Age Is Only a Number
Ageism is unfortunately one of the numerous reasons why someone could place himself ahead of other people. There are many causes of this. It is something that might relate to this story, with the neighbor presumably expecting that Oliver wouldn’t put up a fight because of his age. This is something that could be argued to drum up support for Oliver’s side.
Even though he was 79 years old, he wasn’t exactly a spring bird by any stretch of the imagination. However, that didn’t mean he was going to roll over and let someone younger than him walk all over him. Lynch demonstrated that he still had a significant amount of fight left in him, and this contributed to his success in the case.