A Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) is alleged to have stated that a younger nurse could “dance around the older nurses.” Not hard to imagine that such a statement would raise the hackles of many nurses over age 40, but do comments like that mean that the hospital discriminated against one or more nurses on the basis of their age when the nurses were discharged or resigned? That is the question facing Montrose Memorial Hospital after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed an age discrimination lawsuit against the Western Slope hospital last Friday.
EEOC Cites Numerous Age-Related Comments
In its complaint, the EEOC alleges that Montrose Memorial Hospital’s CNO, Joan Napolilli, made various age-biased statements to charging party Katherine Casias and other nurses. Casias began work for the hospital in 1985 as a licensed practical nurse but then earned her degree cum laude as a registered nurse (RN). The alleged comments attributed to Napolilli include:
- a younger RN could “dance around the older nurses;”
- younger nurses are “easier to train” and “cheaper to employ;”
- Casias was not “fresh enough” and was chastised for not smiling or saying hello enough;
- referring to Casias as an “old bitch;”
- older workers at the hospital were “a bunch of monkeys” and she’d “like to fill the hospital with new nurses and get rid of all the old ones;” and
- telling a nurse supervisor to “work that old grey-haired bitch into the ground” and to work her “long and hard until she quit or got fired.”
The complaint also alleges that Nurse Manager Susan Smith told an RN that “you’re getting too old for this job.”
If proven to have actually been said, comments expressing an aversion to workers over 40 and a preference for younger workers can be direct evidence of age discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). Read more