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A former Williamsport Public Works Department employee has filed a federal lawsuit claiming he was fired because of his age and that he endured a hostile work environment when he tried for different and promotional positions in the department.
Brian Cochran, 61, took the civil action against the city in the suit filed in U.S. Middle District Court. The lawsuit claims his superiors began to exhibit discriminatory behavior based solely on his age in 2023.
Numerous examples of alleged age discrimination and hostility are in the suit.
On March 27, the city terminated Cochran for insubordination. The city's reason for termination was wholly pretextual, and was instead based on his age, the suit states.
The city has exhibited a pattern and practice of not only discrimination but also retaliation, according to the suit.
Cochran sued after exhausting his administrative remedies by dual-filing a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission ("PHRC") on May 19, 2025.
He says he faced derogatory remarks such as – "I wish all you old-timers would just retire or get fired."
In February 2025, an employee tried to convince Cochran not to report his injury to the workers' compensation and noted they told him if he agreed to not do so, then he would no longer be harassed or written up.
In the suit, it claims attempts to stop a workers' compensation rights is not only blatantly illegal, but also further demonstrated the city's ongoing discriminatory animus and their direct knowledge of it.
Alleged discriminatory conduct and comments continued by calling Cochran "old man" and stating "hurry up, old man" to him on multiple occasions, the suit states.
The city also issued Cochran unwarranted write-ups for allegedly abusing sick leave when he needed to attend doctor's appointments stemming from his workplace injury, despite Cochran requesting time off to do so through the city's system.
On another occasion, around Dec. 30, 2025, Cochran was called into work and assigned to road salting in the downtown area. After completing his assignment, he returned to the garage, where he allegedly was told it "usually took other people longer to do that area" and that "you're probably too old to remember which streets you salted," according to the suit.
On another occasion, around February, Cochran was assigned to install bedliner spray to the city's vehicles. As the job involved substantial time on his hands and knees, Cochran asked an employee if any knee pads were available. In response, he said he was told to "just deal with it" and that "younger guys don't need knee pads" to which Cochran replied that it had nothing to do with his age, but just that he did not want to injure his knees.
Around the same time, in another event, Cochran while he was sitting in the garage said he was told, "old man, get up and do something." But Cochran asserts similar comments to younger employees when observing them sitting down, were not made, according to the suit.
Cochran says he was caused to sustain serious and permanent personal injuries, including permanent psychological injuries and felt extremely humiliated, degraded, victimized, embarrassed and emotionally distressed.
The case is before Chief Judge Matthew W. Brann.