An older employee was terminated for reasons of alleged poor performance or misconduct, neither of which were true, or, if they are true, one or more similarly situated younger employees were not terminated for similar poor performance or misconduct

• Devosia Williams v. Caterpillar Tractor Company (1985) Employee Devosia Williams was a fifty-eight year old female who had worked a the benefits clerk sitting at a desk just outside of the sixty-five year old plant manager's office for a Caterpillar plant for five and a half years.  Despite her good performance record, plant manager demoted her for alleged work errors to a mail clerk position which would require her ride a three-wheel bicycle around the twenty-six acre plant every day to deliver the mail.  The plant manager knew she had knee problems and would not be able to ride the bicycle and could not perform the lower level job.  As a result, she was forced to resign.  The plant manager then filled her position at the desk just outside his office with a thirty-one year old female.   At trial the jury found the company guilty of age discrimination and awarded her two times her losses of $52,000.00.
• After a lawsuit was filed against a hospital by a fifty-eight year old employee who had a thirty-four year perfect work record prior to being fired allegedly for putting sexual material on the hospital's computer system when she sent a cartoon to another employee.  The carton, which was called: “New Airport Security Check System”, showed people standing naked in line at the airport security checkpoint.  The hospital claimed the employee violated the hospital's no sexual material on hospital computers policy.  The hospital entered into a confidential settlement of the case after it was proved a young male employee, who had a nude screen saver of Carmen Electra on his work computer, was not fired but only told to remove the screen saver and given a written warning for violating the hospital's policy.
• A confidential pre-lawsuit settlement for $140,000.00 was obtained for a fifty-four year old Managing Director of an investment firm.  Despite his over twenty year superior career in his field before coming to the firm, as well as three and a half years of good performance with the firm, he was terminated alleged for ‘not getting along with teammates” after he experienced some health problems and had to have surgery.  After his termination, an individual in his late twenties was immediately placed in his job.