was permissible where a reduction in force brought on by the consolidation of two accounting departments caused the employer to lay off two of three older employees, but none of the 20 younger accounting employees whose job titles “closely paralleled” those held by the plaintiff in his current and prior positions at the company. For the purposes of establishing a prima facie case under the ADEA, therefore, we have considered as relevant for comparison non-proteeted employees with similar, though not identical, job functions and titles to those of the older employees. Other courts of appeals have also held that the job functions of employees being compared for ADEA purposes must be “similar” though not necessar ily identical. See Smith v. Cook County, 74 F.3d 829, 831 (7th Cir.1996) (<HOLDING>); Branson v. Price River Coal Co., 853 F.2d
recognizing in a title vii case that for the fourth element of the prima facie case the individuals seeking relief must demonstrate at the least that they are similarly situated to those employees allegedly receiving more favorable treatment in all material respects holding that caucasian employees who engaged in the same act as the plaintiff but it did not result in injury to others were not similarly situated holding that fourth element of a prima facie case is satisfied when the employees who were more favorably treated were situated similarly to the plaintiff holding that more favorable treatment of similarly situated employees outside the race classification is required to make a prima facie race discrimination case holding that because there was no evidence before the court of any similarly situated employees who were promoted to a higher salary grade when plaintiff was denied a promotion plaintiff could not establish a prima facie case of discriminatory failure to promote