Suit by Crowell & Moring Staffer Claims Age Bias Spurred Firing
A 54-year-old woman who was fired from her job as an administrative staffer at Crowell & Moring last year claims in a lawsuit that age bias was the reason.
The suit by Mona Saunders, who worked in a variety of jobs during her 18 years at the firm, says the problems began when she got a new supervisor in 2005, reports The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times. The supervisor routinely criticized Saunders’ work, the suit says, and made her feel that she could not learn new tasks because of her age.
Saunders maintains that she was reassigned to a new job in 2006, a move that was designed to set her up for failure, the BLT story says. The same year she filed an age discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the D.C. Office of Human Rights.
Saunders’ suit, filed in superior court in Washington, D.C., is based on the city’s Human Rights Act.
In a statement issued to the BLT, Crowell managing partner Ellen Dwyer denied the allegations and said the firm will “participate fully in the legal process.”
“We work very hard to ensure our employees are successful at the firm,” the statement said.
