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martyb [soylentnews.org] writes:

The judge overseeing Jonathan Langley's age discrimination lawsuit against IBM has dismissed the case, which was scheduled to go to trial later this year.

The court order [courtlistener.com] [PDF] closing the case, signed on Wednesday by Judge David Ezra in the Texan Western District Court, cites a stipulation of dismissal by Langley and IBM. That suggests the two parties have agreed to settle confidentially out of court.

The Register asked IBM to confirm that the case has been settled. We've not heard back. Langley's attorneys could not be reached for comment.

In 2018, Langley sued IBM [theregister.co.uk], claiming age discrimination. He was laid off at the age of 60 after 24 years at the biz. The lawsuit was filed several months after a report from ProPublica and Mother Jones claimed that IBM had embarked on a company-wide campaign to dismiss older workers, a project said to be called Operation Baccarat [theregister.co.uk].

In January, Andrew Austin, the federal magistrate judge overseeing the pre-trial phase of the litigation recommended that case be allowed to go to trial. Then in February, IBM's motion to dismiss the case was rejected. Last week, Judge Ezra set the trial date for Monday, October 19, 2020.

But with the dismissal of the case, there will be no trial.

Numerous other lawsuits are pending; by some estimates 13,000 people were let go under similar circumstances.

[Disclaimer: I was an employee of IBM back in the last century. --martyb]

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