Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-09-02724/USCOURTS-ca7-09-02724-0/pdf.json

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

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*

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

unnecessary.  Thus the appeal is submitted on the briefs and the record.  See FED. R. APP. P.

34(a)(2)(C).

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted March 17, 2010*

Decided March 17, 2010

Before

RICHARD A. POSNER, Circuit Judge

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 09‐2724

MARGARET L. WILSON,

Plaintiff‐Appellant,

v.

KAUTEX, INC.,

Defendant‐Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Northern District of Indiana,

Fort Wayne Division.

No. 07 CV 60

Theresa L. Springmann,

Judge.

O R D E R

In this action under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Margaret Wilson claims

that Kautex, her former employer, subjected her to a hostile work environment, fired her

because of her sex and race, and retaliated against her because she engaged in statutorily

protected activity.  See 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e‐2(a)(1), 2000e‐3(a).  Both parties moved for

summary judgment, but because Wilson did not submit a statement of material facts

supported by appropriate citation, which is required by Local Rule 56.1, the district court

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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No. 09‐2724 Page 2

accepted the facts asserted by Kautex.  After conducting a thorough analysis of Wilson’s

claims, the district court granted Kautex’s motion for summary judgment.

Wilson argues on appeal that summary judgment was inappropriate because

material facts remain disputed and because a jury is required to make any credibility

determinations.  She repeats many of the allegations that she failed to support with citation

to competent evidence before the district court.  But the district court had previously

reminded the parties that they were required to comply with Local Rule 56.1, and Kautex

had notified Wilson that it planned to move for summary judgment and explained what she

would have to do in response.  See Timms v. Frank, 953 F.2d 281, 285 (7th Cir. 1992).  So

strictly enforcing Local Rule 56.1 was well within the district court’s discretion, see Patterson

v. Ind. Newspapers, Inc., 589 F.3d 357, 359‐60 (7th Cir. 2009), even though Wilson is a pro se

litigant, see Greer v. Bd. of Educ., 267 F.3d 723, 727 (7th Cir. 2001).

Nor do we see any error in the district court’s well‐reasoned analysis of Wilson’s

claims.  We too accept the facts asserted by Kautex and view them in the light most

favorable to Wilson.  See Cady v. Sheahan, 467 F.3d 1057, 1061 (7th Cir. 2006).  Kautex hired

Wilson, who is African American, to work as the administrative assistant to Eldon Fuller,

the vice president of operations at Kautex’s facility in Avilla, Indiana.  Fuller was Wilson’s

direct supervisor, but Russ Fatum, the human resources business partner at the Avilla

facility, was responsible for training Wilson and assigning some of her work.  

During Wilson’s first week on the job in April 2005, Fatum asked her to clean and

organize a supply closet that had fallen into disarray.  Later that same week, Fatum

instructed Wilson to attend an offsite meeting and, because she was not familiar with

Avilla, asked her to ride with a male employee who knew the way.  Wilson was offended by

both directives.

Then in May, according to her complaint, Wilson complained about her new job to

Sara Broschay, a human resources employee at Kautex’s corporate headquarters in

Michigan.  When pressed at her deposition for details about this and other later complaints

to Broschay, Wilson recalled that she had told Broschay she was being treated unfairly

because she was required to submit her expense reports on paper instead of through the

electronic system used by her coworkers.  In fact, however, Hollman explained that he

initially asked Wilson to submit paper reports “to ensure she understood the process” and

delayed granting her access to the electronic system because she kept making mistakes.

Fuller and Fatum never knew about Wilson’s conversations with Broschay, and there is no

evidence that Broschay took Wilson’s complaints seriously.

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No. 09‐2724 Page 3

In the weeks that followed, Fuller assigned Wilson to order supplies for the Avilla

facility, but she had difficulty learning Kautex’s electronic ordering program.  When Bryan

Hollman, the controller at the Avilla facility, refused to approve her deficient order

requests, Wilson accused him of “abusing” his power to make her job “as difficult as

possible” and told other employees to submit their supply orders directly to him instead.

Occasionally the facility ran out of supplies because Wilson had not ordered sufficient

quantities, and other times she used unauthorized vendors without permission.  Fuller

asked Fatum to provide “guidance” to Wilson, so Fatum sent her an encouraging e‐mail

with advice on using the computer system.  Hollman also offered Wilson further training.

Throughout this time Wilson had trouble working with other Kautex employees.  At

times she refused to accept assignments from Fatum and insisted that he first talk to Fuller.

She also sparred with Hollman when he denied her deficient order requests.  Other

coworkers complained to Fuller and Fatum that Wilson was “rude, disrespectful, and

uncooperative.”  Fuller discussed these complaints with her in June 2005 and again in

August.  Although Wilson told Fuller that her coworkers did not like her, she did not say or

imply that their antipathy had anything to do with her sex or race.

In August Fuller and Hollman denied Wilson’s request to be reimbursed for cell

phone expenses because her job did not require a cell phone.  Later that month Fatum

discovered that Wilson had, of her own accord, rewarded other employees with gift

certificates.  Fuller and Fatum reminded Wilson that she was permitted to give out these

“recognition awards” only with Fuller’s authorization.  Fuller and Fatum also discovered

that Wilson had worked overtime without permission and reminded her that Fuller had to

authorize all overtime hours.

A series of incidents in November and December 2005 resulted in Wilson being fired.

Wilson asked Fatum if she could purchase a DVD player for the facility; he said no, but she

purchased one anyway.  Then an employee from another facility complained to Fuller that,

when she asked Wilson to reserve a conference room in Avilla, Wilson was rude and

unprofessional.  And after that Wilson bought three tickets to Kautex’s holiday party even

though each employee was permitted to bring only one guest.  When Wilson learned that

she could not bring two guests, she berated Sheryl Ritchie, who was organizing the party,

and demanded a refund for all three tickets.  Ritchie complained to Fatum about Wilson’s

tirade.

Fuller and Fatum told Wilson on November 29 that her performance was

unacceptable and that she would be fired if she did not improve.  In particular they cited

her “poor treatment of other employees,” her difficulties ordering supplies, and her refusal

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No. 09‐2724 Page 4

to take orders from Fatum.  But just a few days after that warning, Wilson had yet another

confrontation with a coworker, gave away more “recognition awards” without Fuller’s

authorization, and once again worked overtime without permission.  Fuller fired Wilson on

December 6 after learning about these incidents.  Fatum wrote Wilson on December 7 to

explain that she had been fired because of her “violation of company rules relating to

payroll practices (unauthorized overtime), unauthorized purchases, unauthorized issuance

of company property (recognition awards) and your general poor demeanor.”

In support of her claim of a hostile work environment, Wilson asserts that she

experienced ten incidents of harassment motivated by her sex or race.  She explains in her

appellate brief that the white, male employees who attended weekly management meetings

with her belittled her by making inappropriate jokes and that once, when she was making

coffee, Hollman walked by and quipped, “Coffee, tea or me?”  She also alleges that on one

occasion Fatum and other white employees refused to eat lunch with her, that Fuller asked

her to wear “tight fitted blue jeans and sexy tops,” and that an unknown Kautex employee

tampered with her car.  But there is no evidence in the record to substantiate these five

incidents.

As for the other five incidents, Wilson’s effort to characterize them as harassment is

frivolous.  Wilson complains about being assigned to clean the supply closet and told to

share a ride to an offsite meeting with a male employee she did not know.  But Fatum asked

Wilson to clean the closet because that was one of the tasks she was hired to perform and

asked her to share a ride to the offsite meeting so she would not have to navigate an

unfamiliar city.  Wilson also complains that she was not allowed to bring more than one

guest to the holiday party, but no Kautex employee was allowed to bring more than one

guest.  And although Wilson complains that she was not issued a company cell phone and

that the troubles she had with Kautex’s computer systems were a result of racial

harassment, her job did not require her to have a cell phone, and Fuller, Fatum, and

Hollman all offered her support and encouragement as she struggled to master Kautex’s

computer systems.  Not only are these complaints trivial, but they have nothing to do with

Wilson’s sex or race.

Wilson’s claim that she was fired because of a discriminatory motive is similarly

flawed.  She produced no evidence that Kautex fired her because of her sex or race.  See

Nichols v. S. Ill. Univ.‐Edwardsville, 510 F.3d 772, 781 (7th Cir. 2007); Sylvester v. SOS

Children’s Vills. Ill., Inc., 453 F.3d 900, 902‐04 (7th Cir. 2006).  Nor did she fare any better

under the indirect method.  Wilson did not establish a prima facie case of discrimination

because she produced no evidence that she was meeting Kautex’s legitimate expectations.

See Dear v. Shinseki, 578 F.3d 605, 610 (7th Cir. 2009).  To the contrary, the record reveals that

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Wilson was unable to perform her assigned duties and all the while was breaking company

rules and mistreating her coworkers.

Wilson’s retaliation claim was also doomed.  She alleged that Fuller asked her to stop

attending weekly management meetings and later fired her because she complained to

Broschay about the Avilla facility’s discriminatory practices.  But there is no evidence in the

record that Wilson ever spoke to Broschay.  In any event, because it is undisputed that

Fuller and Fatum never knew about Wilson’s complaints, their decision to fire her could not

have been made in retaliation for those complaints.  See Tomanovich v. City of Indianapolis,

457 F.3d 656, 668‐69 (7th Cir. 2006).

AFFIRMED.

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