Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-15-03226/USCOURTS-ca7-15-03226-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 720
Nature of Suit: Labor Management Relations Act
Cause of Action: 

---

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted May 13, 2016*

Decided May 13, 2016

Before

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 15‐3226

LEONARD D. FUQUA,

Plaintiff‐Appellant,

v.

MEGAN BRENNAN, et al.

Defendants‐Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Northern District of Illinois,

Eastern Division.

No. 12 C 6977

Thomas M. Durkin,

Judge.

O R D E R

Leonard Fuqua, a former postal worker, appeals the district court’s (1) grant of

summary judgment for the Postal Service on his claim that he was discriminated against

based on his age, in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, 29

U.S.C. § 633a(a), (c); (2) dismissal of his “hybrid” claims under the Postal

Reorganization Act, 39 U.S.C. § 1208(b), that the United States Postal Service breached a

collective bargaining agreement and that his union breached its duty of fair

representation by failing to challenge the Postal Service’s actions; and (3) denial of his

                                                 

* After examining the briefs and record, we have concluded that oral   

argument is unnecessary. Thus the appeal is submitted on the briefs and record.

See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

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

Case: 15-3226 Document: 29 Filed: 05/13/2016 Pages: 5
No. 15‐3226    Page 2

petition for a writ of mandamus ordering the clerk of the district court to issue a default

judgment against a non‐party. We affirm.

Fuqua brought this suit against the Postmaster General, the Postal Service, the

National Postal Mail Handlers Union (the national union), and the National Postal Mail

Handlers Union, AFL‐CIO/ Local 306 (the union’s local affiliate). According to his

complaint (which he amended five times), Fuqua, a mail handler at the Postal Service’s

O’Hare Air Mail Center, faced a job reassignment in May 2010 after the Postal Service

notified its employees that it was closing the facility. Employees would be transferred to

other facilities through a process in which they bid on reassignments based on their

seniority and position availability. Employees had to submit their bids by June 14, 2010,

or be involuntarily transferred to an open position within a 1000‐mile radius of the

O’Hare facility. The Postal Service published on May 14 an initial list of positions

available, including some positions in Gary, Indiana. As a senior employee, then age 49,

Fuqua planned to bid on the positions in Gary that were closest to his home. But before

he could submit his bid, the list was updated and no longer included those positions.

Fuqua did not bid, and the Postal Service reassigned him to a facility in Kansas City,

Missouri, and directed him to appear for work there on August 14.   

Between May and August 2010, Fuqua on five occasions asked his local union to

file grievances based on what he believed to be violations of the collective bargaining

agreement. In his view, the Postal Service’s bidding process and job transfer violated

the CBA protections for senior employees. He asserted that he was a senior full‐time

employee who was being transferred more than 100 miles from his home, whereas

junior, part‐time flexible employees were being reassigned not more than 100 miles

from their homes. The union never filed a grievance.

In August 2010 Fuqua did not report to his job assignment in Kansas City, and

several months later, on March 26, 2011, he was fired for failure to appear.

In his fifth amended complaint (which named only the Postal Service and the

union’s local affiliate as defendants), Fuqua alleged hybrid claims that the Postal Service

breached the collective bargaining agreement and that the local union breached its duty

to represent him fairly. See 39 U.S.C. § 1208(b). Fuqua also alleged that the Postal Service

discriminated against him based on age when it gave more favorable transfers to junior

employees and transferred him, a senior employee, to a posting far from his Chicago

home and then discharged him.   

Case: 15-3226 Document: 29 Filed: 05/13/2016 Pages: 5
No. 15‐3226    Page 3

The district court granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss the complaint in

part, and denied it in part. The court dismissed Fuqua’s hybrid claims as time‐barred

because he did not file suit until August 2012 and his claims had accrued more than a

year earlier (between April 2010 and March 2011 for claims against the Postal Service,

and between May and August 2010 for claims against the local union)—well‐past the 6‐

month limitations period (borrowed from 29 U.S.C. § 185(a)). The court rejected Fuqua’s

proposal that it should create an extended three‐year limitations period to apply to

“blatant willful egregious” violations of a collective bargaining agreement. The court,

however, did allow Fuqua to proceed on his ADEA claim that the Postal Service

discriminated against him based on age when it transferred and then discharged him.

During the period that Fuqua was amending his complaints, an unusual

procedural glitch occurred. After he filed his third amended complaint (which did not

name the national union as a defendant), Fuqua sought a default judgment against the

national union because it had not filed an appearance in court or responded to his

complaint. Fuqua filed a proposed order of default judgment, which, for reasons not in

the record, was signed by a clerk in the district court and docketed. Several days later

the district court denied the request for default judgment as “inappropriate” because

the national union had in fact appeared before the court, and then withdrawn its

appearance, after Fuqua had removed it as a party on his most recent amended

complaint. Fuqua then petitioned the court for a writ of mandamus to compel the clerk

to issue a certified copy of the default judgment order she had signed. But the court also

denied this petition, stating that the order had been signed “clearly in error” and that it

had set the order aside for good cause.

After the close of discovery, the Postal Service moved for summary judgment on

the age discrimination claim. Fuqua introduced evidence that junior, part‐time flexible

mail handlers received transfers to jobs in the Chicago area, which he deemed a

preferable location.

The district court granted summary judgment for the Postal Service. Regarding

Fuqua’s claim of discriminatory termination, the court determined that Fuqua did not

establish a prima facie case under the indirect method of proof because he did not

produce evidence that he was meeting the Postal Service’s legitimate job expectations

(as he admitted that he never showed up for his job in Kansas City). As for his claim of

discriminatory transfer, the court determined that Fuqua failed to make out a prima

facie case because he did not present evidence that the Postal Service treated similarly

situated younger employees more favorably than he. None of his evidence established

Case: 15-3226 Document: 29 Filed: 05/13/2016 Pages: 5
No. 15‐3226    Page 4

the ages of the employees. And even if Fuqua could establish a prima facie case, added

the court, he failed to raise a fact question whether the Postal Service’s stated reason for

downsizing its workforce—a reduction in force for budgetary concerns—was pretext.

On appeal Fuqua first challenges the district court’s conclusion that his hybrid

claims are time‐barred, and he maintains that the court should have created an

equitable “remedy” in the form of a 3‐year limitations term. He contends that the Postal

Service’s “willful, blatant, and egregious” breach of the collective bargaining agreement

should not be protected by the 6‐month limitations period.   

The district court correctly applied the appropriate 6‐month statute of

limitations. Fuqua’s claim arises under the Postal Reorganization Act, 39 U.S.C. §

1208(b), which is the analogue of § 301(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29

U.S.C. § 185(a). See Truhlar v. U.S. Postal Serv., 600 F.3d 888, 891 n.1 (7th Cir. 2010). We

apply the law construing § 301 to suits against the Postal Service. Id.; Gibson v. U.S.

Postal Serv., 380 F.3d 886, 888–89 & 888 n.1 (5th Cir. 2004); Trent v. Bolger, 837 F.2d 657,

659 (4th Cir. 1988); Abernathy v. U.S. Postal Serv., 740 F.2d 612, 614 (8th Cir. 1984). Thus a

6‐month limitations period applies, and the clock starts running when the employee

knows or should have known that “’no further action would be taken on his

grievance.’” Moultrie v. Penn Aluminum Int’l, LLC, 766 F.3d 747, 751–52 (7th Cir. 2014)

(quoting Chapple v. Nat’l Starch & Chem. Co. & Oil, 178 F.3d 501, 505 (7th Cir. 1999).

Fuqua does not explain why he delayed filing suit against the Postal Service until

August 2012, seventeen months after he was fired. As the district court explained, for

his suit to have been timely, Fuqua’s claims must have accrued no earlier than March

2012. But, as the district court pointed out, a reasonably diligent claimant would have

known before March 2012 that the union was not filing grievances related to his August

2010 requests or March 2011 discharge. Fuqua does not explain why the delay should

be excused or justify why the applicable limitations period should be extended to three

years.

Fuqua next challenges the district court’s conclusion that he failed to make out a

prima facie case that he was transferred discriminatorily based on his age. He contends

that he introduced sufficient evidence that junior, part‐time flexible mail handlers were

proper comparators, who received better transfer assignments than he. And, for the first

time on appeal, he now asserts the ages of these employees.

But the district court was correct that Fuqua had not produced evidence that his

proposed comparators were substantially younger than he, nor can we consider his

new, unsubstantiated allegations that he introduced only on appeal. See Packer v.

Case: 15-3226 Document: 29 Filed: 05/13/2016 Pages: 5
No. 15‐3226    Page 5

Trustees of Ind. Univ. Sch. of Med., 800 F.3d 843, 849 (7th Cir. 2015). At any rate, several of

the named individuals are older than Fuqua, according to his new assertions. Moreover,

“comparators must be similar enough that differences in their treatment cannot be

explained by other variables, such as distinctions in their roles or performance

histories.” Senske v. Sybase, Inc., 588 F.3d 501, 510 (7th Cir. 2009). Fuqua has not

explained how junior, part‐time flexible mail handlers are similarly situated to him—a

senior, full‐time mail handler. See Filar v. Bd. of Educ. of City of Chi.,526 F.3d 1054, 1062

(7th Cir. 2008) (“[D]ifferences in seniority will tend to make two employees dissimilar

for purposes of the plaintiff’s prima facie case.”); Ilhardt v. Sara Lee Corp., 118 F.3d 1151,

1155 (7th Cir. 1997) (full‐time attorneys are not similarly situated to part‐time

attorneys).

Finally, Fuqua challenges the denial of his petition for a writ of mandamus and

argues that the district court had no authority to set aside the default judgment. But as

the district court pointed out, the national union was not subject to a default judgment

because Fuqua had not named it as a defendant in his Second, Third, Fourth, or Fifth

Amended Verified Complaints, each of which supersedes and voids any previous

complaint that named the national union as a defendant. See Flannery v. Record Indus.

Ass’n of Am., 354 F.3d 632, 638 n.1 (7th Cir. 2004). He is not entitled to judgment against

a non‐party. See FED. R. CIV. P. 55(b)(1).

For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s judgment is AFFIRMED.   

Case: 15-3226 Document: 29 Filed: 05/13/2016 Pages: 5