Former Twitter employee alleges age discrimination in lawsuit

A former Twitter employee is suing the company, alleging that the social media giant fired him for being too old.

The lawsuit was filed by former Twitter employee Peter Taylor, who alleged he was fired last year with no warning and a month after the then-57-year-old underwent surgery to remove kidney stones.

The suit says Taylor saved Twitter millions of dollars during its data center expansion and met all performance review standards before he was fired and replaced by workers in their 20s and 30s.

Taylor, who worked as Twitter’s manager of data center deployment, said in the suit that his supervisor made “at least one critical remark” about his age during the firing. He also alleged that the company, based in San Francisco, refused to accommodate his needs after the kidney-stone surgery and assigned him additional work during his recovery process.

In a statement, Twitter said it would fight the lawsuit.

“This case is without merit and we will vigorously defend ourselves against it,” the company said in a statement.

Taylor’s attorney Carl Lippenberger said he unsuccesfully tried to reach an agreement with Twitter out of court in the months preceding the lawsuit, but was unable to reach an agreement. He declined to give more details.

According to his LinkedIn page, Taylor previously worked at computer company Nvidia and cellphone provider Sprint before joining Twitter in January 2011.

For more tech news, follow @RileySnyder.