Selph

MEMORANDUM **

Darral Selph appeals the district court’s judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) in favor of Farmer Brothers Co.; Farmer Brothers cross-appeals the court’s failure to issue a conditional ruling on its motion for a new trial or remittitur. We affirm the JMOL, and thus have no need to reach the cross-appeal.

Selph argues that he proved a prima facie case of age discrimination, McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 , 93 S.Ct. 1817 , 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), that there was substantial direct evidence of age-based animus and substantial circumstantial evidence that Farmer’s explanation for his termination was untrue, and that there was a legally sufficient basis to *400 uphold the jury’s verdict. Reeves v. Sand-erson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 147 , 120 S.Ct. 2097 , 147 L.Ed.2d 105 (2000),

Regardless of the sufficiency of Selph’s prima face showing, no reasonable juror could have found that Farmer Brothers’ reason for terminating Selph was pretextual. Selph relies on evidence that Owen Purdy told Hiram Triana that “we didn’t want to hire anybody over 40,” and the fact that Triana (who was 14 years his junior and with whom he worked as a team) was not…