CHICAGO – A federal judge says a Hispanic former movie theater manager can continue his discrimination lawsuit against theater chain Studio Movie Grill, accusing the chain of not equally enforcing its policies forbidding managers from dating staff.
The judge, however, barred the ex-SMG manager from suing the company for retaliation, as the judge said such a claim exceeds the lawsuit authorization the manager received from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
On April 29, U.S. District Judge Jorge L. Alonso ruled the suit filed by Daniel Fuentes against Studio Movie Grill can remain active because the company failed to prove Fuentes initiated the litigation beyond the statute of limitations.
Fuentes sued SMG on May 25, 2018, claiming he was fired after he complained of purportedly biased enforcement of a company policy prohibiting managers from dating other staff, court filings said. Fuentes, who is of Mexican descent, asserted that SMG enforced the policy against its Hispanic personnel but not its white personnel.
Fuentes said he was one of only two Latino similarly-situated "unit managers" at the time he was fired.
Fuentes reportedly was terminated the same day he complained about enforcement of the anti-fraternization policy, court filings said.
SMG moved to dismiss the suit claiming Fuentes failed to exhaust administrative remedies and failed to file his complaint in time.
Alonso disagreed with SMG’s argument that Fuentes’s complaint should be dismissed as time-barred.
“The plaintiff, having included no allegations in his complaint as to when he (or his attorney) actually received the notice of right to sue (from the EEOC), has not pleaded himself out of court with respect to the statute of limitations,” the judge wrote in the order. “Defendant’s motion to dismiss on statute-of-limitations grounds is denied.”
Alonso agreed that the respondent’s failure to exhaust argument bore standing.
“Retaliation claims are not considered to be reasonably related to discrimination claims,” Alonso said.
“Here, in plaintiff’s charge of discrimination, he listed race but not retaliation as the basis of defendant’s discrimination against him,” Alonso said. “Nowhere in his charge did plaintiff mention the word retaliation.”
The judge added that Fuentes’ argument as to why his retaliation claim is reasonably related to his race discrimination claim is “hard to follow.”
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Case No. 1:18-cv-03706