Age Discrimination

Joanne Zippittelli is a 66 years old woman who worked for J.C. Penny since July 18 1988, and later brought an employment discrimination suit against her employer, after the company failed to promote her to the position of shift operations manager at the company's Moosic, Pennsylvania Customer Service Center. James Johnson became personnel manager at the facility in March 1990, and was promoted to manager of the call center in March 1999. In 1990, 1991, and 1992. Zippittelli applied for promotion to seasonal shift leader (general lead clerk), but the position was given instead to Mike Martino, another mal and finally a younger female. Zippittelli felt she was passed over for the promotion because of her sex and age. This situation continued till 1997, when the company promoted Zippittelli to general lead clerk, and was denied any management position after that. Zippittelli was one of four women, all of whom had the same job title at the time and applied for the same job, but was denied the promotion. Zippittelli blamed her age for her lack of success in seeking the promotion and told her supervisor, Anita Applegate Benko, of this suspicion. When Benko found out she was 63, she said she would "probably not" get the position. Zippittelli later file a complaint of age discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2004, and a lawsuit in 2005, stating that she did not promote her in 2004 because of her age. Zippittelli, however, did not think she had been denied the promotion because of her sex. Zippittelli claimed the violations of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq., Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), 42 U.S.C. § 2000(e) et seq., and a retaliation claims under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA), 43 P.S. § 951 et seq., against her supervisor at the Moosic center, James Johnson. Zippittelli asked for relief in the form of appointment to the position she was denied, back pay, costs and...