The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Thursday upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit from a group of former IBM employees who sued to invalidate waivers that barred them from pursuing collective age-discrimination claims against the company after they were laid off.

The ruling, from a three-judge panel of the Manhattan-based appeals court, found that the plaintiffs could not challenge the so-called collective-action waivers under a provision of the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, which generally protects workers aged 40 years and older from discrimination in the workplace.