A judge has ruled a laborer who is over 60 can proceed to trial with his punitive damages claim against award-winning construction company Hathaway Dinwiddie, in which he alleges a foreman called him an “old man” and a “cockroach” and that he was terminated after a 2022 trip to Mexico to visit his metastatic cancer-stricken father-in-law.
On Monday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter A. Hernandez rejected a defense argument that none of Armando Almejo’s alleged tormenters had any role in forming company policy. The judge also said Almejo can move forward with his harassment cause of action in the suit, which also alleges wrongful termination, age and disability discrimination, whistleblower retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Hathaway Dinwiddie won the 2025 AIA California Merit Award for the Mosaic project in San Francisco. The company also built USC’s Brain & Creativity Institute addition, the City of Hope’s medical office building in Duarte and various buildings for the University of California Irvine. Hathaway Dinwiddie’s offices are located downtown on Wilshire Boulevard.
Almejo is a long-term union laborer who worked for Hathaway for decades on major projects, according to his suit, which further states that the years have left him with some physical limitations. Almejo testified during a deposition that starting in 2013 and continuing to his last day at work, he was subjected to humiliating age-based ridicule and demeaning remarks.
According to Almejo, a foreman colleague repeatedly made age-related remarks and humiliating comments, including mocking the plaintiff’s dyed hair and mustache, attempting to find out Almejo’s age and called him an “old man” and a “cockroach.”
The foreman laughed when Almejo told him he was offended by the comments, the suit states. Supervisors and other foremen heard the other employee’s remarks, but instead of intervening or reporting the alleged misconduct, they laughed as well, according to the suit filed in May 2024.
Almejo’s testimony was bolstered by that of three other employees who overheard the foreman’s alleged offensive remarks, the suit further states.
While Hathaway Dinwiddie attorneys contended in their court papers that Almejo received training and was consistently advised to immediately report harassment to his supervisor, the plaintiff’s testimony creates doubt whether the predominant Spanish speaker received usable training presented in English and whether he understood any procedure at all, according to Almejo’s lawyers’ pleadings.
Two members of Hathaway Dinwiddie management gave testimony implying that foremen can wield substantial influence over personnel outcomes and jobsite rules and that they are not just “mere conduits for headquarters,” the Almejo attorneys stated in their court papers.
Almejo was let go in May 2022 after returning from Mexico, where his father-in-law was battling prostate cancer that had spread to his bones, according to the plaintiff’s lawyers’ court papers.
Trial of Almejo’s case is scheduled for Jan. 26, 2027.