On Wednesday, former MLB ex-scouts filed lawsuits against the league, its 30 teams, and commissioner Rob Manfred, claiming that they were fired due to age discrimination.
A group of 17 former MLB scouts filed the complaint in a U.S. District Court in Denver. According to the Los Angeles Times, their ages range from 55 to 71, and they have all served as scouts for at least 24 years.
According to the Associated Press, in addition to statutes from 11 other states and New York City, the case also refers to the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. According to the lawsuit, MLB and its teams “have acted to prevent the reemployment of older scouts or have refused the reemployment of older scouts.”
MLB said in a statement to the AP that it “looks forward to refuting these claims in court” despite declining to comment on ongoing litigation.
James S. Benedict, a former scout for the Chicago Cubs, is the principal plaintiff in the complaint, which is seeking class action status. In 2020, he lost his job. According to the lawsuit, MLB fired veteran scouts due to the COVID-19 outbreak and the emergence of analytics in player evaluation.
The lawsuit claims that there was an alleged construction of a “blacklist” to exclude elder scouts from employment.
The Los Angeles Dodgers fired Chris Smith, 64, in 2020 after his 30 years of service as a scout.
Smith told the Times;
“We all understand that there are changes when there is a regime change, but I’ve been in the business for 40 years, and I’ve never seen anything close to this. The term they used was a ‘natural reduction in workforce.”
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