The Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled last week that an employer’s refusal to renew a worker’s contract is the same as terminating an employee without a contract (an at-will employee). The court stated that allowing an employer to discriminate based on age merely because a worker had a contract “would undermine the remedial purposes of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and create a loophole in the seamless coverage of the statute.” Since the Law Against Discrimination protects older workers from termination and forced retirement, the Supreme Court found that the law must also protect older workers from losing their jobs based on refusal to renew a contract.

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