A federal appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling and reinstated discrimination charges filed by a Nigerian-born Safeway Inc. employee who failed to be promoted.

Abiodun Sotunde, a U.S. citizen who has two bachelor’s degrees and an MBA, had been hired to work in Pleasanton, California-based Safeway’s Denver distribution center in October 2004, according to Friday’s ruling by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver in Abiodun Sotunde v. Safeway Inc.

He resigned from Safeway in May 2013. Mr. Sotunde filed suit against the supermarket chain U.S. District Court in Denver, charging disparate treatment, hostile work environment, retaliation and constructive discharge under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and statute 42 U.S.C. 1981, which also outlaws discrimination, claiming he had been denied promotion because of discrimination.

The District Court granted Safeway summary judgment dismissing all the charges, but a three-judge appeals court panel unanimously reinstated the disparate treatment claims.

The “evidence, viewed as a whole and in the light most favorable to Sotunde, would allow a reasonable fact finder to disbelieve Safeway’s asserted explanations for not interviewing him” for two manager positions, said the ruling.

Among the evidence discussed is the education background of two employees promoted instead of him in 2012. One of the men had no college degree, and the second had only a bachelor’s degree in business, compared with Mr. Sotunde’s two bachelor’s degrees and MBA, but Mr. Sotunde was not even offered an interview, according to the ruling. Among additional evidence, although the warehouse’s director of distribution later asserted he had concerns about Mr. Sotunde, one of the successful candidates suffered from comparable deficits, according to the ruling.

“These discrepancies could lead a reasonable juror to conclude that (the director) gave only pro forma consideration to Sotunde’s application and/or unreasonably inflated the successful candidates’ qualifications while unreasonably denigrating Sotunde’s,” said the ruling, which remanded the case to the lower court for further proceedings.