For more than a decade Addiel Soto–Felician worked in the kitchen at the Villa Cofresí Hotel, a beachfront, family-run establishment in Rincón, Puerto Rico. By January of 2010, Soto had become the hotel’s head chef. However, by March he had been fired. Just one month prior to his termination, Sandra Caro, the hotel’s general manager, told Soto: “I understand that you are old to work at the cooking line and that your co-workers are also saying that you are old to work at the cooking line.” Soto further testified that Sandra Caro said to him at that meeting: “You are no longer capable to work at the line because you are old. I am going to bring in a new chef. Maybe I can let you work only in banquets. You need some long vacations because you are old and slow at the line. We at the Hotel Villa Cofresí are moving up, not down.” Additionally, Héctor Pérez, the hotel’s restaurant and kitchen manager, also made age-related remarks continually during the summer of 2009. According to Soto, Pérez said to Soto throughout this period: “Fool you are too old”; “[f]ool, you are too slow.” Does Soto have a claim under the ADEA? Would it have been different if the comments had not been directly related to Soto, but rather were general comments about people over the age of forty? Does it matter if the managers themselves are over 40 years old?
