Thomas Dusel News Today

Rhode Island-based Factory Mutual Insurance Co. properly handled the firing of a long-time employee who claimed his axing in 2018 was due to age

In Dusel v. Factory Mutual Ins., the First Circuit held close temporal proximity alone does not establish pretext as this evidence must be considered alongside the record nor establish pretext where the employer has a business reason to take adverse action against the employee.

Where a defendant employer was awarded summary judgment on a plaintiff’s claims of age discrimination and retaliation, that judgment should be upheld because the plaintiff did not meet his burden of showing that the employer’s asserted reason for terminating him — that he had violated company policy — was pretextual. “Appellant Thomas Dusel (‘Dusel’) was