Villarreal v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

R.J Reynolds Tobacco Co. (Reynolds) (defendant) posted a job opening for a territory sales manager and hired contractor Pinstripe, Inc. (defendant) to screen applicants. Reynolds told Pinstripe that the target applicant had only two to three years of postcollege work experience and would adapt easily to changes. Reynolds further told Pinstripe to avoid candidates with eight to 10 years of sales experience. Forty-nine-year-old Richard Villarreal (plaintiff) applied for the position. Pinstripe removed his application during the screening process based on Reynolds’s guidelines. Villarreal subsequently filed a charge against Reynolds and Pinstripe with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC deemed Villarreal’s complaints of age-based discrimination actionable and issued notices of a right to sue. Villarreal then sued Reynolds and Pinstripe on behalf of himself and other applicants over age 40, asserting two claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), one for disparate treatment and one for disparate impact. Reynolds and Pinstripe moved to dismiss the disparate-impact claim, arguing that the ADEA allowed only employees to assert disparate-impact claims, not applicants. The district court agreed and dismissed the disparate-impact claim. A divided panel of the Eleventh Circuit initially reversed, but the court then granted a petition for a rehearing.