$57 Million Settlement for 1,700 Sprint Workers in Landmark ADEA Collective Action

Between October 2001 and March 2003, Sprint conducted a sweeping series of reductions in force that eliminated thousands of positions. A group of former employees who lost their jobs during those cuts filed suit in federal court in Kansas City, arguing that Sprint had not simply trimmed headcount -- it had relied on a computerized performance-management system that disproportionately flagged workers over the age of 40 for elimination while younger employees were quietly moved to protected positions.

Named plaintiff Shirley Williams brought the case under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the collective action grew steadily. By the time the court granted provisional certification in July 2004, more than 100 individuals had already opted in. The class ultimately reached 1,697 members, all former Sprint employees who alleged the same pattern: that the company's automated scoring tool served as a proxy for pushing out older workers in violation of federal law.

Dennis Egan and Bert Braud of The Popham Law Firm served as lead counsel for the class. The litigation moved through years of contested discovery, including a notable 2005 ruling by Magistrate Judge Waxse requiring Sprint to produce tens of thousands of Excel spreadsheets with their underlying metadata intact -- a decision that reflected the evidentiary stakes around the very performance-scoring files at the center of the discrimination claims.

In May 2007, the parties filed a proposed settlement calling for Sprint to pay $57 million. Of that total, approximately $36 million was allocated for direct payments to class members, with the 11 named plaintiffs each receiving roughly $155,000. The remaining funds covered attorney fees of $19.4 million and $1.65 million in litigation costs. Judge John Lungstrum approved the settlement on September 11, 2007. Sprint denied any discriminatory intent throughout the proceedings.

The settlement was described at the time as the largest ADEA collective-action settlement in the District of Kansas. Judge Lungstrum signed the final dismissal order on October 15, 2009, after the settlement fund was fully administered and distributed.