Supervisor's comments are not enough to presume plaintiff was fired because of his age

This age discrimination plaintiff alleges that his termination was illegal because his supervisor said he was not "fitting in" or "catching on" like his younger coworker. Is this enough to prove age discrimination? The Court of Appeals holds that it is not enough.

The case is Rinaldi v. Mills, a summary order issued on December 7. The public does not realize how difficult it is to win a discrimination claim. While the courts recognize that direct evidence of discriminatory intent is rare these days, and most plaintiffs win their cases on the basis of circumstantial evidence, even certain comments that in some esoteric way might touch upon age discrimination will not be enough. 

You can see how a plaintiff might use these comments in support of his age discrimination claim. Not fitting in might be a euphemism for being "too old," and not "catching on" might be another way of saying the plaintiff was too slow to understand work-related concepts and thus a stereotype. But the comments in this case are deemed "stray comments" under settled Second Circuit precedent, such as Carlton v. Mystic Transportation, 202 F.3d 129 (2d Cir. 2000). My guess is the Court does not think these comments directly implicate any age-related stereotypes. What also hurts plaintiff's case is the fact that the same supervisor who hired him also fired him. The case support for the "same-actor" inference is Grady v. Affiliated Cent., Inc., 130 F.3d 553 (2d Cir. 1997). The Age Discrimination in Employment Act claim is dismissed. 

Plaintiff also sues under the New York City Human Rights Law, which the City Council enacted to get around restrictive Supreme Court and Second Circuit cases under federal law to make it easier to win under the City law. But not everybody wins under the City law. The Court of Appeals (Raggi, Perez and Leval) holds that these comments are also stray remarks under the City law.