The Importance of Contracts in Age Discrimination Cases

As I prepare to teach both Contracts and Elder Law in the spring semester of 2016, I’m reminded by a recent ruling of why I added Contracts to my teaching package a few years ago.  Protection of older persons often depends on how contracts are written, whether we are talking about insurance, health care, nursing home admissions, or age discrimination. 

On the latter point, the Supreme Court of North Dakota recently affirmed summary judgment in favor of the employer on a claim by an employee that her dismissal violated the age discrimination rules under the state’s Human Rights Act, pointing to the fact that the employee’s termination was consistent with her employment contract as an at-will employee.  The court ruled:

[The employer] Altru provided evidence in support of its summary judgment motion that [the employee] Yahna was a vascular ultrasound technologist and was required to take on-call responsibilities because she was not a supervisor or manager. Although Yahna claims she retained her supervisor and quality assurance responsibilities after Altru restructured the ultrasound department and when she was terminated, her argument ignores the effect of Altru’s restructured ultrasound departments. We decline to construe the Human Rights Act to preclude an entity from restructuring its business and altering employee job responsibilities. Yahna’s conclusory assertions about her understanding or belief regarding her job responsibilities after the restructuring do not raise a disputed factual issue that she refused to perform the on-call requirements for a vascular technologist at the time she was terminated. Yahna’s speculation about her job position is not sufficient to defeat Altru’s motion for summary judgment and she has not provided competent evidence to raise a factual issue that she was not a vascular technologist when she was terminated and that she was treated differently than other vascular technologists in Altru’s restructured ultrasound department. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Yahna, the evidence does not raise an inference that she was discharged because of her age; rather, she was terminated because she refused to be available for on-call responsibilities required for vascular technologists after Altru restructured the ultrasound department.

For the full opinion, see Yahna v. Altru Health System, 2015 ND 275, published December 1, 2015.