A federal judge in Newark, N.J., ruled...

A federal judge in Newark, N.J., ruled that 1,325 former employees of Xerox Corp. cannot sue the company as a group for age discrimination. In a 75-page decision, U.S. District Judge Alfred J. Lechner granted Xerox’s motion to decertify the case as a class action. The 4-year-old suit, which both sides said was the nation’s largest such case, charged that the Stamford, Conn.-based company had a campaign to replace older workers with younger, less experienced and lower-paid employees from 1980 to 1983. Lechner’s ruling means that each ex-employee will have to file suit individually, but it did not decide the outcome for the 13 lead plaintiffs.