Subject of 'Flamin' Hot' Movie Sues PepsiCo for Defamation, Fraud and Discrimination: Is That Factual?
Richard Montañez says he has suffered harm: reputation, opportunity and financial
The headlines, I must say, are interestingly worded and not in a positive way:
Ex-janitor sues Frito-Lay over Flamin’ Hot Cheetos origin story
Janitor who claims he 'invented' Flamin' Hot Cheetos sues PepsiCo
Man who says he invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos sues Frito-Lay for denying he created snack
I’d speculate that the focus of those headlines may possibly add insult to injury for Richard Montañez.
The Associated Press headline: “A former PepsiCo executive is suing the company, saying it destroyed his career after questioning his claim that he invented the popular flavor of Cheetos snacks.”
Montañez is confident that what he has experienced has been a “smear campaign.”
In the lawsuit, he claims “… he is the victim of fraud, racial discrimination, defamation, and violations of California’s unfair competition law,” reports Meredith Clark at The Independent.
Dee-Ann Durbin, writing at AP, provides the backstory.
“According to his lawsuit, Richard Montañez began working for PepsiCo as a janitor at its Frito-Lay plant in Rancho Cucamonga, California, in 1977. Montañez was the son of a Mexican immigrant and grew up in a migrant labor camp.
“One day, a machine in Montañez’s plant broke down, leaving a batch of unflavored Cheetos. Montañez says he took the batch home and dusted them with chili powder, trying to replicate the flavor of elote, the popular grilled seasoned corn served in Mexico.
“In 1991, Montañez asked for a meeting with PepsiCo CEO Roger Enrico to pitch his spicy Cheetos, confident they would be a hit with the Latino community. Enrico granted the meeting, liked the presentation and directed the company to develop spicy Cheetos, according to the lawsuit.”
The company was excited about the likelihood for financial growth.
“Montañez said PepsiCo sent him on speaking engagements and actively promoted his story,” Durbin reports.
The problem, you ask?
“Montañez claims the company’s research and development department shut him out of its discussions and testing,” Durbin writes.
He however was promoted to a business development manager in Southern California and later became vice president of multicultural marketing and sales.
Montañez says that the demand for him to publicly speak was so high that he retired from PepsiCo in 2019 to focus on motivational speaking. He published a memoir in 2021. His life story was made into a movie, “Flamin’ Hot,” in 2023.
“But according to the lawsuit, PepsiCo turned on Montañez in 2021, cooperating with a Los Angeles Times piece that claimed others in the company were already working on spicy snacks when Montañez approached them, and that they – not Montañez – came up with the name, “Flamin’ Hot,’” Durbin and the AP report.
Clark details why the defamatory claims were made.
“The filing made reference to a 2021 Los Angeles Times article, in which former Frito-Lay product development employees said no one could recall Montañez pitching a spicy snack that could cater to the Hispanic community,” she reports.
“Montañez was reportedly earning up to $50,000 per speaking engagement, but lost ‘numerous partnerships’ and saw ‘a significant decrease in bookings’ since the article’s publication — having booked ‘just four speaking engagements’ this year,” Clark writes.
The byproducts of that development have been painful for Montañez as he says that his “speaking career and other potential opportunities, including a documentary about his life,” were negatively, unjustly affected, with the descriptive phrase used being, “a devastating affect.”
His attorneys were more pointed in the impact.
“Defendants’ false statements concerning Mr. Montañez have made the public, and potential business partners, distrustful of him and his narrative. His livelihood, and mental health, have directly suffered as result,” the lawsuit reads.
Being distrusted when you are convinced that the facts and evidence are clear to prove your trustworthiness and “your story” as the objectively truthful one, is traumatic. When you then are punished for a false narrative that creates harm, that can’t feel anything other than wrong.
Questions: Why would PepsiCo and former employees communicate in this manner that appears to be contradictory to the specifics of what was communicated in the past and became accepted truth?
Envy? Resentment? Entitlement? Money? Greed? Legitimate good reasons?
Montañez exploiting others or people perceiving and feeling that he did?
“We have interviewed multiple personnel who were involved in the test market, and all of them indicate that Richard was not involved in any capacity in the test market,” Frito-Lay says.
“Instead, the company credited a junior employee in Texas, Lynne Greenfeld, for coming up with the idea and name in 1989. She reportedly contacted Frito-Lay in 2018 after hearing Montañez’s version, prompting an internal investigation,’ Clark reports.
There you go.
Montañez disagrees.
“We built this into a $2 billion industry and I cannot let them take away my legacy or destroy my reputation. I will not let them silence me,” he says.
This is personal. Plus, what people “own” or feel that they have earned and is theirs and now is being experience and interpreted as being unjustly taken away or they fear being taken away, is psychologically overwhelming.
Montañez is confident that he has the facts and evidence to support his claims of defamation, fraud and discrimination. It will all be challenging to prove.
The defendant is also confident.
Where will the court battle outcome land?
What is factual that is known is that Montañez has lost trust with a large part of his business market and maybe, a part of society.
He has, as reported, become distrusted, harming potential relationship connections due to transparent professional and business reputation damage.
That is all real.
Financial losses have occurred. Emotional and pyschological pain is being suffered.
“Montañez is seeking a jury trial, damages, restitution and an order preventing PepsiCo and Frito-Lay from claiming that he is not the creator of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos,” Clark reports.
This legal fight is going to be spicy too.
Who has the facts, evidence and proof to support their case and who can clearly, with emotion, successfully prove it?
I have my thoughts on how the defamation case will develop and play out, yet am unsure and curious about the fraud and discrimination allegations.
I think Montañez and PepsiCo would do well to work through the emotions in mediation and negotiate an out-of-court settlement yet this is likely to end up in court from what is being reported.
Will Montañez win on points of fraud and discrimination? It’s possible yet it’s going to be an uphill task to accomplish. Defamation seems like it may very well have taken place yet my professional gut instinct is that isn’t going to be easy to prove either.
A lot at stake — reputationally, financially, emotionally and psychologically.
Michael Toebe is a reputation consultant, advisor and communications specialist at Reputation Intelligence: Reputation Quality, assisting individuals and organizations with further building reputation as an asset or ethically and responsibly protecting, restoring or reconstructing it.
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