## Facts

- Robert Collins worked as a dishwasher for a restaurant operation owned and run by Compass Group, Inc. and Morrison Management Specialists, Inc.
- Collins was about 60 years old at the time of the events at issue.
- A sous-chef who worked with Collins allegedly made repeated age-related comments about Collins and said he wanted to replace Collins with a younger worker.
- After one of Collins’s shifts, the sous-chef complained to a supervisor that Collins left his work area dirty.
- The supervisor inspected the dish area the next morning and saw at least one part still dirty; the supervisor believed other parts had been cleaned by the morning crew.
- The supervisor reviewed Collins’s personnel file, which reflected prior performance complaints, and decided to terminate Collins.
- Collins sued, asserting (among other theories) age discrimination under the ADEA and the Alabama Age Discrimination in Employment Act (AADEA), along with disability-related claims under the ADA and claims under the FMLA.
- Defendants moved for summary judgment. A magistrate judge issued a Report and Recommendation to grant the motion in part and deny it in part; defendants objected.
- The district court reviewed the record, adopted the Report and Recommendation, and entered an order granting summary judgment on certain claims while allowing others (including some ADA-related claims) to proceed.

## Issues

1. Whether Collins produced sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that age was the but-for cause of his termination under the ADEA.
2. Whether the sous-chef’s age-related remarks constituted direct evidence of age discrimination where the sous-chef was not the decisionmaker who terminated Collins.
3. Whether Collins’s AADEA age-discrimination claims could proceed alongside his ADEA claims when based on the same alleged conduct.
4. Whether Collins presented sufficient evidence to avoid summary judgment on age-based retaliation theories, including retaliation based on alleged retaliatory “write-ups.”
5. Whether Collins presented sufficient evidence to avoid summary judgment on FMLA interference and FMLA retaliation claims.

## Decision

- The court adopted and approved the magistrate judge’s Report and Recommendation.
- The court granted summary judgment for defendants on Collins’s ADEA age-discrimination claim.
- The court granted summary judgment for defendants on Collins’s AADEA age-discrimination claim, treating the AADEA claim as duplicative of the ADEA claim on this record.
- The court granted summary judgment for defendants on Collins’s AADEA retaliation claim and on the portion of Collins’s ADEA retaliation claim tied to alleged retaliatory write-ups.
- The court granted summary judgment for defendants on Collins’s FMLA interference claim and FMLA retaliation claim.
- The court denied summary judgment in part as to other claims in the case, leaving some claims (including certain ADA-based theories) pending after the order.

## Legal Principles

- ADEA disparate-treatment claims require proof that age was the but-for cause of the challenged employment action.
- Comments reflecting age bias are not treated as direct evidence of discrimination unless tied to the decisionmaker or the challenged decision; remarks by a non-decisionmaker generally do not, by themselves, establish discriminatory intent behind the termination.
- Where an employer offers a performance-based reason for termination, the plaintiff must point to evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that the stated reason was not the real reason and that age was determinative.
- In this case, the court dismissed AADEA claims as duplicative where they mirrored the ADEA claims based on the same operative facts.
- FMLA interference requires evidence that the employer denied or interfered with FMLA rights; FMLA retaliation requires evidence of a causal connection between protected FMLA activity and the adverse action, beyond the employer’s asserted non-retaliatory reason.
- On review of objections to a magistrate judge’s Report and Recommendation, the district court may adopt the recommendation after independently considering the record.

## Conclusion

In Collins v. Compass Group, Inc., the Northern District of Alabama adopted a magistrate judge’s recommendation and granted partial summary judgment for the employer, holding that the plaintiff’s evidence—centered on ageist remarks by a sous-chef who did not make the termination decision—did not permit a reasonable finding that age was the but-for cause of the firing, and dismissing parallel AADEA age claims as duplicative of the ADEA claims; the court also entered summary judgment against the plaintiff on certain age-retaliation theories and on FMLA interference and retaliation, while denying summary judgment on other remaining claims.


Collins v. Compass Group, Inc., 965 F. Supp. 2d 1321 (2013)