{"id":432206,"date":"2026-10-19T18:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T18:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/432206\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T18:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T18:24:09","slug":"former-jea-executive-alleges-age-discrimination-in-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/432206\/","title":{"rendered":"Former JEA executive alleges age discrimination in lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 A former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/topic\/JEA\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/topic\/JEA\/\">JEA<\/a> vice president is suing the utility, alleging it fired him because of his age and did not offer him another job while retaining younger executives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Mark Stultz filed the lawsuit Oct. 16 in U.S. District Court in Jacksonville. He accuses JEA of violating the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Florida Civil Rights Act.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Stultz was hired in January 2022 as vice president of communications. The lawsuit says JEA notified him in July 2024 that his position was being eliminated and his employment would end Aug. 9. He was older than 40 and among JEA\u2019s oldest vice presidents, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">JEA said it was reducing the number of vice president positions, the lawsuit says. But Stultz alleges younger vice presidents whose positions were eliminated were placed in other roles, while he was not offered a continuing position. He also alleges that communications duties he had performed continued under a younger employee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">The complaint says Stultz had received a rating of \u201cexceeds expectations\u201d in his most recent completed annual evaluation and that JEA did not cite performance deficiencies when it terminated him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Read the full lawsuit below.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Stultz is seeking back pay and benefits, damages and either reinstatement or front pay, among other relief. He also requested a jury trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">The allegations have not been proven in court.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 A former JEA vice president is suing the utility, alleging it fired him because of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117,501,833],"class_list":["post-432206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jea","tag-lawsuit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}