Judge sanctions Ikea for deleting emails in age discrimination lawsuit

Update:

• Ikea received sanctions after it allegedly deleted four email accounts of former employees that were supposed to remain available as part of an age discrimination lawsuit.
• U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody ordered Ikea to pay the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees related to the request for sanctions.
• Brody determined Ikea “acted willfully and in bad faith” to prevent the documents from appearing in court and then waited until eight days before a December 2023 hearing to produce 830 pages of documents.

(Feb. 19, 2018)

IKEA US Retail LLC, formerly known as IKEA US East LLC and doing business as IKEA, has been hit with a collective action lawsuit alleging it violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act by denying leadership development opportunities and promotions to employees who were 40 or older.

“IKEA has engaged in a company-wide, institutional policy of denying training, development, and advancement opportunities to its older employees,” the IKEA lawsuit alleges. “IKEA has a policy by which it identifies the ‘potential’ of its employees, and makes development and advancement decisions based on its subjective labeling of an employee’s ‘potential.’”

Plaintiff Frank D., 54, is a Pennsylvania resident who has been employed by IKEA since February 2011. According to the IKEA collective action lawsuit, his work performance has been outstanding and he has received excellent performance reviews. Despite his strong record, his manager allegedly evaluated him in the lowest category for “potential” at the store.

Frank says that IKEA identifies an employee’s “potential” based on subjective factors and that the determination is “vulnerable to age bias.” He claims that IKEA identifies an employee’s potential using measures that are subject to stereotypes about older employees, including stereotypes that they have lower energy, that they are not fast learners, and that they will not plan to remain in the workforce for a long time because they will choose to retire.

IKEA also determines “high potential” employees as those having traits that are stereotypical to younger people, such as “youthful enthusiasm,” the IKEA lawsuit says.

“A manager’s determination of an employee’s ‘identified potential’ does not appear to have any correlation to whether the employee meets or even exceeds expectations in his or her current position,” the plaintiff alleges in the IKEA age discrimination lawsuit.

These allegedly discriminatory policies can affect an employee’s opportunities for training, development and advancement, Frank says.

The plaintiff points to an IKEA leadership program called Aspire that it represents as being “designed to support identified high potential co-Workers” but that IKEA fails to indicate how an employee is identified as “high potential.” His application to attend the Aspire program was rejected twice, according to the IKEA collective action lawsuit. However, IKEA employees in their 20s were selected to participate in Aspire, and have subsequently been promoted to managerial positions.

Frank says he has applied for several managerial positions for which he was qualified, but IKEA rejected him each time “in favor of a less qualified, substantially younger individual,” the IKEA lawsuit says. He was allegedly told that he needed more training before he could be a manager, but Frank asserts that this recommendation was actually “pretext for discrimination” as he had taken advantage of training opportunities.

Although age discrimination concerns have been raised, IKEA has allegedly failed to respond to or follow up on the complaints.

“IKEA has failed to remediate complaints of age discrimination, and tolerates and promotes a corporate culture of age discrimination,” the IKEA collective action lawsuit says.

The IKEA lawsuit seeks injunctive and declaratory relief, compensatory and liquidated damages, attorneys’ fees and costs, and other relief the court deems appropriate.

The plaintiff is represented by Stephen G. Console, Laura C. Mattiacci, Susan M. Saint-Antoine, and Emily R. Derstine Friesen of Console Mattiacci Law LLC.

The IKEA age discrimination lawsuit is Frank D. v. IKEA US Retail LLC f/k/a IKEA US East LLC d/b/a IKEA, Case No. 2:18-cv-00599-AB, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

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