Haun v. Ideal Industries, Inc.

Charles Ross represented Philip Haun in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi in an action against Haun’s employer, Ideal Industries, Inc., for violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), in addition to a state law claim against his supervisor at Ideal, Don Ambrose, for intentional infliction of emotional distress. In 1992, Ideal combined two of its divisions, resulting in four people being fired, one of which was Haun. Furthermore, three of the four employees that were fired were over the age of 40, while the one employee under 40 received another job with the company. After he was told that he was being fired, Haun learned of a sales position with Ideal in Virginia that was soon to be available. When Haun inquired about the job, he was told that the position was being eliminated; however, the position was later awarded to a twenty-six-year-old individual with no prior sales experience. Prior to being fired but after being told by Ambrose during his annual performance review that there were problems with his performance but that he was not on probation, Haun received his Performance Appraisal and Development (PAD), which showed that he had been on probation for the past three months. Haun requested that the probationary language be removed from his PAD and that all references to the probation be removed from his personnel file; however, it was not until after the decision to fire Haun had been made that the corrected PAD was put in Haun’s file and the probationary language remained in the file as of the date of trial. At trial, Mr. Ross was successful in convincing the jury that Ideal willfully violated the ADEA, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the jury’s verdict on appeal. However, the district court granted judgment as a matter of law to Ideal on Haun’s intentional infliction of emotional distress claim against Ambrose, which the Fifth Circuit also affirmed.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
April 11, 1996