Siegel Case Summary

The case of Siegel, et al. v. Ford Motor Company is a class action suit brought around by older managers who indicated the company 's performance appraisal system unethically targeted them for termination due to their age. AARP assisted as co-counsel for the case which aids over four-hundred elder supervisors working with Ford Motor Company. The plaintiffs proclaim that senior administration established the system to remove older managers (US Newswire, 2002). The claim is that by constantly receiving the lowermost rating on the performance management scale, elder managers were methodically forced out of their employment.

“Organizations establish performance management systems to meet three broad purposes: strategic, administrative, and
Such systems often include the use of rating or ranking levels in which each employee is positioned. These systems often use quotas to place a part of top performers at the peak level and the worst performers at the bottom level. Such a system is considered to eradicate those within the organization who constantly perform below par. The system is able to work if employees are mindful of the standards for which they are graded in advance, so they can make the required modifications. It can also remove those inside the organization who are either not appropriate for precise jobs or simply lack the skills and abilities to execute their jobs efficiently (Myers,
Managers getting a C grade lost bonuses, pay raises, and faced conceivable termination, if a C was received two consecutive years. The plaintiffs assert an unbalanced amount of older managers received a C rating (US Newswire, 2002). Disparate impact was the foundation of this particular law suit. Plaintiffs state Ford Motor Company senior management formulated a performance appraisal system in which one group of particular people were affected in a more negative manner than the others (Myers, 2003). Disparate impact is a concept brought about in 1971, in the case of Griggs v. Duke Power Company, explained in the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act 1964 (HR Guide, 2012). It disallows professional practices affecting employees that may not appear as deliberate actions of discrimination, but are discriminatory in operation.

The Siegel, et al. v. Ford Motor Company case embodies an illustration of how performance management systems can be misrepresented or abused. In many cases, large companies are simply trying to rid themselves of those not performing or those who show an unlikely ability to develop their performance over time. Employees who are not productive can significantly increase the operational expenses and can even have a damaging impact on employee morale and job gratification, if others are obligated to work with such employees for a long time