Hallmark Responds to Age Discrimination Lawsuit: ‘We Deny These Outrageous Allegations’
Hallmark is denying allegations outlined in an Oct. 9 lawsuit filed by Penny Perry, a 79-year-old casting director who says she was unceremoniously fired in April after nine years with the company.
According to our sister site Variety, the lawsuit claims Hallmark executive VP of programming Lisa Hamilton Daly told her staff she did not want to cast “old people.” Daly is accused of singling out Hallmark vets Holly Robinson Peete and Lacey Chabert as examples of “old talent” who need to be “replaced.”
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“Lacey’s getting older and we have to find someone like her to replace her as she gets older,” Daly allegedly said about the 42-year-old actress.
Meanwhile, the suit alleges that Daly said “no one wants” 60-year-old Robinson Peete because “she’s too expensive and getting too old. She can’t play leading roles anymore.”
Hallmark disputes the lawsuit’s allegations. “Lacey and Holly have a home at Hallmark,” the company said in a statement obtained by TVLine on Thursday. “We do not generally comment on pending litigation. And while we deny these outrageous allegations, we are not going to discuss an employment relationship in the media.”
TVLine has reached out to representatives for Chabert and Robinson Peete for comment.
The lawsuit details other age-related discrimination targeting Perry herself, alleging that Daly once told her she was “too long in the tooth” and needed to be replaced.
Perry, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and is legally blind in one eye, also alleges that Hallmark failed to accommodate her disability. She says that once she was deemed “too old to work in her position,” the company forced her out by moving her office to a different floor, excluding her from meetings and assigning her duties to an outside consultant. After she was fired, Perry alleges the company replaced her by hiring a younger man.
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