Federal court backs Chipotle in age discrimination lawsuit

A severe infestation was reported at one of his locations near the University of New Mexico in early February 2022. When Sousa and his supervisor, team director Patrick Hannan, visited the store, they found it extremely dirty with dozens of cockroaches present. Sousa arranged pest control visits and worked to address the situation, but the problems continued. Weeks later, Hannan returned to the same store and found cockroaches again. Around the same time, site audits of four other restaurants in Sousa’s territory found that all of them fell short of Chipotle’s cleanliness standard – though each still received a passing overall score and no pest activity was observed during those visits. 

Hannan terminated Sousa on March 28, 2022, citing food safety failures. His replacement was a woman in her late 20s. 

Sousa took Chipotle to court, arguing that his age – not his restaurants’ cleanliness – was the real reason he was let go. His lawsuit raised several arguments that will feel immediately familiar to HR practitioners. 

One of the more pointed arguments involved the paperwork. At the meeting where Sousa was terminated, Hannan handed him not just a termination notice but also two documents labeled as final warnings – forms Sousa had never seen before that moment. Sousa argued this looked like a manufactured paper trail, designed to give the false appearance of a progressive discipline process that never actually happened. The court found otherwise. Hannan’s undisputed testimony was that he prepared the warnings at the same time as the termination notice, following guidance from Chipotle’s own HR department, as a way of formally documenting the reasons behind the decision. With no contrary evidence on the table, the court accepted that explanation. 

Sousa also argued that younger colleagues with similar problems at their stores were never disciplined – a classic disparate treatment argument. This is where the case becomes especially instructive for HR professionals.