Google Age Bias Class Action Lawsuit Moves Forward

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Google lost its motion to deny certification to a Class of job applicants who claim they were discriminated against in an age bias class action lawsuit.

Google pointed out that the plaintiffs missed the deadline to certify the proposed Class and argued that they would not have sufficient time for discovery.

Google noted that the deadline to file a motion to certify the Class had been set for January and then extended to March, but the plaintiffs failed to file the motion until June.

The Google anti-discrimination class action lawsuit is a combination of two actions against the tech giant.

The plaintiffs alleged that they were both passed over for jobs as computer programmers at Google because they were over 40 years old.

The original complaint was filed by plaintiff Robert Heath, who claims to have more than 30 years experience working as a software engineer. Heath says he applied for a job at Google but was denied employment because he was 60-years old.

Plaintiff Cheryl Fillekes, joined the age bias class action lawsuit last year. Fillekes says her phone interviews all went great, but when Google realized her age she was not offered the position.

In their complaint, the plaintiffs pointed out that the median age of programmers in the U.S. is 43, while at Google it is approximately 29 years old.

In June, the plaintiffs filed a motion to certify the Class, which would consolidate the actions from many lawsuits into a single class action lawsuit against Google.

Google argued that class certification after the deadline was unfair because their expert would not have time to review information obtained from the plaintiffs in time for the November trial date.

U.S. District Court Judge Beth Labson Freeman denied Google’s motion against certification of the proposed Class after finding that changes to the class action’s trial schedule would alleviate any issues with discovery.

“The revised schedule maintains the trial date while also providing the parties with sufficient time to complete discovery before filing any dispositive motions or a motion to decertify, if necessary,” said the judge in the order. “Accordingly, the court finds that accommodating plaintiffs’ belated motions would not cause substantial delay or prejudice defendant.”

Judge Freeman noted that the plaintiffs had missed the deadline to ask for certification of the Class, but this wasn’t a problem because the error was “excusable neglect” due to the court changing the deadline several times.

According to the order, “The court finds the reason for plaintiffs’ delay in filing their conditional certification motion reasonable in light of the court created ambiguity.”

Google had argued against certification in August as well, contending that the plaintiff’s allegations failed to specify discriminatory policies or behaviors in their recruitment, interview and hiring processes.

Google argued that the class action’s claims were based on anecdotal evidence.

Fillekes is represented by Daniel L. Low and Daniel A. Kotchen of Kotchen & Low LLP, Michael F. Brown of DVG Law Partner LLC, and George S. Duesdieker and Vonda K. Vandaveer of V.K. Vandaveer PLLC; while Heath is represented by Dow Wakefield Patten of Smith Patten.

The Google Age Discrimination Class Action Lawsuit is Robert Heath, et al. v. Google Inc., Case No. 5:15-cv-01824, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On Oct. 4, 2016, a federal judge granted plaintiff Cheryl Fillekes’ motion for certification, discounting defendant Google’s argument that the plaintiff failed to allege company-wide discriminatory policies or behavior.

UPDATE 2: On July 19, 2019, Google has reached a settlement worth $11 million with close to 230 engineers who sued the company over claims that they were discriminated against because of their age.