SPEAKER_01 0:18

Usually when we talk about getting a corporate promotion, there's you know an expectation of a procedure.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Right. A certain established rhythm to the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Exactly. You know the drill, you see a job posting pop up on the company internet, you polish up your resume, you know.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

You go through that grueling round of interviews.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Yeah. And then eventually someone from human resources sends out a polite little email announcing the final decision.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Aaron Powell It's a very visible, documented process. I mean, it feels fair. Or at least it has the basic architecture of fairness built into it.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Aaron Powell But then you step into the reality of the executive level and suddenly that architecture just, well, it vanishes. We're looking at a promotional landscape today that is entirely invisible.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Aaron Powell Yeah. The formal application disappears completely and it's replaced by the quiet tap on the shoulder.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Aaron Powell Right. But what happens when that quiet tap on the shoulder consistently bypasses highly qualified veteran employees, you know, in favor of younger, much less experienced ones.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

I mean, that is the absolute definition of the hidden job market. And when it operates in the dark like that, it raises some massive legal questions.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Aaron Powell Which is exactly what we are tackling in today's deep dive. Welcome in, by the way. We've got a fascinating stack of primary sources to guide you through this today.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Aaron Powell It's a wild ride. We are looking at a multi-year legal saga.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Aaron Powell Yeah. Driven by a collection of really explosive documents. We have the initial civil complaint filed by the plaintiffs, which started in California state court before being bumped up to federal court.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

We also have the corporate answer, you know, with a capital A from the defendant, Circle K-Stores Inc., where they aggressively push back on basically everything. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

And then we've got a district court summary judgment ruling from 2023 that nearly killed the entire case.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Followed by a brand new, completely game-changing decision from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. That one is dated October 3, 2025.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Yeah, and that appeals decision blew this whole thing wide open.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

It really is incredibly rare that we get to see the entire life cycle of a high-stakes discrimination lawsuit laid out so clearly in the raw documents like this.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Absolutely. And just to be super clear up front, our mission today isn't to play judge or jury. We aren't here to declare who is definitively right or wrong.

unknown 2:33

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Right, because a lot of this hasn't gone to a jury yet.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Exactly. Our goal is to trace the anatomy of this major age discrimination lawsuit. It's known as Caldrone v. Circle Case Stores Inc.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Aaron Powell, so we're going to unpack the exact facts alleged in these documents, the fierce corporate defenses raised against them, and explore how the Court of Appeals ultimately revived this case.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Deciding that these allegations absolutely must go to a trial.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Aaron Powell We'll be exploring that super messy intersection of corporate policy, age discrimination law, and the strict, almost mathematical legal tests that courts use.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Aaron Powell Tests designed to separate, you know, standard business decisions from unlawful prejudice. So let's just unpack this.

Meet The Veteran DBMs

SPEAKER_00 3:11

That's good.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Before we can even begin to understand the lawsuit itself, you really have to understand the world these employees worked in.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Aaron Powell Yeah, context is everything here.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Aaron Ross Powell We need to move from the broad, abstract concept of corporate promotions into the specific, high-stakes, and frankly, incredibly complex environment of wholesale fuels.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Aaron Powell It is a very unique ecosystem. And to understand the friction that ignited this lawsuit, we really need to look at the specific people involved.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Okay, let's introduce our plaintiffs. We have four individuals: Brian Cauldron, Joseph Salusta, Kathleen Statz, and Gailia Williams.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Aaron Powell And according to the complaint, at the time the events of this lawsuit kicked off, they were all in their mid to late 50s.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Right. And we are not talking about rookies here either.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Far from it. I mean, the documents detail these extensive, decades-long careers.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Yeah, Cauldron had 30 years of experience in the service station and wholesale fuel industry.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Stitts also had over 30 years of experience and it held multiple managerial roles.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

So Lusta brought 28 years of experience to the table. And Williams had basically a lifetime of work in the California petroleum market.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

So these were deeply entrenched, highly experienced veterans of their field.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Right. And their job title was Dealer Business Manager or DBM for Circle K. Now, I'll admit, when I hear the word manager in a corporate context, you picture a cubicle. I do. I picture someone in a cubicle approving PTO requests and like pushing spreadsheets around. But reading through these documents, that is not what a DBM does at all, is it?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Not even close. A DBM is really the crucial physical link between the massive corporate entity, in this case Circle K, and the individual independent station operators.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

If you own a franchise gas station, your DBM is your lifeline. They are your business consultant, your auditor, your compliance officer, all rolled into one.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

So they aren't just sitting at a desk all day.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

No, they are road warriors.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Aaron Powell The complaint outlines their duties, and it's a massive list. They counsel station operators on competitive pricing, they monitor customer service.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

They check the physical appearance of the retail facility.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Yeah. They make sure the station is complying with environmental record keeping, which is huge. They help operators improve their bottom lines, evaluate market trends, and even provide support for building out convenience stores and car washes.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

So if we connect this to the bigger picture, a DBM is essentially running a whole portfolio of small businesses on behalf of the corporate parent.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

They are responsible for the profitability and the legal compliance of multiple locations across a massive geographic territory.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Aaron Ross Powell That's a ton of responsibility.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Think about the environmental aspect alone. You have underground storage tanks holding thousands of gallons of highly flammable toxic liquid.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Managing the compliance on that requires deep industry knowledge. It requires financial acumen, and honestly, incredibly strong interpersonal skills to get independent, often stubborn franchise operators to actually comply with corporate mandates.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Right. So we have these four highly experienced veterans doing this crucial boots-on-the-ground work, but the ground beneath their feet is shifting dramatically at this time.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Very dramatically.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

The documents detail a massive corporate upheaval occurring between 2017 and 2020.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

This is the macro environment that sets the stage for the whole conflict. So Circle K is a Texas corporation, but it's owned by a massive Canadian multinational convenience store operator called Alimentation KuchTard.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

KuchTard, which honestly sounds like a sleeping pill, but there are an absolute global behemoth in the retail space.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

They really are. And in 2017, Kuchtard acquired full ownership of another entity called Cross America Partners LP, or CAPL. Yep. CAPL is a wholesale distributor of motor fuels and a real estate lesser for gas stations. Following this acquisition, the complaint alleges that Küchtard began this massive asset exchange.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Meaning what? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Meaning Circle K and CAPL basically shuffled the ownership of roughly 265 different gas station sites between each other.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Wow. And then just to make things even more complicated, in November 2019, Küchetard sells its interest in CAPL to another group, triggering even more asset exchanges.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Right. It's a giant corporate shell game.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

So we have hundreds of gas stations, fuel supply agreements, and employees being bounced back and forth between these corporate entities over a three-year period.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Why do companies even do this? I mean, beyond just the sheer accounting headache, what's the strategic value of shuffling hundreds of gas stations between subsidiaries?

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Well, usually it comes down to maximizing tax advantages, real estate value, and operational synergies.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Synergies, the classic buzzword.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Always. By grouping certain assets under a master limited partnership like CAPL, a parent company can often realize significant tax benefits. But for the employees on the ground, the strategic financial engineering just looks like utter chaos.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

I can imagine.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

You have employees receiving paychecks from one entity while being managed by executives from another. Management structures are entirely in flux.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Which brings us to the core allegation of the entire lawsuit. The plaintiffs claim that this chaotic, years-long corporate transition period wasn't just messy. They say it was weaponized. Yes. They allege it was used as a deliberate smokescreen to execute a long simmering plan to force out, demote, or fire the older DBMs and replace them with a cheaper, younger workforce.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

They're alleging that the asset exchange was essentially the cover story for a systematic purge of older workers.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

You know, it reminds me of a magician's misdirection.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Oh, how so?

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Well, the magician makes a bunch of loud noises, flashes some lights, shuffles the deck of cards incredibly fast, creating all this visual chaos, right? Right. And because you're so distracted by the shuffling, you completely miss the fact that they just slipped four specific cards right out of the deck and into their sleeve.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

That's a great way to look at it.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

The corporate merger is the flashing lights. The termination of the older workers is the sleight of hand.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

That is a very apt analogy. And it's exactly why corporate restructurings, mergers, and asset exchanges are so frequently the battleground for employment discrimination claims.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Because it's easy to hide things.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Exactly. Think about it. When a company is in a steady state and business is just normal, firing a top-performing employee with 30 years of experience raises immediate red flags. Right. But during a merger, the company can just claim, oh, it's a redundancy, or their territory was absorbed, or we're restructuring the management hierarchy to find synergies.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

It provides a built-in, seemingly neutral excuse for getting rid of people.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Precisely. Which is why in these types of legal cases, the courts can't just look at the broad corporate strategy. They have to look incredibly closely at the actual mechanics of the transition.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Who specifically gets kept, who gets let go?

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Who gets promoted in the chaos and who gets sidelined? The devil is entirely in the details of the execution.

Alleged Ageist Quotes From Leadership

SPEAKER_01 10:15

And the details alleged in this complaint are absolutely staggering. So let's zoom in here. How does a general feeling of being unwanted during a messy corporate merger turn into a federal lawsuit?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Because you can't sue your boss just for giving you a bad vibe.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Right. You can't. So how does it cross that line?

SPEAKER_00 10:34

It manifests through behavior and communication. The plaintiffs in this case didn't just allege a vague feeling of ageism. They documented specific, overt statements allegedly made by upper management.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

And here's where it gets really interesting. The complaint outlines what they describe as a deeply ageist culture driven from the top down. Yeah. They specifically point the finger at a guy named George Wilkins, who was the vice president of operations for CAPL, and later became Circle K's director of National Wholesale Fuels for California.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

And the quotes attributed to him in the complaint are not subtle.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Not at all. According to the documents, Wilkins allegedly would constantly complain to Joseph Salusta, saying things like, You are old and we are out of date with the business styles today.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Just explicitly saying you are old.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Yeah, but it gets worse. In the summer of 2019, Wilkins allegedly asked Celista point blank, Joe, how old are you?

SPEAKER_00 11:30

And Solista replied that he was 56.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Right. And the alleged response from Wilkins is critical here from a legal perspective.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

It really is.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Wilkins allegedly replied, Joe, you should really start thinking about retiring. You're out of touch. We no longer take care of business the old way. And it wasn't just Celista. The complaint alleges that another executive, Joe Topper, told Kathleen Stats, Well, I assume you're not 21 since you worked for Shell many years, but you don't sound 60 either. How old are you? Oh man. I just have to stop here for a second. Who actually says that out loud in a modern corporate environment? It feels almost cartoonish.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

It does sound incredibly brazen, but what's fascinating here is the directness of these alleged comments.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

In employment law, there is a massive distinction between circumstantial evidence and direct evidence.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

How so?

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Well, circumstantial evidence requires the court to make an inference. For example, if a company fires ten people during a merger and nine of them happen to be over fifty, you might infer ageism.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Aaron Powell But the company could just argue it was a statistical anomaly based on salaries or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Exactly. But direct evidence proves the fact of discriminatory animus without any need for presumption.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Okay, I see.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

If a vice president explicitly tells an employee you are old and should retire, that is direct evidence of age-based animus. It skips the inference entirely.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Aaron Powell It's the smoking gun.

Whistleblowing Claims And Fallout

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yep. But the age's comments are really only half of the toxic environment alleged in this complaint. The plaintiffs weren't just complaining about age discrimination. No, they weren't. They alleged they were actively blowing the whistle on massive corporate misconduct and that they were targeted because they refused to play along with the new regime.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Aaron Powell The whistleblowing elements add a tremendous amount of weight and complexity to the plaintiff's narrative here.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

It really paints a wild picture.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

They are painting a picture of a corporate culture that was not only ageist but fundamentally unethical, and they were the veterans trying to hold the line.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Let's look at the specifics of these whistleblowing claims because they are incredibly detailed. Let's start with Joseph Solista. In August 2019, he allegedly discovered a 3,000-gallon diesel spill in Gilman, Illinois.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

3,000 gallons is a significant environmental hazard.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Huge. And Circle K owned the underground tanks. Solusta claims he verified the spill through tank monitoring systems and private contractors. He demanded they start cleaning it up immediately. As he should.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

But according to the complaint, Circle K waited a month. And because they waited, the contaminants allegedly traveled into the groundwater and contaminated the main well water source for the town of Gilman.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

That is a nightmare scenario.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Wait, hold on though. A 3,000 gallon spill? Why wouldn't a massive corporate entity just pay the fine, hire a remediation crew, and clean it up immediately? That seems like a massive, unnecessary risk to take.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

It comes down to liability and the very complex nature of environmental law, specifically regarding underground storage tanks or USTs.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

The legal reporting requirement for a spill of that magnitude is immediate. You have to notify the Environmental Protection Agency and state environmental regulators right away.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

But once you report it, you're on the hook for the full remediation, which can cost millions of dollars, especially if groundwater is impacted. And remember that corporate shell game we talked about earlier.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

The asset exchanges, the shuffling of the deck.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Exactly. Celista alleges that Circle K deliberately chose not to report the incident to the EPA, violating multiple federal regulations.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Why that date?

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Because that is when their ownership of those specific tanks would expire and essentially become someone else's problem. If you can hide the spill until the lease transfers, you shift millions in environmental liability off your balance sheet.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

If true, that is not just an HR issue. That's a severe violation of federal environmental law. Absolutely. Then we have Brian Cauldrone. He alleges he uncovered a massive pricing scheme, basically a classic bait and switch. Right. He observed that Circle K was allegedly charging independent dealers the higher Exxon blanded price for fuel, which was about nine cents higher per gallon, but secretly delivering cheaper unbranded fuel.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

And to understand why that matters, you have to understand fuel margins.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

They're small, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Razor thin. In the wholesale fuel business, the margins at the pump are tiny. Gas stations often only make a few pennies of profit per gallon. Wow. The real money is made on the volume. So if a corporate distributor is secretly overcharging by nine cents a gallon on thousands of gallons delivered weekly.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

And that adds up fast.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

That is an astronomical amount of money being ciphered away.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

It's pure profit stolen directly from the independent dealers. Yes. Cauldron says he complained to his superiors, pointing out that dealers were essentially being defrauded. He claims he was completely ignored, isolated, and told the intention was just to correct the math.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

And then what happened?

SPEAKER_01 16:32

30 days after he escalated the complaint, he was terminated.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Just incredible timing.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah. And we can't forget Kathleen States' allegations regarding the charity funds.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

This one is just heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

It really is. In 2019, States was assigned to chair a program to solicit charitable donations from the dealers for Big Brothers, Big Sisters of America.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

A great cost.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

She did a great job, too. She successfully raised$94,636.04 from the independent dealers.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

That's a lot of money.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

But she alleges that from December 2019 through August 2020, she kept noticing that this money, nearly a hundred grand, was never actually handed over to the charity.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

It was just kicked by the company.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

According to her, yeah. She complained repeatedly about this failure to donate the collected funds.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

So if we synthesize all these allegations, the plaintiffs are constructing a very specific narrative here.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

They're arguing that they were experienced, highly competent managers who knew the laws, knew the environmental regulations, and knew the pricing contracts.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

You knew how things were supposed to work.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Exactly. And because they were experienced veterans, they were a roadblock to a new, younger management team that allegedly wanted to play fast and loose with the rules to maximize profits during this chaotic merger.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

But of course, a lawsuit is a two-way street. We can't just take the complaint as absolute truth. We have to look at how the corporation responded.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

We do. And Circle K did not just roll over. They filed a formal answer to the complaint.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

And the corporate answer is a fascinating legal document in its own right. Its primary function is to serve as a shield, right? Absolutely. I read through their answer and it's almost dizzying. It's page after page of defendant denies the allegations contained in this paragraph over and over.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Standard defense playbook.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

They essentially deny every single substantive claim made by the plaintiffs. They deny the ageist quotes, they deny the environmental cover-up, they deny the bait and switch.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

But they don't just stop at denial. They assert what are called affirmative defenses.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Now, affirmative defenses are legally crucial, right? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Very much so. Affirmative defense essentially says even if the plaintiff can prove some of their facts, we still win because of this overriding legal reason.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Aaron Powell Circle K listed dozens of them. They invoked management discretion, stating that any actions they took were just and proper exercises of business judgment. They argued that their decisions were made in good faith based on legitimate business reasons. And crucially, they asserted that they would have taken the exact same actions regarding these employees regardless of their ages.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

A very strong shield.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

They even threw in a defense called imperidelicto. What exactly does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Oh okay. It's a legal doctrine suggesting that a plaintiff cannot recover damages if they were equally at fault for the wrongdoing they are complaining about.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Wait, equal fault. Are they arguing that if there was an environmental cover-up or a pricing scheme, the whistleblowers were actually the ones covering it up?

SPEAKER_00 19:37

That's exactly what they are signaling.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

In a corporate answer, defense attorneys will typically throw the kitchen sink at the claintiffs. It's a scorched earth defense strategy.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

How are your bases?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Right. You deny everything and you preserve every possible legal shield. By claiming in peridelicto, Circle K is laying the groundwork to argue later, hey, if these bad things happened, these managers were the ones in charge of those territories, so they are to blame, not us.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

So if you're sitting there trying to wrap your head around this, you have a classic he said she said situation.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Very much so.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

The plaintiffs list these incredibly specific, shocking quotes and detailed accounts of 3,000-gallon spills and$94,000 in missing charity money. And the corporation simply replies, denied, legitimate business decision. And even if it did happen, it's your fault. How does a court even begin to handle that kind of total contradiction?

SPEAKER_00 20:32

This raises an important point about the nature of the legal process itself. What you're describing is the pleading stage.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

The complaint is the plaintiff's opening salvo. It's their version of the world. The answer is the defense's initial wall. At this stage, the truth hasn't been proven. No witnesses have been cross-examined under oath, no hard drives have been subpoenaed. But the court's job right now isn't to decide who was telling the truth.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Right. They just have to figure out if there's enough smoke there to even warrant sending in the fire trucks.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Exactly. The court looks at the complaint and says, if we assume just for a moment that the plaintiff's allegations are true, does this constitute a violation of the law?

SPEAKER_01 21:13

And if it does?

SPEAKER_00 21:14

If the answer is yes, the case moves forward into the discovery phase. That's where both sides have to actually prove their claims with emails, memos, and sworn depositions.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

If the plaintiffs could eventually back up those shocking quotes with a paper trail, it transforms from a he said she said into actionable evidence. Okay.

The Unposted Corona Director Job

SPEAKER_01 21:33

So the battle lines are drawn. We have the toxic environment alleged, and we have the blanket corporate denial. But a massive lawsuit usually needs a spark, a specific triggering event that sets the whole legal machine into motion. Right. And in this case, it all revolves around a single job opening in California.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Aaron Powell Yes, the corona position. This is the absolute focal point of the entire legal dispute regarding the age discrimination.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Aaron Powell Let's set the scene here. It's January 2020. A man named Mike Boner, who is in his late fifties, decides to voluntarily resign from his job.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

He's the director of wholesale fuels for the West Coast region, based out of Circle K's office in Corona, California.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

This is a massive role. The West Coast market in the petroleum industry is Incredibly lucrative and highly regulated.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

I bet.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Being the regional director means this person oversees all the dealer business managers on the West Coast.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Which means for our plaintiffs, Caldron, Celista, Statz, and Williams, this represents a major logical promotion opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Exactly. It's exactly the kind of upward mobility a highly experienced DBM would be aiming for to cap off their career.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

It's the brass ring. But here's the catch: the job is never posted.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Never posted at all.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

There's no email sent out to the team, there's no listing on the company intranet, there's no formal application process. It is a completely silent fill.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

So instead of a search, a man named Miko Angeles is laterally moved into the corona position from another region.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Let's look at the demographics of this move because the numbers are the foundation of the legal claim here.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Numbers are key.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Miko Angeles, the man who got the unposted job, is 45.2 years old. The plaintiffs who are shut out of the opportunity are all older.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Let's hear the breakdown.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Caldrone is 54.4, Celusta is 55.8, Stats is 56.9, and Williams is 53.5.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

So you have a highly coveted regional director position suddenly filled by someone significantly younger than the veteran staff.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

And without any competitive process whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

The justification Circle K gives for this is fascinating. What do they say? Marcella Simonelli, the head of wholesale fuels, submits a sworn declaration. He states that after Bundert resigned, Michelangeles was the only person who came to him and expressed a specific interest in the job.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Wait, really?

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Yeah. Simelli essentially says, hey, none of the plaintiffs approached me to ask for the job, but Miko did, and he already had experience as a director in the Southeast region, so I gave it to him.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Wow. And to bolster this, Circle K's director of human resources submits evidence stating that prior to May 2021, which is over a year after this event, Circle K simply did not have an informal or formal policy requiring job openings to be posted.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

They argue there was no rule saying they had to advertise the job internally.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

This reminds me of a secret menu at a fast food restaurant.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Like an In N Out burger.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Yes. Like ordering an animal-style burger at In N Out. It's not on the board above the register. The only way you can order it is if you already know it exists.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

That's very true.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

How on earth can you penalize employees for not applying for a job or expressing interest in a job if the company never tells them the job is available?

SPEAKER_00 24:44

That analogy perfectly captures the crux of the legal debate here. In the corporate world, is an employer legally obligated to post every single job opening on a public bulletin board?

SPEAKER_01 24:54

I mean, I guess not.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

No. There is no federal law mandating job postings. Companies make lateral moves and promote from within informally all the time. It's often called succession planning.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

But there has to be a limit, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:07

There is. If a company utilizes a secret menu process specifically to hide opportunities from older workers, or to circumvent a competitive process so they can handpick a younger employee while keeping older employees in the dark. That crosses a line. That crosses the line into illegal disparate treatment. The lack of a posting isn't illegal on its own, but it can be powerful evidence of a discriminatory method.

Retaliation Claims After A State Filing

SPEAKER_01 25:32

And the plot thickens because we have to talk about what happened to Galia Williams immediately after Miko Angeles took over this secret West Coast director job.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

This brings us to the retaliation claim.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Yes. Williams is furious about the situation. She believes she was bypassed due to age discrimination, and she actually goes and files a formal complaint with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, the DFEH.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Which is a protected activity under employment law. Right. You cannot be legally punished for filing a good faith discrimination claim with a government agency. That's the bedrock of whistleblower protection.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Well, the documents allege she was punished severely.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

How so?

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Weeks after she files that state complaint, her annual performance review happens. Historically, Williams was a top performer. The previous year, she had a 100% rating.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

That's literally perfect.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

But suddenly, Miko Angeles, who has only been her boss for about three months, gives her a devastating 65% rating.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

A massive, completely uncharacteristic drop.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Huge. She alleges that Angeles invented new goals and metrics after the fiscal year had already ended, and then retroactively punished her for failing to meet these secret post-dated goals.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

That's incredibly underhanded, is true.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

And it didn't stop at the review. Angelus then orchestrates a massive reassignment of the gas stations.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Aaron Ross Powell Shuffling the deck again.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Yeah. He strips Williams of her high-performing, profitable gas stations and replaces them with lower-ranked stations, often located in high crimaria.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Which severely impacts her ability to hit her performance bonuses.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

It's a textbook description of a constructive demotion and retaliation.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Constructive demotives. Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

They aren't firing her outright, which would look too obvious right after she filed the complaint. But they are allegedly altering the terms and conditions of her employment so drastically and making her working life so miserable that she will either fail out on metrics or simply quit out of frustration.

Summary Judgment And McDonnell Douglas

SPEAKER_01 27:25

But here's the reality of the American legal system. You can have all the explosive quotes and missing charity money in the world, but before a jury ever hears a word of it, you have to get past the judge's gatekeeping.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

You do.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

And in 2023, Circle K asked the judge to slam that gate shut. In August 2023, Judge George H. Wu of the Central District of California issues a ruling on Circle K's motion for summary judgment.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

A massive moment for the case.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Can you translate that into plain English for us? What is Circle K actually asking the judge to do here?

SPEAKER_00 27:58

A motion for summary judgment is essentially the defendant Circle K going to the judge and saying, Your Honor, even if you look at all the evidence the plaintiffs have gathered in the light most favorable to them, there is no genuine dispute of material fact here.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

So they're saying there's no real case.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Right. They're saying their case is legally so weak that a reasonable jury could not possibly rule in their favor. So please throw the case out right now and save us the time and money of a full trial.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

It's the ultimate block. They have nothing, dismiss it.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

And to figure out if the plaintiffs actually have nothing, the judge applies a very specific, famous legal test called the McDonnell Douglas framework. Where does that come from?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

It was established by the Supreme Court in 1973 in a case called McDonnell Douglas Corv Green.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

To understand why this test exists, you have to look at the history of civil rights law. In the 1960s and 70s, as anti-discrimination laws took effect, companies stopped putting up signs saying we don't hire older workers or we don't hire minorities.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

That's right. They couldn't be overt about it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Exactly. The discrimination went underground. The Supreme Court realized that plaintiffs almost never have a signed memo to racism or ageism. So they created this framework as a way to analyze circumstantial evidence.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

A way to infer what's happening.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Yes, it's a three-step dance designed to smoke out hidden biases.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Okay, so the judge uses this 1970s legal framework. Walk me through how this three-step dance actually works in a courtroom today.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Step one, the plaintiff has the initial burden to establish a prima facie case. This is Latin for at first sight.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

Okay, at first sight.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

They have to show four basic things to prove they even have a right to be in the courtroom. One, they're over 40, meaning they're a member of the protected class.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Got it.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Two, they were qualified for the position. Three, they suffered an adverse action, like being denied a promotion. And four, the promotion was given to someone substantially younger.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

It sounds like a pretty basic checklist. If they manage to check all four boxes in step one, what happens next?

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Then the burden shifts to the employer for step two. The employer has to articulate a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for what they did.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Now this is important. They don't have to prove it was a brilliant business decision or even a fair one. They just have to prove it wasn't based on illegal discrimination.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

So, like Circle K saying, we hired Michelangels because he had regional director experience and was the only one who asked for the job.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Exactly. That easily satisfies step two. And if the employer does that, the burden shifts back to the plaintiff for the third and final step, proving pretext.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Pretext, meaning it's a cover-up.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Right. The plaintiff must show evidence that the employer's so-called legitimate reason is actually a lie, a cover story specifically designed to hide true discriminatory motives.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Aaron Powell That sounds like a grueling test. And in 2023, Judge Wu looks at the plaintiff's age discrimination claims regarding that secret corona position, applies the McDonnell Douglas test, and throws the claims out.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

He does.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

He kills the age discrimination part of the lawsuit right there.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Aaron Powell And his reasoning is entirely focused on a very strict, literal interpretation of step one.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Let's break down his logic because as a layperson reading this, it made my head stand.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

It's very rigid.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Judge Wu rules that the plaintiffs fail step one because they did not apply for the corona position. He says essentially, you cannot claim you were illegally denied a promotion if you never actually submitted an application for the job.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Yep. That was his ruling.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

But we just talked about the secret menu. How do you apply for a secret? The company admitted they didn't post it.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

I completely validate your frustration, and it highlights a major tension in the legal system.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

It just feels so backwards.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Lower district courts are often bound by very rigid interpretations of precedent. Judge Wu noted that Circle K submitted evidence showing they had no formal policy requiring job postings.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

The precedent for a failure to promote claim typically lists applied for the position as a strict required element. Because it was undisputed that none of the plaintiffs handed in a physical application or sent an email asking for the Corona job before Angelus got it, the judge ruled they failed the test. Wow. Without proof of a violated policy, the simple fact remained. They didn't apply, so they can't complain they were rejected.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

It feels like a catch-22 designed to protect corporate secrecy. They keep the job secret so you can't apply, and then the judge says you can't sue because you didn't apply.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

It's a very frustrating loop for plaintiffs.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

But Judge Wu didn't stop there. He also attacked the fourth element of the Prima Facey case, specifically regarding plaintiff Brian Cauldrone.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

The substantially younger requirement.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Right. Remember the edges. Cauldron was 54.4 years old. The man who got the job, Nico Angeles, was 45.2. That is a difference of roughly 9.3 years.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

And Judge Wu points to a Ninth Circuit precedent, a case called France V. Johnson, which establishes a mathematical rule of thumb.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

A mathematical rule.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Yes. It states that an age difference of 10 years or more is presumptively substantial, but an age gap of less than 10 years is presumptively insubstantial.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

So because Cauldron was 9.3 years older instead of 10.0 years older, the judge says the age gap isn't big enough to even imply discrimination. He missed the cutoff by like eight months.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

It comes down to decimal points.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

That's absurdly precise. Why does the court need a mathematical formula to figure out if someone is younger?

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Well, the courts realized that if a 50-year-old loses a job to a 49-year-old, or a 55-year-old loses out to a 52-year-old, allowing a massive federal discrimination lawsuit every single time would paralyze the economy.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

Okay, I can see that.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

There are always going to be minor age gaps in the workforce. The courts had to draw a mathematical line in the sand to separate actual bias from normal, everyday generational shifts.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Ten years became that arbitrary but necessary line. And Judge Wu ruled Caldrone didn't have enough additional evidence to overcome that under 10-year presumption.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

So the age discrimination claims are dead in the water.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

At that level, yes.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

However, there is a tiny silver lining in Judge Wu's 2023 ruling. He does not throw out Galia Williams' retaliation claims.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

That's a crucial distinction. Retaliation is analyzed slightly differently than initial discrimination.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Judge Wu looks at what happened to Williams, the fact that she had historically excellent reviews, and then mere weeks after she files a formal state complaint, she gets her first ever devastating review from a guy who barely knows her.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

It looks highly suspicious.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Furthermore, the judge notes that the metrics used to fail her were apparently altered after the fiscal year ended.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

The timeline is the key there. The extreme temporal proximity between her protected activity, filing the complaint, and the sudden adverse action, the terrible review and losing her good stations creates a strong inference of cause and effect.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Judge Wu writes that a reasonable jury could look at that timeline, look at the retroactive metrics, and conclude that Circle K's excuses are unworthy of credence.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Which means she gets to proceed.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Right. So Williams gets to keep her retaliation claim alive, but the massive age discrimination claims regarding the corona job promotion are dismissed.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

For the plaintiffs, it is a devastating but partial defeat. They are locked out of their primary argument. But in the federal system, a summary judgment ruling is not necessarily the final word.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

And this is where the entire narrative flips.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Yes, it does.

Ninth Circuit Reversal On Secret Jobs

SPEAKER_01 35:26

The plaintiffs, refusing to give up, appeal Judge Wu's decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. And on October 3, 2025, a panel of three appellate judges looks at the exact same set of facts, the exact same documents, and comes to a radically different conclusion.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Aaron Powell A total 180.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

The Ninth Circuit blows the district court's ruling completely out of the water. Let's start with the most infuriating part of the lower court ruling, the failure to apply rule.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Oh, this is great.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

The appeals court absolutely dismantles Judge Wu's logic regarding the secret job.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

They look at the realities of the workplace rather than just a rigid checklist.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

The appeals court cites a previous case, Reed v. Lockheed Aircraft, and states something that feels like profound common sense. It makes little sense to require plaintiffs to demonstrate that they submitted an application when an employer declines to solicit applications and does not announce that a position is available.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Thank you. Finally, some logic.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

It's refreshing, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:26

It really is. The appeals court essentially says that because Circle K chose to operate a secret menu and handpick Miko Angeles behind closed doors, they completely removed the plaintiff's obligation to apply. You can't be punished for failing to apply for a secret.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

It's a massive victory for workers' rights. The court is saying that employers cannot use the lack of a formal application process as an impenetrable shield against discrimination claims if they deliberately hid the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

But to prove that Circle K was acting shady, the plaintiffs needed to show that the company used to post jobs and suddenly stopped for this specific job.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Which leads directly to a massive battle over evidence rules.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Specifically hearsay.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

This is legal nerd territory, but it is deeply important to how trials actually work.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Okay, let's unpack this. In the lower court, the plaintiffs submitted sworn declarations saying, hey, in the past, Circle K always sent out emails or posted on the internet when a regional director job was open. Judge Wu threw those declarations in the trash. He said they were hearsay because the plaintiffs were talking about documents, old job postings, that they didn't physically have in their hands.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

Hearsay is generally defined as an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted in that statement.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

It's a rule designed to keep unreliable rumors out of the courtroom. Judge Wu viewed their memories of old job postings as unreliable rumors.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

But the appeals court swoops in and corrects them. They say, No, Judge Wu, you applied the rule wrong. Can you explain why those memories weren't hearsay? Give me an analogy here, because truth of the matter asserted sounds like word salad.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

It does. Think of it this way: let's say we are in a trial, and I testify. John told me it was raining on Tuesday.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Okay, John says it's raining.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

If I'm offering that testimony to prove that it was actually raining, maybe to prove you needed an umbrella that day, that's hearsay. Yeah. I'm using his statement to prove the truth of the weather. Got it. But what if I'm offering that testimony just to prove that John is capable of speaking English? In that case, it's not hearsay. I don't care if it was actually raining. I just care that John performed the act of speaking.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

I see.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

Here, the appeals court clarifies that the plaintiffs were not offering their memories of old job postings to prove that those old jobs were actually available. That would be proving the truth of the matter asserted. Right. They were offering their memories simply to prove that a pattern of conduct existed. They were trying to prove the company performed the act of posting as standard operating procedure.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

That makes total sense. And because that evidence is now admissible, a jury can hear it. A jury can hear that Circle K used to post jobs, knew these older workers wanted a promotion, and then suddenly decided not to post this specific corona job, keeping it secret until a younger guy was slipped into the role.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Aaron Powell Which leads directly into the third step of the McDonnell Douglas test, destroying the pretext defense.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Aaron Powell This is where the appeals court really takes the gloves off. Circle K's defense, their legitimate reason, was that Miko Angeles was uniquely qualified because he had been a regional director in the Southeast.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

But the plaintiffs had submitted evidence regarding Angeles' actual track record, which the lower court had dismissed as mere opinion.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

The appeals court says, wait a minute, this isn't just an angry coworker's opinion. These are objective performance metrics.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

And the metrics are damning. According to the declarations submitted by the plaintiffs, which, remember, must be assumed true at this stage, when Angeles was a DBM, his productivity scores put him in the bottom 30th percentile of his peer group.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

And his record as a regional director in the Southeast was allegedly even worse.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

A former executive declared that as Southeast Regional Director, Angeles was responsible for 231 independent dealers. Out of 231, over the course of an entire year, Angeles allegedly only managed to meet with 10 of them.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

Just 10.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

He was supposed to travel to each state quarterly, but allegedly only went to Florida and North Carolina once in over a year. If I'm on a jury hearing that the guy who was secretly handpicked for a massive West Coast promotion was in the boder 30th percentile of his peers and ignored 220 of his clients, that completely destroys the corporate narrative.

Why The Ruling Matters At Work

SPEAKER_00 40:52

That's the essence of pretext. If Circle K claims he was uniquely qualified and the evidence shows he was actually a terrible manager who barely did the job, a jury can reasonably conclude that unique qualifications is a lie. And if it's a lie. And if the stated reason is a lie, the jury is legally permitted to infer that the real hidden reason was age. Pretext is all about showing that the employer's explanation is unworthy of credence.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

The final nail in the summary judgment coffin relates to Brian Cauldron and the 10-year rule. Remember, he was only 9.3 years older than Angeles, which Judge Wu said was presumptively insubstantial because of the math.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

The appeals court tackles this head on. They acknowledge the precedent, but they rule that the presumption can be overcome. It's not an ironclad rule if you have other evidence.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

And what evidence did they have?

SPEAKER_00 41:38

The direct evidence of animus we discussed earlier.

SPEAKER_01 41:41

George Wilkins and his quotes.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Yes. The appeals court points to the declarations where Wilkins allegedly told older workers they were out of touch, too old for this business, and pushed them to retire. Right. The court rules that this specific direct evidence of high-level executive ageism is more than enough to overcome a mathematical 9.3 year presumption.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

It's a stunning reversal. The appeals court systematically dismantles every roadblock the lower court put up.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

They really did.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

The failure to apply rule, gone. The hearsay exclusion reversed. The pretext offense pierced. The 10-year rule overcome.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

The result is monumental for the plaintiffs. The summary judgment is reversed. The case is remanded back to the district court. The plaintiffs have finally earned their day in court. They get to present all of this to a jury.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

So if you're listening to this, you might be wondering why you should care about the procedural history of Caldrone v Circle K.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

It's a fair question.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

Whether you're 25 and just starting your career, or 55 and hoping for that final major promotion, understanding how the law views the hidden job market inside your company is vital.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

It's about recognizing the mechanisms of corporate power and how they are regulated.

SPEAKER_01 42:53

This case proves that courts will look at the paper trail, or crucially, the deliberate lack of one. It shows that undocumented policy changes regarding how jobs are posted aren't just minor HR quirks. Right. Sudden, inexplicable shifts in performance reviews aren't just bad management. And those casual, seemingly off-the-cuff break room comments about someone's age or energy level aren't just workplace annoyances.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

They are the building blocks of federal lawsuits. They're the evidence that separates a standard business restructuring from an illegal, discriminatory purge.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

It empowers employees to understand that the chaotic smoke screen of a corporate merger does not invalidate your civil rights.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

Think about the concepts of culture fit or succession planning.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Sure. Very popular terms.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

Very popular terms in HR right now. But at what point does grooming a specific chosen junior employee for leadership cross the invisible line into systemic discrimination against the veterans who actually built the department?

SPEAKER_01 43:56

That's a great question.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

If a company cannot legally tap someone on the shoulder and give them a job without a public internal posting, does that actually make hiring fairer? Or does it just force companies to put on a theater of fake interviews for jobs that are, in reality, already filled in the minds of the executives?

SPEAKER_01 44:14

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Keep an eye out for how your own company handles its next sudden vision. Vacancy. Does the architecture of fairness actually exist, or is it just a facade hiding the magician's sleight of hand?

SPEAKER_01 44:25

And that brings us right back to where we started. The difference between the clean, visible X-ray of a formal application process and the murky, invisible waters of the corporate tap on the shoulder. When the X ray machine is broken, sometimes it takes a federal appeals court to finally turn the lights back on. Thanks for taking this deep dive with us.