Opinion ID: 476659
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Strayer

Text: 15 Strayer was 56 at the time of her termination. She had worked at the Beaver Valley plant since 1963, for most of her tenure as a secretary. Since 1975, Strayer had been secretary to Robert Hines, the manager of the Financial Controls Department. 16 The legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason articulated by ARCO for terminating Strayer was that it had evaluated the performance of its employees in connection with its reduction in force at the Beaver Valley plant and that Strayer was not only a below-average worker, but had the poorest performance of all clerical people at the plant. Hines, Strayer's immediate employer, testified to her low performance rating for 1980 and 1981, and there was documentary evidence showing her tardiness and absenteeism. ARCO claimed that during the reduction in force it had naturally sought to rid itself of its weakest personnel and that Strayer's abilities, not her age, had been the reason she had been forced into early retirement. 17 In Strayer's attempt to prove that ARCO's asserted reasons were pretextual, she showed that although she had worked for the company for 17 years, ARCO was able to produce only two years' evaluations of her as unsatisfactory. In fact, Hines rated Strayer's performance on the performance evaluations for 1978 and 1979 as satisfactory or better. In addition, Strayer showed that she had merit salary increases in every year from 1976 to 1981, and that her salary evaluations for 1978, 1980 and 1981 were favorable. Hines testified on cross-examination that he had not intended to terminate her for her performance prior to the reduction in force. 18 Moreover, there was evidence that ARCO was not under an economic necessity to terminate Strayer. A secretarial position remained open in the Financial Controls Department after Strayer's retirement, which was ultimately filled by an employee who was 32 years old. 19 Although Strayer's evidence that ARCO's reasons were pretextual is not overwhelming, a jury could reasonably have found from it that age was a determinative factor in her discharge.