Opinion ID: 200115
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Ageist Remarks

Text: 15 Gonzalez asserts that, prior to June 12, Mr. Mercado and Ms. Ferre engaged in a pattern of workplace remarks which demonstrate an age-based animus. See supra Section I. Upon closer examination, however, the stray remarks she identified afforded an inadequate foundation for the requisite discriminatory intent. 16 In the first place, stray workplace remarks, as well as statements made either by nondecisionmakers or by decisionmakers not involved in the decisional process, normally are insufficient, standing alone, to establish either pretext or the requisite discriminatory animus. See Straughn v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 250 F.3d 23, 36 (1st Cir.2001); Laurin v. Providence Hosp., 150 F.3d 52, 58 (1st Cir. 1998). The Gonzalez deposition identified neither the time nor the context of the pre-June 12 remarks made by Mr. Mercado and Ms. Ferre, nor could Gonzalez state whether any particular remark had been made at a time proximate either to June 12 or to her July 15 termination. See, e.g., Dominguez-Cruz, 202 F.3d at 433 n. 6 (noting circumscribed evidentiary weight of temporally remote statements). 17 Secondly, it is far from clear that the alleged remarks bespeak any age-based animus at all. See Fernandes v. Costa Bros. Masonry, Inc., 199 F.3d 572, 583 (1st Cir.1999) (noting that a statement that plausibly can be interpreted two different ways — one discriminatory and the other benign — does not directly reflect illegal animus) (emphasis added); Speen v. Crown Clothing Corp., 102 F.3d 625, 636 (1st Cir.1996) (`[ A]mbiguous remarks, tending to suggest animus based on age, are insufficient, standing alone, to prove an employer's discriminatory intent.') (citations omitted; emphasis added); Lehman v. Prudential Ins. Co. of Am., 74 F.3d 323, 329 (1st Cir.1996) (same). 18 Some statements, such as those made by Mr. Mercado, merely displayed a measure of surprise that Gonzalez was still employed at El Dia, without either asserting or implying that she was too old to be working. Moreover, Mr. Mercado's alleged use of the salutation Mom — though no doubt insensitive, perhaps even rude — hardly constituted a self-sufficient foundation for an ADEA claim, especially since these particular attributions — motherhood and advanced age — plainly are not synonymous. 19 Similarly, the remarks Ms. Ferre allegedly directed at Gonzalez are reasonably susceptible to interpretation simply as descriptions of the somewhat dowdy appearance and demeanor which Gonzalez herself acknowledges. Moreover, the Spanish phrase manias de vieja (old ways) did not unambiguously connote that Gonzalez was old, let alone too old, but rather that she acted in ways which did not appear in keeping with a person her age. See, e.g., Pearson v. City of Manhattan, 33 F.Supp.2d 1306, 1315 (D.Kan.1999) (holding that phrase old ways not evidence of ADEA age-based animus, as such terms apply more to a person's state of mind than to a person's age); Martin v. Ryder Distribution Res., Inc., 811 F.Supp. 658, 664 (S.D.Fla.1992) (observing that simple references to the plaintiff-employees — as good old boys and old-fashioned — are insufficient evidence of age-based animus under ADEA), aff'd, 16 F.3d 1232 (11th Cir.1994). Nor did any other statement, attributed either to Mr. Mercado or Ms. Ferre, unambiguously communicate an age-based animus. Rather, their remarks are readily susceptible to interpretations which are in no sense discriminatory.