Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter

United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit

No. 22-1156

SANDY CARRERAS MORALES,

Plaintiff, Appellant,

v.

SILGAN CONTAINERS MANUFACTURING PUERTO RICO, LLC,

Defendant, Appellee,

OKAYA (USA) INC., TALENT PARTNERS, INC.,

Defendants.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

[Hon. Silvia Carreño-Coll, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Kayatta, Lipez, Thompson, Circuit Judges.

Juan Rafael González-Muñoz, with whom González Muñoz Law Offices, PSC, was on brief, for appellant. Pedro J. Torres-Díaz, with whom Ana B. Rosado-Frontanés and Jackson Lewis LLC were on brief, for appellee.

February 8, 2024 KAYATTA, Circuit Judge. This appeal concerns a claim of

age discrimination brought by Sandy Carreras Morales ("Carreras")

against his prospective employer, Silgan Containers Manufacturing

Puerto Rico, LLC ("Silgan"). Carreras asserts claims under the

federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"),

et seq., and its Puerto Rico analogue, P.R. Law No. 100,

arising out of Silgan's refusal to hire Carreras for a plant-

manager position at its Las Piedras, Puerto Rico factory. The

district court granted summary judgment in favor of Silgan,

finding, among other things, that Carreras failed to show that

Silgan knew his age when it rejected his application. Carreras

appeals, arguing that notwithstanding this fact, there is direct

evidence of Silgan's age discrimination that warrants a jury trial.

Finding this evidence inapt, we affirm.

I.

A.

We review a district court's grant of summary judgment

de novo, construing the record in the light most favorable to the

nonmovant -- here, Carreras -- and resolving all reasonable

inferences in that party's favor. Ocasio-Hernández v. Fortuño-

Burset,

(1st Cir. 2015).

Summary judgment is appropriate only when "there is no

genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled

to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). But we

- 2 - may affirm a grant of summary judgment "on any ground revealed by

the record." Robinson v. Town of Marshfield,

(1st

Cir. 2020) (quoting Houlton Citizens' Coal. v. Town of Houlton,

(1st Cir. 1999)).

B.

Silgan is a food-packaging manufacturer with a factory

in Las Piedras, Puerto Rico. When the plant-manager position

became available in late 2017, Silgan sought to hire someone local

because of a recurring retention problem: More than one prior

manager had only held the position for a few years before returning

to the contiguous United States. So, according to Silgan

Manufacturing Director Dean LaClair, the company wanted to hire

someone with more "longevity" to address this retention problem.

In 2014, Silgan contracted with Talent Partners, Inc.

("TPI") for employee-recruitment services, which TPI provided on

a recurrent basis. In January 2018, Silgan asked TPI's president,

Joann Cox ("Cox"), to recruit candidates for its open plant-manager

position. Meanwhile, TPI had a cooperative placement agreement

with another agency, Okaya, Inc. ("Okaya"), under which TPI and

Okaya worked together to recruit candidates.

In late January 2018, Okaya contacted Carreras, who was

60 years old at the time, about the Silgan plant-manager position.

Okaya asked for Carreras's resume, which does not include his date

of birth or dates related to his education. It shows an employment

- 3 - history beginning in 1989. In early February, TPI provided

Carreras with more information about the Silgan position and asked

him to complete an application. Neither TPI nor Silgan asked for

Carreras's age or when he planned to retire, and Carreras did not

disclose any such information.

Silgan's hiring process required all managerial

candidates to complete a two-stage employment test, which was

conducted by a third-party exam service provider. In mid-February

2018, Carreras passed the test's first stage but received a

"review" score on the second stage. Silgan considers a "review"

score a failure and therefore generally disqualifies candidates

receiving such a score.

After receiving Carreras's test results, Silgan

Operations Coordinator Sue Thiele ("Thiele") recommended that

Bruce Whittier, one of Silgan's manufacturing directors, not move

forward with Carreras's application. Thiele then made the same

recommendation to Tami Potkay ("Potkay"), Silgan's Regional Human

Resources Manager. Potkay then emailed Cox at TPI, informing her

that Silgan had declined Carreras. TPI then informed Okaya that

Silgan rejected Carreras's application because of his test score.

It does not appear that the manufacturing director --

who had final say in filling the position -- ever weighed in on

the decision. In any event, it is undisputed that Carreras was

deemed disqualified in February of 2018. To be sure, two months

- 4 - later, in April of 2018, Okaya asked Carreras for his age because

it said its client, Silgan, was only considering candidates less

than 58 years old. But it is undisputed that Silgan did not know

that the sixty-year-old Carreras was 58 or older when it

disqualified him based on his low test score.

In discovery, Carreras developed evidence that he says

would have supported a finding that Silgan did not want to hire

someone over the age of 58. Both in the district court and on

appeal, Carreras argues that this evidence should have been

sufficient to defeat a motion for summary judgment.

II.

The ADEA makes it unlawful for an employer "to fail or

refuse to hire" an individual "because of such individual's age."

(a)(1). To prevail under the ADEA, the plaintiff

therefore bears the burden to prove by a preponderance of the

evidence that "age was the 'but-for' cause" of the prohibited act.

Babb v. Wilkie,

(2020) (quoting Gross v. FBL

Fin. Servs., Inc.,

(2009)). And as night follows

day, an applicant's actual age could not be the but-for cause of

an employment decision if the decision-maker did not know that the

plaintiff was not the preferred age. See, e.g., Woodman v. WWOR-

TV, Inc.,

, 83–84 (2d Cir. 2005) (finding that the

plaintiff's ADEA claim failed because the plaintiff did not adduce

- 5 - sufficient evidence indicating defendants' knowledge of her age

relative to that of her younger replacement).

Consequently, we find that the district court was

correct to grant summary judgment to Silgan on Carreras's ADEA

claim. Simply put, even assuming that Silgan was biased against

applicants over the age of 58, the complete lack of any evidence

that Silgan believed that Carreras was older than 58 means that

its decision not to hire him was not "because of" his age.1 We

turn next to his analogous age-discrimination claim under Puerto

Rico Law 100.

III.

Puerto Rico Law 100, like the ADEA, provides a cause of

action for victims of age-based employment discrimination.

Zampierollo-Rheinfeldt v. Ingersoll-Rand de Puerto Rico, Inc.,

(1st Cir. 2021). Carreras does not explain why the

lack of any causal nexus between his age and the challenged

employment decision is not also fatal to his discrimination claim

under Law 100. Nor is any relevant reason apparent. See Dávila

v. Corporación De Puerto Rico Para La Difusión Pública,

(1st Cir. 2007) (noting that "[o]n the merits, age

discrimination claims asserted under the ADEA and under Law 100

1 Given our conclusion, we need not reach Carreras's argument that the district court abused its discretion when it excluded evidence that, Carreras contends, showed that Silgan and/or its agents were biased against applicants over the age of 58.

- 6 - are coterminous"). Consequently, we find that the district court

was correct to grant summary judgment to Silgan on Carreras's

Law 100 claim as well.

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district

court's order granting summary judgment to Silgan on Carreras's

age-discrimination claims under the ADEA and Puerto Rico Law 100.

- 7 -