Thomforde v. International Business Machines Corp., 2005 U. S. App. LEXIS 7592 (8th Cir. 2005)
Articles Discussing Case:
Defective Release Enables Terminated Workers To Pursue Age Claims (pdf).
Vedder Price • September 08, 2006
Two federal appellate courts have now held that releases signed by IBM employees who were terminated (and
received severance benefi ts) during a workforce reduction were not effective to release the company from liability
for age discrimination claims subsequently brought by those employees. In Syverson v. International Bus. Mach.,
No. 04-16449 (August 31, 2006), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that IBM’s release agreement was
invalid. This decision follows a similar ruling from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2005 construing the
same release.
