Employment — Harassment – Age

Where defendant employer was awarded summary judgment under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, that judgment should be affirmed because the age-based harassment the plaintiff endured was neither objectively severe nor pervasive.

“Douglas Milczak is a longtime General Motors (‘GM’) employee who works at one of its plants near Detroit, Michigan. In 2018, GM announced that it was retooling that plant to produce electric vehicles. From then on things seemed tenuous for Milczak, who was in his late fifties. While he remained employed, and still is, he claims that his managers harassed him because of his age, and let his subordinates do the same, to push him into early retirement. After several years of enduring this alleged degradation, he filed an action against GM claiming it violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. After discovery, GM moved for summary judgment, arguing the record did not support any of his claims. The district court granted the motion, and we affirm.

“The age-based harassment Milczak endured was neither objectively severe nor pervasive. Though abhorrent, Lazaroff’s three comments are more properly characterized as ‘mere offensive utterance[s]’ and do not approximate the physically threatening or humiliating language required by caselaw. ... Furthermore, Milczak does not claim any of these actions made it difficult for him to do his job or explain how those actions created an atmosphere of age-based harassment that pervaded the workplace. Quite the opposite, Milczak boasts about his work performance and argues the bad evaluations he received lacked merit. At bottom, the allegations do not amount to the sort of ‘extreme’ conduct required to prove these claims.

“Because Milczak did not show that he was treated differently than younger employees, his disparate treatment claim fares no better.”

Milczak v. Gen. Motors LLC; MiLW 01-108021, 17 pages; U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; Bloomekatz, J., joined by Siler, J., Mathis, J.; on appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit; Eric I. Frankie for appellant; Donald C. Bulea for appellee.

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