A group of former El Paso Electric Company employees allege age discrimination, and say the company fired them to avoid having to pay full pension and health benefits. A lawsuit against the company seeking back wages and future pay lost, compensatory and punitive damages, and attorney fees was filed in mid-November.

In the lawsuit, nine former IT Department employees who lost their jobs Nov. 30, 2007, and who were between the ages of 50-58, argue that the company took steps aimed at getting rid of the department because the employees were "aging."

They allege age discrimination by "disparate impact," "disparate treatment," and retaliation, because after the employees filed age discrimination complaints the company would not place them in other positions that were available.

The company declined to comment on the pending litigation. It will file its response Monday.

John Wenke, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said businesses have a right to lay off employees.

"But there's a right way and a wrong way to implement layoffs, and the El Paso Electric Company has given a textbook example of what not to do," he said, citing the allegations in the lawsuit of comments made by supervisors regarding the employees' age, and requests by managers for printouts of employees' ages and retirement dates.

In addition, he said, shortly before the layoffs the company eliminated its "resource pool," where employees who lost their jobs would have priority for other openings within the company.

El Paso Electric followed a "rule of 85," under which employees were eligible to retire with full health and pension benefits once their age and years of service for the company added up to 85. Two of the nine litigants were less than a year from reaching that number.

The lawsuit notes that the company has "bridged the gap" for other former employees, alleging that former CEO Gary Hedrick, who did not qualify under the rule, was allowed to retire with full benefits.

The lawsuit also notes that the CEO at the time of the firings, Ershel Redd, "resigned abruptly" in February, 2008, and received a $1.4 million severance after nine months on the job.

The lawsuit alleges that Redd previously had referred to El Paso Electric employees as an "aging workforce" during a public shareholders meeting, and oversaw the outsourcing of IT operations, where the fired employees worked, under a two-year, $8 million contract with Houston-based Dyonyx.

In all, 34 people were fired from the IT department.

Wenke is suing on behalf of the employees under two legal theories:

-- Intentional discrimination, under which he will attempt to prove that the company got rid of the employees because of their age and to avoid the "rule of 85."

-- Disparate impact, under which he has only to show that the layoff had a disproportionate impact on a specific group of employees, in this case, those over 40. He said that of the 34 workers fired from the IT department, 33 were over the age of 40.