WICHITA -
A federal appeals court has ruled that former Boeing employees failed to demonstrate a pattern of age discrimination in the wake of the 2005 sale of its commercial aircraft business in Kansas and Oklahoma.
Ninety former Boeing workers sued in December 2005 claiming they lost their jobs because of their age when the Chicago-based aerospace manufacturer sold operations in Wichita, Tulsa, Okla., and McAlester, Okla., to Onex Corp.
Onex formed Wichita-based Spirit AeroSystems to handle the business.
Their lawsuit was granted conditional class-action status in 2006 under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
The appeals court agreed Monday with the 2010 decision of a federal judge siding in favor of the aerospace giants. He said there was too little evidence to put the case before a jury.
The appeal affected only the class-action litigation. Individual workers could still pursue multiple, separate age discrimination lawsuits.
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