Magic Johnson Denies Firing Flight Attendant For Being Old

Magic Johnson’s attorneys gave a Los Angeles judge two big reasons why their client shouldn’t be held financially responsible for flight attendant Lanita Thomas’ wrongfully termination. First, the NBA legend doesn’t think she was wrongfully terminated at all. In her lawsuit, she claimed she was fired because she got old, but if the basketball analyst is to be believed, she got canned because she flat out sucked at her job. Second, Johnson doesn’t think he should be held financially responsible even if a wrongful termination happened because the woman was an employee of Clay Lacy and didn’t actually make any staffing decisions.

According to TMZ, Johnson is asking the judge to make Thomas pay for his legal fees since she got him involved in the case, but something tells me he would take a quick straight dismissal at this point too because his victory might not be as much of a slam dunk as it seems. The fired woman was reportedly his personal flight attendant for years. She was fired and a younger woman was hired, meaning she could potentially argue that Johnson asked the company to fire her as a favor to him.

Johnson’s legal response was his first official statement on this matter. If he decides to speak publically on his feelings about the lawsuit, we’ll bring you his comments. If not, expect him to dig in his heels and fight this wrongful termination suit with every bit of the aggression he used to shred defenses on the fastbreak for more than a decade while he was in the NBA.