## Facts

- National Geographic Society faced declining advertising sales and considered reorganizing its advertising sales operation.
- An internal memorandum suggested reducing the staff’s age profile by terminating salespeople over 55, but the Society did not implement that recommendation.
- The Society instead offered a voluntary early-retirement package to advertising sales representatives age 55 or older.
- The package included severance pay and other incentives; eligible employees had roughly seventy-five days to decide.
- Management instructed supervisors not to recommend acceptance or rejection of the offer to avoid pressuring employees.
- Twelve salespeople, including four plaintiffs (all over 55), accepted the offer and retired.
- Plaintiffs stated they felt pressured because the company would not advise them whether to accept and because they feared adverse consequences if they refused; they also cited general statements that some salespeople might be fired if sales did not improve.
- During the decision period, plaintiffs’ pay, duties, rules, and conditions of employment did not materially change, and the plaintiffs were meeting sales quotas.
- Plaintiffs sued under the ADEA, alleging they were effectively forced to retire (constructive discharge) and that an age-limited early-retirement offer was discriminatory.

## Issues

1. Whether plaintiffs’ acceptance of the early-retirement package constituted a constructive discharge under the ADEA.
2. Whether an early-retirement offer limited to employees 55 and older automatically establishes a prima facie case of age discrimination.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for National Geographic Society.
- The court held plaintiffs were not constructively discharged because working conditions were not made objectively intolerable.
- The court rejected a rule that every retirement under an age-limited early-retirement plan automatically creates a prima facie ADEA case.
- The court concluded no reasonable jury could find unlawful age discrimination on the record presented.

## Legal Principles

- Constructive discharge requires objectively intolerable working conditions such that a reasonable employee would feel compelled to resign or retire; subjective apprehension is insufficient.
- Offering a voluntary early-retirement incentive, without demotion, pay cut, altered duties, or concrete threats tied to refusal, does not amount to constructive discharge.
- An age-specific early-retirement incentive does not, by itself, establish a prima facie ADEA violation; plaintiffs must show an adverse employment action (including actual or constructive discharge) because of age.
- Employer efforts to maintain neutrality and allow meaningful time for consideration support a finding of voluntariness.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit held that voluntary acceptance of an enhanced early-retirement package offered to employees 55 and older did not establish ADEA liability absent evidence of an adverse, age-based employment action or objectively intolerable conditions amounting to constructive discharge.


Henn v. Nat’l Geographic Soc’y, 819 F.2d 824 (7th Cir. 1987)