On January 13, 1993, a group of former employees of New York Telephone Company age 40 or older filed a lawsuit under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("the ADEA"), the New York Human Rights Law ("the HRL"), and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA") against defendants New York Telephone Company ("NYT") and NYNEX Corporation in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Foley Square Division. The plaintiffs, represented by private counsel, asked the court for injunctive and declaratory relief, compensatory and punitive damages, and other appropriate legal and equitable relief, claiming that defendant NYT unlawfully discharged or otherwise discriminated against them and other similarly situated in the implementation of the NYNEX Force Management Plan ("FMP").

Between October 13, 1992 and December 11, 1992, NYT implemented a reduction in force (the "Fall 1992 RIF") discharging some 600 management employees. The Fall 1992 RIF was implemented in accordance with an approach described in the FMP, a plan designed by NYT's parent, NYNEX Corp. The basic procedure involved the creation of "banding entities" or "bands" comprised of similar employees. Under the FMP, employees within each band were to be evaluated by teams of NYT supervisors on the basis of two categories, "Added Value" and "Performance." Once evaluated, employees were rated as "Maximum, High, Medium, or Low" and ordered by seniority within each rating. The least senior employees with a Low rating was first eligible to be placed "at risk," and more senior employees with Low ratings would follow.

This lawsuit is mainly based on two provisions of the Fall 1992 RIF: First, NYT excluded from the banding process employees who had either (1) been hired within 2 years of the RIF; or (2) received a promotion within the past year; Second, evaluations of banded employees included whether the employee had been awarded an academic degree within the past 2 years. Plaintiffs claimed that because the employees who had been hired within the past 2 years or had received a degree were most likely to be people younger than 40, this was discriminating against older employees.

On July 21, 1993, the district court (Judge McKenna) granted the plaintiffs' motion for an order directing defendants to provide the names and addresses of all potential class members. On September 22, 1995, the district court (Judge Koeltl) granted the plaintiffs' motion for class certification, but denied the plaintiffs' motion to bifurcate the case.

On January 28, 1997, the court approved a settlement reached between the parties. However, because we cannot retrieve the settlement agreement, the details are unknown.

On April 18, 1997, the case was dismissed.

Kunyi Zhang - 09/03/2010


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