Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01689/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01689-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 110
Nature of Suit: Insurance
Cause of Action: 

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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued January 11, 2017

Decided January 13, 2017

Before

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

No. 16-1689

OLIVET BAPTIST CHURCH,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

CHURCH MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United 

States District Court for the 

Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division.

No. 13 C 1625

Gary Scott Feinerman, Judge.

Order

Church Mutual issued a policy to Olivet Baptist Church, which contends that it suffered wind and rain damage from a storm on March 1, 2011, the day after the policy 

went into effect. The insurer concluded that the damage predated the policy and declined to pay the claim. This litigation, under the diversity jurisdiction, followed.

The district court entered summary judgment for the insurer, ruling that the Church 

had failed to show that weather on March 1 caused damage or made existing damage 

worse. 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 245294 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 29, 2016). The district court treated 

most of the insurer’s factual submissions as unopposed, because the Church failed to 

Case: 16-1689 Document: 58 Filed: 01/13/2017 Pages: 2
No. 16-1689 Page 2

contest them in the form required by Local Rule 56.1(b). We have held that the district 

court is entitled to enforce that rule in precisely the way it enforced the rule in this litigation. See, e.g., Flint v. Belvidere, 791 F.3d 764, 767 (7th Cir. 2015); Stevo v. Frasor, 662 

F.3d 880, 886–87 (7th Cir. 2011); Ciomber v. Cooperative Plus, Inc., 527 F.3d 635 (7th Cir. 

2008). Yet the Church’s appellate brief ignores those decisions, even though the district 

judge cited them. Indeed, it ignores the local rule and does not mention the principal 

reason the Church lost in the district court. The Church’s reply brief continues to ignore 

the rule, though the Church does ask us to bypass the subject “in light of all principles 

of equity and justice.” That approach is doomed. An appellant must engage head on the 

reasons it lost in the district court. It cannot hope that the issues will go away. We have 

held that district courts may enforce their local rules on how the summary-judgment 

process is structured. No more need be said to resolve this appeal.

Bending over backward, the district court looked at the expert reports submitted by 

the Church, just to assure itself that no injustice was being committed. It found that one 

of the Church’s expert witnesses had not presented any opinion on the vital causation 

question, and that the other expert, who first examined the property in 2015, lacked 

both relevant experience and a reliable basis for concluding that events of March 1, 

2011, had caused the damage. None of these conclusions is clearly erroneous or an 

abuse of discretion.

AFFIRMED

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