| TV Writers' CasesThe Writers' Class Action Age Discrimination Cases | ||
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Screenwriters Sue Tinseltown
Insight On The News By Jamie Dettmer Summary: In their zeal to cater to youth, Hollywood executives routinely discard TV writers as they reach their silver years. As a result, the writers have filed a lawsuit alleging age bias. According to the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, systematic discrimination against television writers over 40 has been pervasive since the early 1980s as networks and advertisers are seeking younger audiences and believe they need younger writers to attract them. So nervous are the studios about the lawsuit that they've hired a virtual Who's Who of the legal profession to defend them. One reason for their alarm is that two of America's most successful employment-law firms - Washington-based Sprenger + Lang and co-counsel Kator, Parks and Weiser - have filed the lawsuit, and their reputations precede them. Sprenger has won two of the nation's largest judgments on age bias in employment, including a $58.5 million action against First Union Bank. Not content with playing it safe, the plaintiffs' lawyers have opted to try to make legal history. Instead of launching separate actions against individual defendants - in this case the studios, TV networks, production companies and talent agencies - they have targeted the industry as a whole, claiming it has pursued a "systematic and pervasive pattern of age discrimination" during the last 20 years. |
