Opinion ID: 2756495
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Age-Based Harassment

Text: To show age-based harassment, Rickard chronicles a series of perceived injustices he suffered at the hands of Payne and contends these incidents evidence Payne’s attempt to force older employees to retire.3 Rickard presents meager evidence that this mistreatment was because of his age, with most of his criticisms amounting to little more than an attack on Payne’s crude managerial style. See Devin v. Schwan’s Home Serv., Inc., 491 F.3d 778, 788 (8th Cir. 2007), abrogated on other grounds by Torgerson, 643 F.3d at 1043, 1058 app. To the limited extent Rickard actually presents evidence of age-related comments, he cannot show these comments “affected a term, condition, or privilege of [his] employment.” Peterson, 406 F.3d at 523-24. It is not enough to allege “‘simple teasing’ [or] ‘offhand comments.’” Id. at 524 (quoting Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 788 (1998)). Rather, the harassment must create “‘an environment that a reasonable person would find hostile and one that the victim actually perceived as abusive.’” Clay v. Credit Bureau Enters., Inc., 754 F.3d 535, 540 (8th Cir. 2014) (quoting Duncan v. Gen. Motors Corp., 300 F.3d 928, 934 (8th Cir. 2002)). Payne’s statements about Rickard’s age, even if intentionally disparaging, are not severe enough to be actionable. In Peterson, we found a supervisor’s repeated references to “old ladies,” comments from a coworker that women are lazy, and the supervisor’s refusal to train the plaintiff because of her age were not sufficient to give rise to a claim of hostile work environment based on age or sex. Peterson, 406 F.3d at 524. Although it appears Rickard suffered because of his interactions with Payne, 3 While Rickard presented testimony from other former employees who agreed with his theory that Swedish Match tried to encourage its older employees to retire, without some evidence, these unsupported allegations simply are company gossip. Neither Rickard nor his witnesses presented anything beyond their own conjecture suggesting Swedish Match discriminated against Rickard because of his age. -5- a reasonable person would not have found any comments or incidents created a hostile environment under the law. See id. Because Payne’s age-related comments were not so severe as to affect a term, condition, or privilege of his employment, Rickard’s agebased hostile work environment claim must fail.