just got email for this, I did interview for Google and I'm over 40, (wonder how they got my info). I passed the interview but was shut down at the committee, very much doubt that age was a factor.
I was also rejected at the committee level, the reason was that I didn't have the amount of domain knowledge they wanted; in my case it was estimation theory/signal processing.
From what I understand, reruiters are rated based on the quality of candidates they pass to the hiring committee, so they have an incentive to only let the best pass.
This may vary depending on the office involved.
The way I understand it now is that besides gauging your expertise level and general review they may simply select the top X for the positions they have, given a larger number of candidates that passed the interviews.
I didn't see anything that seemed to discriminate by age. One interviewer was a woman in her 40s ro 50s. That said it is true that Silicon Valley (I also interviewed for Facebook) is all white or Asian men in their late 20s or early 30s, (with some sparse women). I saw literally zero black people in three days in SV and the only obvious Hispanic were the staff at my hotel.
If you got rejected by VP committee, that is unusual and work grumbling about -- and possibly constrained by amount of funding available for new hires.
The "come back in a year" is absolutely honest. Many people are hired a year, or 2, or 3 later. Google is happy to say "not sure / not yet" to people and "yes" later.
So I guess it really comes down to whether you think there is any chance at all that they would ever hire you. I doubt anyone would hold participating in the suit against you, it isn't like you started it.
There are legitimate lawsuits in which people's lives have been dramatically affected, and then there are the plethora of scum cases in which people are looking for quick cash. People say that Trump will take American down..no, it's people's unethical mindset that they feel they can take advantage of our basic right to sue for compensation when an aggresses circumstance has occurred.
I thought there were laws to prevent Google from retaliating against somebody who sued them, and it would be illegal for them to not hire you on that basis alone...
[1] And as with diversity (or any discrimination) it reduces the chance that you'll employ that really star employee.
I wouldn't mind working for Google, I am over 40 too.
In fact I would go so far to suggest that someone in their 40's has learnt enough about the ways of the world to know alot better the differences in the rights and wrongs of the world. In other words, you are set up to fail if you follow the traditional educational route.
However its also worth pointing out, the age old problem of spotting giftedness. Einstein was mediocre at school and during his early year's at Uni, in fact it wasnt until his 30's that he started to come up with decent theories, so alot of companies hinder their growth & innovation potential by recruiting youngsters fresh out of an educational establishment.
Many of the posts in your history show up as dead, you may be getting autokilled and only getting replies when someone vouches.