Federal Appeals Court Rules For Boeing In Age Discrimination Suit

A federal appeals court has ruled that former employees failed to demonstrate a pattern of age discrimination by The Boeing Co. and Spirit AeroSystems.

Ninety former Boeing workers claimed they lost their jobs because of their age when the Wichita, Kan.-based aerospace manufacturer sold its commercial aircraft operations in Kansas and Oklahoma to Onex Corp. in 2005.

Onex formed Spirit AeroSystems to handle those former Boeing operations.

In its Monday ruling, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district judge's 2010 ruling that there is too little evidence to put the case before a jury.

The appeals court found that the hiring practices did not unfairly hurt older workers and that they failed to show the companies intended to interfere with their pension benefits.