Villalpando v. Salazar, No. 10-4086 (10th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CaseThe Court affirmed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendant, the Department of the Interior. Plaintiff-Appellant Villalpando sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Colorado state law, alleging the Department passed him over for a promotion based on his race and national origin. Both Plaintiff and Defendant did not dispute the other’s meeting their respective burdens of proof under Title VII and Colorado case law. In meeting its burden, Plaintiff argued that the real reason behind Defendant’s alleged non-discriminatory reasons for passing him over was pretext for discrimination. However, the Court held that because Plaintiff conceded Defendant’s proffered non-discriminatory reasons, he remained “vulnerable to summary judgment because [his] concession of a lawful motive” removed motive as an issue from a jury’s purvey, “and preclude[d] the inference of a discriminatory motive that the jury could otherwise draw from the fact of pretext.”
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.