A former executive administrative assistant stated enough of a claim in her short statement to warrant going forward in her lawsuit against an employer alleging discriminatory termination based on her age, and wrongful discharge under Oregon law for seeking her right to Family Medical Leave under both state and federal law, the Ninth Circuit rules, reversing a lower court decision dismissing her complaint.

The Court says that the plaintiff’s “two-and-one-half page complaint, while brief, nonetheless satisfies [the] pleading standard” under the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2). The standard requires that a claim be “plausible on its face,” it does not require that a complaint contain “detailed factual allegations,” says the Court.

Her complaint alleges that: (1) she was at least forty years old; (2) “her performance was satisfactory or better” and that “she received consistently good performance reviews”; (3) she was discharged; and (4) her five younger comparators kept their jobs; her allegation that her five younger comparators kept their jobs gives rise to an “inference of age discrimination” because it plausibly suggests that the employer “had a continuing need for [her] skills and services [because her] various duties were still being performed,” the Court says, and that her allegations are sufficient to state a prima facie case of discrimination.

Regarding her wrongful discharge claim, all the claimant had to do was “establish a ‘causal connection’ between a protected activity and the discharge,” the Court observes. In this case, she had alleged that, ‘[p]rior to her termination, [she] requested Family Medical Leave for a serious illness.’ Her amended complaint further alleges that she was ‘terminated immediately after she scheduled the surgery for which she requested Family Medical Leave’ and that, prior to her termination, [she] had ‘received consistently good performance reviews.’ These allegations are sufficient to state a claim for wrongful discharge, the Court says. Sheppard v. Dale Evans and Associates