Justia U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Dr. Bounds was hired for one year beginning in July 2019 as an at-will employee. In February 2020, Dr. Scott stated that Scott would recommend that Bounds's contract be renewed. Scott notified Bounds and others on March 24 that she would email approved contracts and that they had until March 31 to sign and return the contracts. Upon receiving the contract, Bounds noted that her vacation days had been reduced. Scott told Bounds to contact the Board. Later that day, Bounds became ill and was advised to quarantine for 14 days. Bounds testified that she made inquiries to the Board but never received a reply. On April 1, Scott telephoned Bounds, who had not returned the signed contract. Bounds replied that she wanted her attorney to review the agreement. Scott warned that the Board previously had released another administrator who did not sign her contract by the deadline. The following day, Scott advised Bounds that the Board had requested that her position be posted as vacant. On April 14, Bounds was notified that her position had been posted.Bounds filed suit, 42 U.S.C. 1983, contending that the Board had deprived her of procedural due process by rescinding her contract and posting her position without notice or the opportunity to be heard. The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the defendants. Bounds did not have a property interest subject to due process protections. Bounds had no enforceable expectation as to her continued employment. View "Bounds v. Country Club Hills School District 160" on Justia Law

Brownsburg Community School Corporation requires its high school teachers to call all students by the names registered in the school’s official student database. Kluge, a teacher, objected on religious grounds to using the first names of transgender students to the extent that he deemed those names not consistent with their sex recorded at birth. After Brownsburg initially accommodated Kluge’s request to call all students by their last names only, the school withdrew the accommodation when it became apparent that the practice was harming students and negatively impacting the learning environment for transgender students, other students in Kluge’s classes and in the school generally, and the faculty.Kluge brought a Title VII religious discrimination and retaliation suit after he was terminated from his employment. The district court granted the school summary judgment, concluding that the school was unable to accommodate Kluge’s religious beliefs and practices without imposing an undue hardship on the school’s conduct of its business of educating all students and rejected Kluge’s retaliation claim.The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The undisputed evidence demonstrates that Kluge’s accommodation harmed students and disrupted the learning environment. No reasonable jury could conclude that harm to students and disruption to the learning environment are de minimis harms to a school’s conduct of its business. View "Kluge v. Brownsburg Community School Corp." on Justia Law

In July 2013, Koger began serving a 300-day sentence in Cook County Jail. While incarcerated, he received 42 books by mail. Per Jail policy, contained in the Inmate Information Handbook, inmates can keep no more than three books or magazines (excluding religious texts) in their cell at any time. Koger received a copy of the Handbook. Inmates with excess books can mail them out of the Jail using supplies available at the Jail commissary, can have someone outside the Jail pick up personal property, and are free to donate their books to other inmates. The policy was not strictly enforced during Koger’s stay.In October 2013, Jail administrators warned Koger they would soon search cells and take excess books. On October 5, officers searched the cells and took all but three books from Koger’s cell. Koger did not file a grievance. The Jail acknowledges the search but disputes whether any books were taken and what became of them. The Jail has no policy for dealing with confiscated books. The Jail released Koger on October 24, 2013; he died in 2020.Koger’s suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 has twice previously been before the Seventh Circuit, which affirmed the district court’s summary judgment rejection of Koger’s claim that the county deprived him of his books without due process. Koger received constitutionally sufficient due process surrounding any property deprivation, and presented insufficient evidence to hold the county liable under “Monell.” View "Orozco v. Dart" on Justia Law

Another detainee threw hot coffee on King while the assigned tier officer, Szul, was gone, assisting another officer. When Szul returned, King stated that he needed medical attention. King was not examined until the next day. He was transferred to Stroger Hospital. A jail employee gave King an Inmate Grievance Response/Appeal Form for his failure-to-protect grievance, stating: “Your allegation(s) have been forwarded to the Offices of Professional Review [OPR] and Divisional Superintendent for review and/or investigation. You may follow-up with [OPR]”; “[t]o exhaust administrative remedies, grievance appeals must be made within 15 calendar days." The response to his delayed-treatment grievance stated only that he had been treated at Stroger Hospital and referred to exhausting administrative remedies. King appealed that response. King was later interviewed for the OPR investigation and signed a “Detainee/Complaint Notification,” stating, “I understand that if I do not file a complaint register within 10 days that OPR will close the investigation.” King did not file a complaint register.In King's section 1983 suit, the court granted the defendants summary judgment for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. Although King appealed his delayed-medical-treatment grievance, he failed to give the defendants notice of the claim because it did not allege wrongdoing by any correctional officer. The Seventh Circuit reinstated the failure-to-protect claim. Because the jail’s procedure for grievances that are referred to OPR is so obscure that no ordinary prisoner could understand it, the remedy was unavailable. View "King v. Dart" on Justia Law

Crain, a Black woman, became the Chief of the Environmental Management Service at the VA Center in July 2014, subject to a year-long supervisory probationary period, with a GS-12 pay grade. Before Crain applied, she was told that if she successfully completed her probationary period, the Center would try to get the position’s pay grade increased to the GS-13 level. After Crain assumed the position, her supervisor added responsibilities to the role in an effort to justify a higher pay grade and asked Scaife, an HR classification specialist, to upgrade the role. Scaife concluded that she was unable to “justify anything higher than a GS-12.” Crain alleges that six White service chiefs’ pay grades were elevated to GS-13 or GS-14. During Crain’s tenure as Chief of EMS, several performance and behavior-related concerns arose.In June 2015, Crain was notified that she had failed to satisfactorily complete her supervisory probationary period and was being reassigned to a different role with the same salary. The memo identified multiple “performance-based deficiencies” as the basis for the decision. Months before her reassignment, Crain had initiated an EEOC complaint. After her reassignment, Crain sued under Title VII. The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the VA, rejecting Crain’s claims of disparate pay based on her race and that she was removed as Chief of EMS in retaliation for filing an EEOC complaint. View "Crain v. McDonough" on Justia Law

Officer Sandoval encountered inmate Hacker, who is almost totally deaf, and ordered him to return to his bed. Hacker, unable to hear, did not comply. Sandoval shoved Hacker, who awoke handcuffed to a bed. He filed an administrative grievance and received notice that it had been referred to the Office of Professional Responsibility and the Divisional Superintendent, with a form allowing Hacker to appeal within 15 days. Neither document gave any timeline for OPR’s disposition of Hacker’s grievance. More than three months later, an OPR investigator concluded he could not substantiate Hacker’s claims; his superior officer signed the memorandum to approve the closure of the referral. The document does not state that the grievance process as a whole had ended, nor mention an appeals process. Hacker apparently received no communication from the Superintendent.Hacker had already filed suit. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment, citing failure to exhaust claims under the Prison Litigation Reform Act and to comply with other PLRA requirements, 42 U.S.C. 1997e(a). The Seventh Circuit vacated. The jail’s grievance procedures became unavailable to Hacker after the jail involved OPR; various communications forced Hacker to “go beyond the established system and guess” what he needed to do. One of Hacker’s claims under the ADA and Rehabilitation Act failed because his grievance did not give fair notice that he was requesting a personal listening device; his other claim, concerning missing medications, was not tied to a physical injury as required to recover damages under the PLRA. View "Hacker v. Cook County, Illinois" on Justia Law

In a custody dispute between Hadzi-Tanovic and her former husband, Pavlovich, an Illinois state court ordered that Hadzi-Tanovic’s parenting time with her children be supervised. She filed suit in federal court under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and 1985 against her ex-husband, the children’s guardian ad litem, and the state court judge, alleging they conspired to violate her and her children’s rights to family association and her right to a fair and unbiased trier of fact. The district court dismissed her complaint on abstention grounds.The Seventh Circuit affirmed. It is well established that federal courts do not have jurisdiction to review such state court decisions. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine imposes a “jurisdictional bar” that prohibits federal courts other than the U.S. Supreme Court from reviewing final state court judgments The state court order at issue is final, so the Rooker-Feldman doctrine’s finality requirement is met. Allegations of state court corruption are not sufficient to avoid the application of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. Hadzi-Tanovic has not argued that state law or procedures prevented her from raising her federal constitutional issues in state court. Parties may raise procedural and substantive due process challenges to custody orders in Illinois state court. View "Hadzi-Tanovic v. Johnson" on Justia Law

Williams sought compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(1), citing as “extraordinary and compelling” circumstances the fact that a district court treated him as having a prior conviction for unlawful drug delivery, which increased his minimum sentence, 21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(B), while his Illinois conviction for delivery of cocaine did not satisfy the criteria of a “serious drug felony.”The Seventh Circuit rejected that argument, noting its own precedent. Section 3582(c)(1) addresses some new fact about an inmate’s health or family status, or an equivalent post-conviction development, not a purely legal contention for which statutes specify other avenues of relief with distinct requirements, such as the time limits in 28 U.S.C. 2255(f) or the need for a declaration by the Sentencing Commission that a revision to a Guideline applies retroactively. There is nothing “extraordinary” about a legal error and the law provides methods other than compassionate release for dealing with those claims.Williams also argued that he has a spotless conduct record in prison, has completed educational programs that will allow him to participate in society, and has a greater risk of contracting COVID-19 and other diseases in prison. The court rejected those claims for failure to exhaust administrative remedies by presenting them to the Bureau of Prisons. View "United States v. Williams" on Justia Law

In 2018, Escamilla was stationed at Fort Drum. During an on-base medical appointment, he complained of hearing voices that were telling him to commit suicide. He agreed to seek treatment at Samaritan Hospital, where he was admitted to the inpatient mental health unit under New York State Mental Hygiene Law, 9.39(a), which permits the director of a hospital to “receive and retain therein as a patient for a period of fifteen days any person alleged to have a mental illness for which immediate observation, care, and treatment in a hospital is appropriate and which is likely to result in serious harm to himself or others.” Escamilla was discharged 11 days later, with diagnoses of mild depressive disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and autism spectrum disorder.A year later, Escamilla attempted to purchase a handgun from an online retailer, who shipped the gun to a federal firearm licensee in Wisconsin. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System generated a response denying the firearm transfer. Escamilla was prohibited from possessing a firearm under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(4), as a person who “has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution.” The Seventh Circuit affirmed a judgment for the government. Escamilla’s admittance to Samaritan constituted a “commitment” under section 922(g)(4). The court rejected Escamilla’s argument that his hospitalization did not qualify as a commitment because he was there on a voluntary, informal basis. View "Escamilla v. United States" on Justia Law

Xiong is Hmong and speaks English as a second language. He joined the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh as its Director of Affirmative Action in 2018, reporting to Kuether, Associate Vice Chancellor of Human Resources. Kuether found Xiong’s work to be of poor quality. Xiong gave Kuether a self-assessment as part of his annual performance review in which he claimed he was being paid less because he is Hmong. Kuether canceled his review meeting, declined to reschedule it, and did not share the final written performance review with him.When Xiong wanted to hire a compliance officer who had a law degree and would add diversity to the HR department, which was primarily white, Kuether questioned Xiong’s judgment. Xiong recalls Kuether saying “people of color are not a good fit.” Kuether denies saying anything like that. After multiple cross-accusations, Xiong demanded that he no longer report to Kuether. Xiong says he also raised concerns about the HR department’s hiring and promotion policies. The next day, Xiong was terminated for insubordination and poor work performance.Xiong sued, alleging discrimination and retaliation under Title VII. The Seventh Circuit reversed, in part, summary judgment in favor of the University. Because the University fired Xiong one day after his whistleblowing, a reasonable jury could infer that his termination was retaliatory. Employers often have mixed motives for adverse actions against employees. The existence of both prohibited and permissible justifications reserves the question for a jury. View "Xiong v. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System" on Justia Law