Sasson loses appeal in NJMG age-bias case

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The media ignored the trial, held in Superior Court, Hackensack.

The unfavorable jury verdict in Victor E. Sasson's age-bias lawsuit against North Jersey Media Group has been affirmed by the Appellate Division of state Superior Court.

In a 20-page decision released this morning, a three-judge panel agreed with the verdict -- that Sasson wasn't discriminated against because of his age in the 2006 selection of the food editor, and that his 2008 firing didn't constitute retaliation by Record managers and editors upset that he filed suit several months earlier.

The appeal court said Superior Court Judge Joseph L. Conte in Hackensack didn't commit reversible error. Sasson represented himself at the trial.

Joshua L. Weiner, the plaintiff's Morristown lawyer, argued during a March 16 hearing that Conte improperly permitted the use of posts from Eye on The Record during cross-examination to impeach the plaintiff's credibility.

He also said Conte should have barred defense use of performance reviews dating to 1985 that weren't relevant to events of 2006-08.

Weiner believes Conte should have instructed the jurors to use the blog entries only for the purpose of judging the plaintiff's credibility -- and to disregard Sasson's views the paper kept on older, white male columnists, while silencing older black, Hispanic and female columnists.

At the 5-day trial in April 2010, Sasson was barred from presenting evidence of age-bias against many other employees, including Patricia Mack, The Record's food editor, who was hounded into retirement by her editor, Barbara Jaeger.

See previous post on Thursday's paper