Eileen Karre was the manager of the university’s Babcock Dairy Store for 20 years. She was fired last July for violating food safety and quality rules.

Documents say she allegedly sold expired ice cream and failed to enforce store cleanliness, according to The Badger Herald.

Karre says many of the stated reasons for her firing were the faults of other employees or the ice cream production plant.

University documents also allege Karre made two Asian student employees wear name tags because they looked similar and she couldn’t tell them apart.

Karre said, “They look alike, and I’m bad with names anyway. It had nothing to do with their nationality. I just couldn’t tell them apart.”

She also claims she made all employees wear name tags.

Karre says she tasted all the supposedly outdated ice creams personally to tell if they were expired. She says she did have workers throw out some expired sherbets, but that the ice creams were good.

The university has declined comment on Karre’s claims because of the pending investigation.

A 53-year-old woman says Starbucks discriminated against her based on age. Starbucks wanted the lawsuit thrown out, but a federal court has ruled there’s enough evidence to allow it to go forward.

Deborah Boyajian applied to be a barista at three different Starbucks in Maine.

At one shop, the manager told Boyajian she wouldn’t be hired because of her limited availability.

However, the manager had concluded that she would not hire Boyajian because of her conduct during her interview and Starbucks’ employees’ account of the applicant’s post-interview behavior when visiting the coffee shop to check on her application.

Boyajian filed a claim under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

The court noted that the applicant’s behavior during and after her interview would be a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for not hiring her.

However, there were a couple of other problems.

History of hiring those under 30

In her lawsuit, Boyajian introduced several pieces of evidence to try to show Starbucks engaged in age discrimination. The court decided some had merit.

One claim is that the Starbucks manager lied to Boyajian about why she wasn’t hired. The court said inconsistent explanations for failing to hire an applicant may constitute evidence of pretext.

As part of the court case, Starbucks had to turn over recent records regarding hiring.

During the current manager’s tenure at one branch where Boyajian applied, 19 baristas were hired, none of whom were older than 30 at the time of hiring.

The court said there may be legitimate reasons why no applicants over 30 were hired, but it would be up to Starbucks to present those reasons at trial.

This case provides two lessons HR needs to stress with hiring managers:

1. Keep accurate records on why some applicants are hired and others are rejected. Even the appearance of age discrimination can cause a company trouble.
2. Managers can get a company in trouble if they lie to applicants about why there weren’t hired.

The court’s opinion is available online here.

What are your thoughts about this case? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

But the manager of the New Locomotion strip club near Toronto, Canada, probably meant it when he told 44-year-old dancer Kimberlee Ouwroulis she was being fired.

When Ouwroulis found out another older woman had also just been fired, she filed an age discrimination suit against the club, according to The National Post.

Ouwroulis told the Post she wanted to keep stripping until she was 47 or 48. She started her exotic dancing career when she was 40.

Ouwroulis says while the job is about looks, it’s also about personality and attitude, all of which made her a great dancer.

Another club has hired her as a stripper.

A company fired a manager for not following directives from his superiors. The manager said he was protecting the company from a possible lawsuit. In the end, an e-mail spelled trouble for the company. A jury recently sided with the manager, awarding him $46.6 million.

Here’s what happened:

Ronald Luri was a waste collection manager for Republic Services, Inc., in Ohio.

The company wanted him to fire three employees, all of whom were in their early 60s or late 50s.

Luri refused, saying the company could face a lawsuit for age discrimination.

Then Republic fired him for alleged “inadequate performance and failure to follow the directives of this superiors.”

Luri claimed Republic forged records critical of his job performance, including an e-mail.

Evidence tampering key to jury’s decision

In deciding for Luri, the jurors said they were dismayed by testimony of evidence-tampering.

The jurors pointed to an e-mail attributed to Luri’s boss, Republic’s Ohio-area president. Luri’s lawyers called an IT expert who said the president postdated a memo and added two paragraphs that were critical of Luri’s job performance.

Republic’s lawyers said Luri’s allegations were “nothing more than his badly bruised ego.” The company plans to appeal.

“We wanted to send a clear message that this was unjustly done and that they tried to ruin his career,” said the jury foreman.

Another juror said, “Republic was out to get this man.”

The jury decided Luri should get $3.5 million for lost wages as general manager of Republic’s Cleveland division.

The rest of the award — $43.1 million — was in punitive damages, making it the largest verdict in Ohio history by at least $10 million.

What would you do if an employee violated a supervisor’s directives and said he was doing it to protect the company from potential lawsuits? Let us know in the comments section below.

Owners of a casino in Laughlin, NV, will pay $200,000 to settle an age discrimination and gender bias lawsuit.

Federal officials say the casino’s former management tried to harass senior cocktail servers into quitting and planned to replace them with younger ones.

The River Palms Resort & Casino will divide the money among six female waitresses and one male former supervisor, according to wire service reports.

The casino will also have to keep records of all discrimination complaints and provide annual reports to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The EEOC says the alleged harassment occurred before current owner, Columbia Sussex, bought the casino in 2003.