'Not looking for old white guys’: Restaurants must pay nearly $3M in age bias suit
Managers of the wine bar and grill wanted a young and hip image for the restaurant, officials said.
So the higher-ups at Season 52, a restaurant chain owned by Darden Restaurants, hired young servers and hosts, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
A complaint filed in Miami federal court in 2015 said it was “standard operating procedure” for Darden to disproportionately deny jobs to Seasons 52 applicants aged 40 and older, Reuters reported. That’s a violation of the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
The EEOC said applicants who were turned down were told they were “too experienced,” as well as, “we are not looking for old white guys.” The restaurant said it wanted “fresh” employees for it’s youthful image, according to the federal agency, Reuters reported.
“Seasons 52 interviews across locations repeatedly told applicants things like ‘We don’t hire people over 40’, ‘Seasons 52 girls are younger and fresh’ or asked them for their date of birth, high school graduation date or a driver’s license,” David Seltzer, an EEOC attorney, told the Orlando Sentinel.
The suit said these hiring practices took place at Darden’s nearly three dozen Season 52 restaurants across the country, Law360 reported, and dated back to 2010.
Darden’s lawyers had said the incidents were isolated and didn’t prove it was trying to keep out older workers, the Sentinel reported.
After more than three years, the restaurant company that owns Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, the Capital Grille and other well-known brands, agreed to pay almost $3 million to settle the lawsuit, the EEOC said Wednesday, Law360 reported.
The $2.85 million will go to more than 200 people who joined the lawsuit, and anyone else who comes forward, attorneys for the EEOC told the Sentinel.
Seasons 52 can’t include in its job advertisements anything that expresses an age preference for applicants, Law360 said.
A spokesman said Wednesday the restaurant is “pleased” to resolve the matter.
This story was originally published May 3, 2018 at 9:17 PM with the headline "'Not looking for old white guys’: Restaurants must pay nearly $3M in age bias suit."