A district court judge ruled against a former Ferro Coals Inc. executive who claimed his termination was the result of age and disability discrimination.
Joseph Luther Stearman, a former vice president of sales at Ferro Coals, was terminated at the age of 67 after he attended a seminar in 2014 in Myrtle Beach without the company's approval and placed roughly $2,500 in charges on a company credit card.
Stearman accused Ferro Coals of age discrimination after he was replaced by Michael Canada, the company's field representative, who was nearly 20 years younger than him.
The company countered that it did not hire a new vice president of sales and only tasked Canada to take on Stearman's duties in addition to his existing duties.
Judge David Hale of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky-Louisville Division ruled that while the age difference was sufficiently substantial to meet the requirement of an age discrimination prima facie case, Stearman failed to show he was replaced by Canada.
"A person is not replaced when another employee is assigned to perform the plaintiff's duties in addition to other duties, or when the work is redistributed among other existing employees already performing related work," Hale said in his Nov. 28 order. "A person is replaced only when another employee is hired or reassigned to perform the plaintiff's duties."
Stearman also asserted that the company discussed terminating him multiple times after he had a heart attack and multiple occurrences of prostate cancer while he was employed by Ferro Coals. However, the company argued that it had two legitimate reasons for terminating him: his violation of the company's travel policy and the decline in the coal industry.
The court dismissed Stearman's case and granted the company's motion for summary judgement.
