Sam’s Club Manager Fired After Racist Incident Loses Bias Appeal

Sam’s Club defeated an age bias appeal by a former Ohio store manager it fired after finding he mishandled a racist incident with a customer.

Robert Duncan lacked evidence that age discrimination was really behind his termination, the US District Court for the Sixth Circuit said Wednesday. Duncan, who had worked for Sam’s since 1993 and had managed the company’s North Dayton store since 2008, alleged that a previous supervisor’s age-based animus tainted the decision to fire him following the April 2019 incident.

He invoked the cat’s paw theory, under which an employer can be held liable when a biased ...