Eli Lil­ly sued by for­mer em­ploy­ees al­leg­ing age dis­crim­i­na­tion, cit­ing hir­ing prac­tices fa­vor­ing in­terns

A class ac­tion law­suit from two for­mer sales rep­re­sen­ta­tives has been filed in US Dis­trict Court, ac­cus­ing Eli Lil­ly of age dis­crim­i­na­tion through­out its hir­ing process and go­ing as far as to al­lege that the Big Phar­ma hired younger work­ers on the ba­sis of phys­i­cal at­trac­tive­ness.

The two plain­tiffs have ap­plied to work for Lil­ly sev­er­al times, nev­er mak­ing it past the first in­ter­view stage, the law­suit says. Jer­ad Grimes, 49, worked as a Lil­ly sales rep for sev­er­al years be­fore be­ing laid off from his po­si­tion in Flori­da, and Geor­gia Emi­ly Ed­mond­son, 55, had pre­vi­ous­ly held roles in phar­ma, but al­leges she lost out on job op­por­tu­ni­ties at Lil­ly to younger ap­pli­cants.

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