Award Upheld in Lawsuit Over Age Bias

An appeals court has ruled that a 63-year-old chef, fired from his job at a Black Angus restaurant in Garden Grove, was the victim of age discrimination and is entitled to $290,932 in compensation.

In its ruling Thursday, the appeals court pointed to a note by the chef’s boss that was written on a yellow piece of paper and said, “On or about March ’87 we are going to get rid of all chefs over 40.”

The 4th District Court of Appeals upheld a jury verdict in favor of chef Rex Kinney, who in 1981 was named the American Culinary Federation’s local chef of the year.

“Many a drop of good broth is made in an old pot,” wrote Presiding Justice David G. Sills in a unanimous decision.

“I feel great. I’m on cloud nine,” Kinney said. Unable to find a comparable job or collect the money while the case was on appeal, Kinney said, he sold his house in Santa Ana and moved to Gatesville, Tex.

Reached there, Kinney, now 67, is a volunteer chef at the local Lion’s Club.

“It should send a message to the people who own these big companies that they can’t just discriminate against older people because of their age,” he said, “and I think it should send a message to the employees as well that they shouldn’t sit down and take it.”

Kinney worked for Black Angus, a chain of steak houses owned by American Restaurant Group, from 1979 until he was fired in 1987.

Attorneys for American Restaurant Group could not be reached for comment. The restaurant’s attorneys had argued before the appeals court that the verdict against the firm was not warranted and that the amount of the damages was excessive.

But the justices disagreed. Kinney, who was responsible for training other chefs, often worked 12 to 16 hours a day, never refused night or weekend shifts and never complained of medical problems, the justices noted.

American Restaurant Group took over the Black Angus sometime after June, 1986, and Tony Bacerra was named executive chef, Sills wrote.

“One of Bacerra’s responsibilities was the ‘termination’ of Black Angus employees,” the justice wrote.

In May, 1987, Bacerra told employees that Kinney “wasn’t young enough to stay on his feet as many hours as they were looking for,” “was just too old to be a chef in the company” and lacked the stamina of a younger person, Sills wrote.