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

Bless was employed by the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, 1996-2013. In 2004, Bless earned his law degree and began practicing law in addition to working as a police officer. The Sheriff’s Office requires its employees to request and receive authorization before engaging in secondary employment. In 2004-2008, Bless received the required approval. In 2008, Bless was involved in a collision while on duty. He sustained injuries, was placed on disability leave, and received temporary disability benefits. Shortly after the accident, Bless was elected as a Republican McHenry County Commissioner. Soon after his return to work as a police officer, Bless was transferred to a less desirable shift.Meanwhile, the County discovered that Bless was driving his car while on disability leave although he had a driving restriction. The Office of Professional Review found no records of secondary employment requests for Bless for 2009-2010. Bless claimed that he had submitted those requests. OPR brought filed a complaint with the Merit Board, which found that Bless had engaged in unauthorized secondary employment, violated driving restrictions, and lied to OPR investigators; it directed the Sheriff’s Office to fire Bless. After his termination, Bless filed suit, alleging political retaliation under 42 U.S.C. 1983 (the Sheriff is a Democrat) and race discrimination under section 1983 and Title VII, 42 U.S.C. 2000e. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the rejection of both claims on summary judgment. View "Bless v. Cook County Sheriff's Office" on Justia Law

Chicago offers public-school teachers higher pay if they earn extra college credits. Graham sought a higher salary under this program in July 2015, only to have her application ignored. She tried again in September and was fired on the ground that her application had been backdated, which the Board of Education considered fraud. A hearing officer ordered her reinstated with back pay. Graham alleges the Board did not honor this decision in full, published a declaration that she is a fraudster, and refused to consider her for open positions. Graham sued, alleging violations of 42 U.S.C. 1983 by discriminating against her on account of sex and race and of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by depriving her of pension and health benefits.The Seventh Circuit vacated the dismissal of the complaint. The complaint does not identify other employees who received better treatment from the school system but It is enough for a plaintiff to assert that she was treated worse because of protected characteristics. The school system’s plans are exempt from ERISA. Because the state not only funds the charter schools but also approves their establishment and continued existence, it is not appropriate to treat them as private institutions subject to public regulation. View "Graham v. Board of Education of the City of Chicago" on Justia Law

The Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. 207(a) generally requires that covered workers be paid extra for overtime work, but it exempts from that requirement some retail and service employees who are paid bona fide commissions. Brex auto repair technicians claimed that Brex’s complex payment plan is not a true commission so that under the Act they are paid hourly wages and are entitled to overtime pay. To arrive at a technician’s take-home pay, “Brex starts with the total cost charged to customers for each technician’s weekly repairs and applies a series of divisions, multiplications, and additions, some of which are redundant.” The hourly wage has a floor that applies even if the mechanic’s hourly production is anemic during a particular pay period, which is one and a half times the applicable state minimum wage, rounded up. The alternative wage floor is triggered in only 16 percent of paychecks; 84 percent of Brex paychecks are paid on the commission scale.The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Brex based on the bonafide commission exemption. Undisputed evidence showed that there was substantial hourly and weekly variation in pay and that the guarantees are “computed in accordance with a bona fide commission payment plan or formula under which the computed commissions vary in accordance with the employee’s performance on the job.” View "Reed v. Brex Inc." on Justia Law

Brooks, an African American police officer, made statements on multiple occasions complaining that his employer, the Kankakee, Illinois, favored white officers. The City issued a reprimand letter, ordering Brooks to stop making such statements and warning him that he faced discipline up to and including termination should he engage in further public disparagement. Brooks filed a complaint, alleging that Kankakee had retaliated against him, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-3(a), by failing to promote him and by issuing to him a reprimand letter after he had engaged in protected activity. In response to a motion for summary judgment, Brooks attempted to introduce a new claim alleging that the City’s promotional policies had a disparate impact on minority officers.The district court dismissed Brooks’s disparate impact claim and granted the City summary judgment on his failure-to-promote retaliation claim. The court denied summary judgment on Brooks’s retaliation-by-reprimand claim, concluding that a genuine issue of material fact remained as to whether Brooks’s statements constituted protected activity. The Seventh Circuit affirmed a judgment in favor of the City. The jury was entitled to conclude that each of Brooks’s statements included varying degrees of factual falsehoods. While the district court instructed the jury to find more than legally required (three acts of retaliation), a proper jury instruction would not have made a difference in the outcome. View "Brooks v. City of Kankakee" on Justia Law

A union filed charges of unfair labor practices against Mondelez, a manufacturer of baked goods. An administrative law judge found that the company had unlawfully discharged union officials, 29 U.S.C. 158(a)(1), (3); made unilateral changes to various conditions of employment, related to short-term disability leave, union access to new hires, and employee shift schedules, section 158(a)(1), (5); and failed to timely and completely provide relevant information the union requested, section 158(a)(1), (5). The Board agreed. The Seventh Circuit granted the Board’s application for enforcement. The Board reasonably concluded that Mondelez’s justification for discharging the officials was pretextual. Substantial evidence supported the findings concerning unilateral changes to conditions of employment. It was reasonable for the Board to conclude that Mondelez failed to provide a complete record of the new hires as requested. View "Mondelez Global LLC v. National Labor Relations Board" on Justia Law

Chatman, an African-American, worked as an instructor assistant, 1988-1996. From 1997-2009, she worked as a school library assistant. In 2009, the Board of Education informed her that it was eliminating her position. Chatman learned that the Board had replaced Chatman (age 62) with a younger, non-African American employee in the same role. Chatman filed a charge of discrimination with the Illinois Department of Human Rights and the EEOC and then sued in Illinois state court. The Board settled. In addition to a monetary payment, the district was to arrange for interviews for open positions for which Chatman was qualified. Chatman began identifying available positions but did not receive any job offer. She filed a new charge with the EEOC and later filed suit, alleging violations of Title VII’s anti-discrimination and anti-retaliation provisions, and violation of the anti-discrimination provision of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the Board, finding certain claims barred by the statute of limitations, and, regarding other positions, that Chatman could not establish that she was qualified for the positions, nor could she establish that the Board’s nondiscriminatory reasons for not offering her the positions were pretextual for discrimination. Chatman could not establish that she was denied a job because of her prior protected activity. View "Chatman v. Board of Education of the City of Chicago" on Justia Law

Smith worked for PTI, a company that transports railroad crews to and from their workplaces. Believing that her position was misclassified under the Fair Labor Standards Act and that she was not receiving proper overtime wages, she filed a collective action 29 U.S.C. 216(b). Unlike a class action under FRCP 23(b)(3), an FLSA collective action requires group members to affirmatively opt-in to participate. Her suit was within the two-year limitation period. The district court’s docket sheet shows numerous putative group members consenting to opt-in.PTI noted that Smith had not filed anything except her complaint indicating that she herself wished to participate in the group action. The court held that Smith’s group action could not “commence” until such consent was filed, 29 U.S.C. 256, but the limitations periods had run. The court concluded that Smith’s complaint also failed to allege timely individual claims, and dismissed the case. Smith’s appeal concerned only her individual action. The Seventh Circuit vacated. The court erred by refusing to allow Smith to proceed on her individual claims. Read in the light most favorable to Smith, the complaint contained sufficient factual allegations related to her individual claims to put PTI on notice that she intended to sue it both in an individual and a representative capacity. She explicitly stated as much in the caption. View "Smith v. Professional Transportation,Inc." on Justia Law

The plaintiffs, pilot instructors for United Airlines, filed a class action against the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), their recognized agent for the purpose of collective bargaining, alleging that ALPA had violated its duty of fair representation under the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. 151, by adopting a retroactive pay provision that discriminated against pilot instructors.The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. To establish a violation of the duty of fair representation, the plaintiffs were required to provide evidence from which a jury could conclude that ALPA’s sole motive in adopting the retroactive pay provision was an illicit one. While the record, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, could be read to support the proposition that ALPA’s adoption of the formula was motivated in part by animus toward the pilot instructor minority, the question is whether the evidence establishes that ALPA was motivated solely by a desire to discriminate against pilot instructors. There was evidence that some of the motivation for adopting the formula was a desire for a simple formula that could be easily defended. View "Bishop v. Air Line Pilots Association, International" on Justia Law

Logan, an African American man, was a Chicago Aviation Security Officer. In 2015, he applied for a promotion. He was not selected but was placed on a “Pre-Qualified Candidates” list for future vacancies. Two sergeant positions became available. Logan was second on the list. The city informed him that a city policy made internal candidates ineligible for promotion if they had been suspended for more than seven days in the previous 12 months. Logan had been suspended for more than seven days in the previous year.Logan alleges that he was wrongfully singled out for discipline. After his suspension, Logan complained about being bullied at work and about “discrimination against black officers.” After he filed a grievance, an arbitrator concluded that while Logan committed misconduct sufficient to warrant discipline, the length of his suspension was excessive. The arbitrator ordered Logan's promotion with back pay and benefits.Logan then filed suit, alleging discrimination on the basis of his race and gender and retaliation under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. 2000e. The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the defendants. Other than the fact that Logan is a member of a protected class, there is no evidence from which a reasonable juror could infer that his race caused him to be disciplined. Logan failed to show that his belief that he was opposing an unlawful employment practice was objectively reasonable. View "Logan v. City of Chicago" on Justia Law

In his employment discrimination action, Nichols obtained a judgment of $1.5 million in damages (later reduced to the statutory cap of $300,000) and $952,156 in equitable relief. His attorney, Longo petitioned for $1,709,345 in attorneys’ fees and $4,460.47 in costs under Title VII’s fee-shifting provision, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-5(k). He submitted that his hourly rate was $550 and that he had worked 3,107.9 hours on Nichols’s case; he requested a 15% upward adjustment, arguing that Nichols’s case was “risky”; the successful outcome; and the deterrent impact of a large award.The Seventh Circuit affirmed an award of $774,584.50 in fees and $4,061.02 in costs. Relying on other then-recent fee awards for Longo, the court set the reasonable hourly rate at $360 for attorney work and $125 for paralegal work. The court reduced Longo’s request by 962.1 hours, including 109.2 hours that Longo had billed for trips from his office to the courthouse; 18.5 hours for paralegal work billed at an attorney’s rate; a 10% reduction (298.0 hours) for excessive billing for clerical work; and another 20% reduction (536.4 hours) for general excessive billing. The court permitted Longo 2,145.8 hours at an attorney’s rate and 18.5 hours at a paralegal’s rate and denied Longo fees for litigating the fee petition, noting Longo’s lack of billing judgment and overly voluminous petition. View "Nichols v. Illinois Department of Transportation" on Justia Law