Tyburski v. City of Chicago

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendant-employer’s motion for summary judgment in plaintiff-employee’s ADEA action, alleging that defendant failed to promote plaintiff on account of his age (74 at time of plaintiff’s application), and that plaintiff experienced hostile environment, where co-workers harassed plaintiff on account of his age. Defendant failed to promote plaintiff to assistant chief operating engineer position because defendant received failing score on verbal examination, and plaintiff failed to identify any younger co-worker who had failed verbal examination and still was promoted to instant position. Moreover, plaintiff failed to show that scoring of verbal examination was sham, and fact that examiners were aware of plaintiff’s age relative to ages of other applicants was not enough to show that examiners had anti-age motivation when scoring examination. Also, anti-age comments made by two of plaintiff’s co-workers did not rise to actionable harassment claim, where: (1) plaintiff maintained good relationship with one co-worker who uttered at most five age-related statements; (2) other co-worker made three or four age-related statements during three-to-four-year period; and (3) defendant sufficiently acted on plaintiff’s harassment complaints by separating plaintiff from offender. Fact that comments had express reference to plaintiff’s age did not require different result. Too, plaintiff’s retaliation claim failed, where plaintiff failed to show that any of his co-workers were aware of his EEOC charge.