where Zeman was employed after Musk's takeover, irrespective of the employees' ages.
Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney representing Zeman and around 2,000 former Twitter employees who have filed various legal claims against the company, expressed satisfaction with the ruling.
This lawsuit is one of several X is facing as a result of Musk's decision to downsize Twitter's workforce by more than half in 2022.
These cases encompass a range of allegations, all of which X has denied. These include claims that the company carried out layoffs and terminated contracts without due notice, targeted female employees for layoffs, and compelled workers with disabilities to resign by prohibiting remote work.
In August, two judges dismissed cases alleging gender and disability bias, while allowing the plaintiffs to submit revised complaints elaborating on their allegations.
Two other lawsuits assert that the company owes former employees a minimum of $500 million in severance pay. One of these cases was dismissed in July.
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