Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-02155/USCOURTS-ca7-14-02155-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14-2155

AWOK ANI-DENG,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

JEFFBOAT, LLC,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Southern District of Indiana, New Albany Division.

No. 4:12-cv-00084-SEB-TAB — Sarah Evans Barker, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED JANUARY 7, 2015 — DECIDED JANUARY 27, 2015

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and POSNER and EASTERBROOK,

Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. The plaintiff filed a scattershot of 

discrimination and related claims against her former employer, Jeffboat (a division of American Commercial Lines), 

the nation’s largest inland shipbuilder and second-largest 

manufacturer of barges. The district judge dismissed all the 

claims, some on the pleadings and the rest on summary 

judgment.

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A woman of Sudanese extraction, the plaintiff worked in 

Jeffboat’s shipyard in Jeffersonville, Indiana as a welder 

from January 2006 until she was laid off in October 2011. She 

had been until late in her employment by Jeffboat a welder 

first class. Welders first class do the most difficult—and 

dangerous—welding jobs, such as overhead welding and 

welding in confined spaces. Welders second class do less 

demanding and safer welding jobs, and there are also welders third class, who do even less demanding jobs. In a twoweek period in June 2011, the plaintiff, who had on 12 previous occasions sought first aid for work-related injuries, experienced two more such incidents, becoming dizzy and 

nauseous while welding in confined spaces. At the end of 

the month Jeffboat demoted her to welder third class. (According to the collective bargaining agreement between

Jeffboat and the union that represented the plaintiff, at the

time the plaintiff was demoted a welder first class received 

$21.10 per hour while a welder third class received $15.69 

per hour.) The plaintiff claims that the company demoted 

her in retaliation for her having complained to the EEOC the 

previous February that the company was discriminating

against her because of her sex and national origin.

She was laid off in October 2011, but the layoff was part 

of a general reduction in force based on seniority and in January 2012 the company notified her by certified mail that she 

was being recalled—she hadn’t enough seniority to avoid 

the reduction but she had enough to be among the laid-off 

workers who were recalled. The letter stated that if she 

wanted to return to work she had to notify the company by 

3:30 p.m. on a date in January that was five working days 

after the letter was mailed. She failed to reply within the 

deadline. However, on 6:00 p.m. on that fifth day her husCase: 14-2155 Document: 29 Filed: 01/27/2015 Pages: 7
No. 14-2155 3

band called the company to report that his wife did want to 

return to work. But the company had closed for business at 

3:30, so he was able only to leave a voicemail.

Jeffboat is unionized and its collective bargaining agreement requires an employee, in order to secure his or her seniority, to “report for work within five (5) working days after 

being notified by certified letter to report.” The plaintiff’s 

husband phoned the company on the fifth day, but because 

the call was made after the close of business that day no one 

in the company received timely notice. The company informed the plaintiff that she’d missed the deadline and 

therefore would not be recalled; her employment with 

Jeffboat was over.

The plaintiff never received the certified recall letter that 

noted the deadline, but only because, as she admitted, she 

had failed to apprise the company that she had moved and 

that therefore her address was no longer the address in the 

company’s records. The union’s chief steward and an employee of Jeffboat’s human resources department twice 

phoned her to remind her of the deadline (though no such 

attempt to remind is required by the collective bargaining 

agreement), but they were unable to reach her either time.

The chief steward called a third time, now using his personal 

cell phone, but still failed to reach her. The chief steward 

then tracked down the plaintiff’s husband, another Jeffboat 

employee, on the shipyard premises, and told him of the 

deadline, but as we said he failed to comply.

So far as appears, then, the plaintiff was demoted because of the company’s safety concerns, which seem entirely 

legitimate given the dangerousness of the work and the incidence of safety violations, which have included deaths, see 

Case: 14-2155 Document: 29 Filed: 01/27/2015 Pages: 7
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OSHA Regulation News Release, Feb. 16, 2012, 

www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_ta

ble=NEWS_RELEASES&p_id=21831 (visited Jan. 26, 2015); 

she was laid off as part of a general reduction in force; and 

she would have been recalled if only she’d responded in 

time to the recall notice—and there is no valid reason she 

couldn’t have responded in time. She seems to think that notice would have been timely had she or her husband left a 

voicemail message with Jeffboat at one second before midnight on the fifth day. But that’s wrong because the company would not have received meaningful timely notice. Neither did it receive such notice when the plaintiff’s husband 

left a voicemail message two and a half hours after the office 

that received the message had closed.

The only evidence of discrimination or retaliation against 

the plaintiff is an affidavit by Evelyn Miller, a former employee of Jeffboat who was still employed by the company 

when the plaintiff missed the recall deadline. In fact Miller 

was the other party to the abortive phone calls placed by the 

chief union steward. Miller’s affidavit states that the company’s labor relations manager “would regularly manipulate 

the workforce,” “would review the seniority list for the different classes of jobs in order to find ways in which to terminate the employment of workers,” and had “searched for a 

way to terminate the employment of” the plaintiff in stages, 

first by demoting her from welder first class to welder third 

class “for too many First Aid Visits,” which Miller calls “unusual and not a real reason to demote a worker at Jeffboat,” 

the “real reason” being the plaintiff’s complaints “about how 

she was treated as a woman, as an African and as a nonEnglish speaker by those who had supervision over her 

work.” The affidavit goes on to state that many white and 

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No. 14-2155 5

male welders first class also went to First Aid because of 

overheating “yet, they experienced no demotion or reclassification,” and that anyway the overheating was Jeffboat’s 

fault for failing to provide enough fans. And finally the affidavit asserts that the plaintiff was “laid-off in violation of 

the CBA ... in retaliation to her complaint to the EEOC and 

other complaints.”

The affidavit was entitled to no weight, as it had no 

foundation. “A [lay] witness may testify to a matter only if

evidence is introduced sufficient to support a finding that 

the witness has personal knowledge of the matter,” Fed. R. 

Evid. 602; United States v. Joy, 192 F.3d 761, 767 (7th Cir. 

1999); Visser v. Packer Engineering Associates, Inc., 924 F.2d 

655, 659–60 (7th Cir. 1991) (en banc), though personal 

knowledge can include inferences, id.; Gustovich v. AT&T 

Communications, Inc., 972 F.2d 845, 849–50 (7th Cir. 1992) (per 

curiam)—most of our personal knowledge is inferential. The 

affidavit itself could have contained the requisite evidence, 

since it is under oath. Had Miller’s affidavit stated for example that she had overheard a company official say that he’d

get the plaintiff fired because she was foreign, the affidavit, 

or at least that part of it, would have been admissible. But 

without such first-hand evidence in the affidavit itself—and 

there wasn’t any—Miller needed discovery to establish the 

admissibility of the assertions in the affidavit. The plaintiff’s 

lawyer inexcusably failed to conduct the necessary discovery. His discovery requests for pertinent company records 

missed the district court’s discovery deadline. If it’s true as 

Miller’s affidavit states that the plaintiff’s numerous “First 

Aid Visits” were attributable to the company’s failure to 

provide enough fans, one would expect complaints to have 

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been made by the welders to the union and by the union to 

OSHA. Discovery would have revealed such complaints.

The statement in the affidavit that “too many First Aid 

Visits” are not a “real reason” why a welder is demoted is

hardly credible, since a high accident rate would get Jeffboat 

into trouble with OSHA; but in any event the affidavit does 

not indicate how a human resources officer would know the 

“real reason” for demotion of a welder with injury problems.

The affidavit fails also to indicate what basis the affiant had 

for thinking that white welders and male welders (white or 

black?) who made many First Aid Visits because of overheating were not punished by being demoted, or how the 

affiant learned that the company’s labor relations manager 

was trying to fire the plaintiff in stages—did he tell the affiant that? Did she overhear him tell someone else? There is 

no evidence to suggest that Miller had personal knowledge

of the manager’s supposed scheming.

As for the charge that the plaintiff’s supervisors mistreated her because of her sex, African origin, and language difficulties, Miller’s affidavit should have named the alleged 

miscreants or at least provided some basis for identifying 

them. And contrary to another assertion in Miller’s affidavit,

it is apparent that the plaintiff does speak English, albeit not 

as well as a native English speaker. The chief union steward 

and Miller would have spoken to her in English had they 

reached her on the phone, and even her lawyer at oral argument acknowledged that she speaks “limited” English. 

Although her first deposition was conducted through an interpreter, confirming that she has difficulty with English, at

her second deposition she appears to have understood most 

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No. 14-2155 7

of the questions, which were in English, though at times she

relied on an interpreter.

Without the affidavit, the plaintiff had nothing. The district judge was therefore on sound ground in dismissing her

suit.

AFFIRMED.

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