Lawsuit accuses Farwell company of age discrimination

     HARRISON – A former employee at the Farwell plant of Melling Products Corporation may have a jury decide if the company’s reorganization cost him a management position or his age.
     Attorneys for the company and for plaintiff David Leonard of Alma had scheduled a mediation hearing today. If nothing is resolved, the case will move forward in Clare County Circuit Court. 
     Judge Roy Mienk denied a motion to dismiss the case and said in an opinion issued in October that he believed the plaintiff had shown adequate information for a jury to infer if age played a role in Leonard’s termination or not.
     Leonard was notified June 2005 he would be fired as part of the company reorganization but “he was the only one to lose his job at the time he was terminated,”
     Leonard’s attorney, Eugenie Eardley said. The Grand Rapids-area attorney spoke to The Sentinel on Friday, Oct. 16.

     References to the Leonard age discrimination lawsuit appeared in the Oct. 15 issue of The Detroit News. The news article discusses how some companies may use a recession for eliminating the number of older workers in the workforce.
     In Leonard’s case, the manufacturing manager had been replaced with a younger man working with a different job title and “at a substantial raise,” Eardley said.
     She said that as the economy fell apart over subsequent years the Farwell plant did lay off production workers. “The company’s defense was that he would have lost his job anyway,” she said.
     Leonard who could not be reached for comment had more than 20 years of manufacturing experience.
Melling Products had recruited Leonard when his employer at the time planned to move production to Mexico.
     Leonard began as a general foreman of production and was promoted at Melling Products. He worked at the Farwell plant from 1999 to 2005.
     Melling employs 80 workers in Farwell. Headquartered in Jackson, the corporate company operates 10 facilities in North American and Brazil, manufacturing original equipment and aftermarket segments for the worldwide transportation industry.