Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-09-01576/USCOURTS-ca7-09-01576-0/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 May 25, 2010*

Decided May 26, 2010

Before

WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

   

No. 09‐1576

JOSHUA REYNOLDS,

Plaintiff‐Appellant,

v.

CHAMPAIGN‐URBANA MASS

TRANSIT DISTRICT and WILLIAM

VOLK, Managing Director,

Defendants‐Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Central District of Illinois.

No. 08‐CV‐2081

Michael P. McCuskey,

Chief Judge.

O R D E R

Joshua Reynolds appeals from the grant of summary judgment on his discrimination

and retaliation claims brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”).  See 42

U.S.C. §§ 12112(a), 12203.  Reynolds worked for the Champaign‐Urbana Mass Transit

District (“MTD”) as a bus operator from 2001 until 2007, when he was fired for falsifying his

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

 Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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No. 09‐1576 Page 2

time cards.  He filed this suit against MTD and its Managing Director, William Volk,

alleging that the company fired him because of a shoulder injury and retaliated against him

for requesting accommodations for this injury.  We affirm.  

The following facts are construed in a light most favorable to Reynolds, the

nonmovant.  Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986).  In July 2004 Reynolds

injured his right shoulder on the job, necessitating surgery and several months of

rehabilitation.  In February 2005, his doctors released him to return to work without

restriction.  According to Reynolds, after he returned he was subjected to a “harassment

campaign” in which he was reprimanded for fabricated infractions of company rules and

subjected to other unspecified forms of retaliation.  Because driving a bus still exacerbated

his shoulder pain, Reynolds also submitted applications for reassignment to other, less

strenuous, company positions and requested permission to take breaks during his driving

shift.  But MTD turned down all of these requests.

In late 2006 MTD discovered that Reynolds had been falsifying his time cards and

overstating the amount of time worked on his shifts.  MTD investigated the matter,

reviewing time‐stamped video from the buses Reynolds drove, incident reports describing

Reynolds’s falsification of time cards, and bus station records bearing supervisors’ notations

about Reynolds’s end‐of‐shift activities and departure times.  The investigation revealed

that for several months Reynolds had been padding his time worked by routinely adding 10

minutes to his shifts for bus inspections that, MTD says, either were never performed or did

not take nearly the amount of time claimed on his time sheets.  Reynolds received overtime

pay for the additional time worked, and MTD considered his falsifications to be equivalent

to theft and grounds for termination.

While the investigation was pending, Reynolds visited an orthopedic surgeon to

treat ongoing shoulder pain.  The doctor again released Reynolds to return to work without

restriction, but recommended that MTD perform an ergonomic study.  Reynolds conveyed

this recommendation to MTD’s medical division on February 2, 2007.  At a meeting three

days later, Reynolds’s manager confronted him about the company’s finding that he had

falsified time sheets.  Reynolds denied the allegations, but MTD fired him.  This suit

followed.

The district judge dismissed Volk from the lawsuit because Reynolds had not

alleged any wrongdoing on his part, and then granted MTD’s motion for summary

judgment.  The court explained that Reynolds had not offered any evidence to show that his

shoulder impairment substantially limited any major life activity, and thus he could not

establish disability under the ADA.  Even if Reynolds qualified as disabled, the court

added, his claim would still fail: MTD submitted uncontroverted evidence that it fired

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No. 09‐1576 Page 3

Reynolds for his misconduct, and not for any reason related to an actual or perceived

disability.  As for Reynolds’s retaliation claim, the court concluded that Reynolds failed to

show that he engaged in protected activity before being targeted with retaliation.  And even

if his complaints about harassment or his accommodation requests could be considered

protected activity, he did not show that similarly situated employees who did not engage in

such activities were treated more favorably.

On appeal Reynolds generally challenges the district court’s ruling on his

discrimination claim.  His appellate brief chronicles his worsening shoulder condition and

complaints he made to supervisors about the effect of his injury on his ability to drive or his

need for accommodation.  He also submits for the first time an assortment of documents,

including copies of his post‐trip inspection reports, his doctor’s recommendation regarding

the ergonomic study, and incident reports describing occasions when he ended his shifts

early due to shoulder pain.  But this evidence was not before the district court at summary

judgment, and we will not consider it now on appeal.  See Dye v. United States, 360 F.3d 744,

748 (7th Cir. 2004).  As the nonmoving party, Reynolds had to identify a genuine issue of

material fact as to whether he suffered from a qualifying disability under the ADA.  See

Anders v. Waste Mgmt. of Wis., Inc., 463 F.3d 670, 675 (7th Cir. 2006).  But Reynolds did not

submit any evidence to show that his shoulder impairment limited his ability to work or

perform any other major life activity; summary judgment was therefore appropriate.  See

FED. R. CIV. P. 56(e)(2).

As for his retaliation claim, see 42 U.S.C. § 12203, Reynolds renews his argument that

the suspicious timing of his termination—three days after his request for an ergonomic

study—presented a triable issue regarding MTD’s motive for firing him.  Reynolds can

establish a claim of retaliation using either the direct or indirect methods.  See Mannie v.

Potter, 394 F.3d 977, 983 (7th Cir. 2005).  Under the direct method, Reynolds could present

direct or circumstantial evidence showing that MTD fired him because he engaged in

statutorily protected activity.  See Phelan v. Cook County, 463 F.3d 773, 787‐88 (7th Cir. 2006).

Alternatively, the indirect method required Reynolds to show that he (1) engaged in

statutorily protected activity; (2) performed his job satisfactorily; (3) suffered an adverse

employment action; and (4) was treated less favorably than other similarly situated

employees who did not engage in protected activity.  See Squibb v. Memorial Med. Ctr., 497

F.3d 775, 788 (7th Cir. 2007).  

Reynolds’s retaliation claim fails under both tests.  Under the direct method,

Reynolds relies mostly on the fact that he was fired shortly after he submitted his request

for an ergonomic study, and he argues that the temporal proximity between these events

reflects MTD’s retaliatory motive.  But suspicious timing alone is almost never enough to

satisfy the causation prong of a plaintiff’s burden at summary judgment.  See Andonissamy v.

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No. 09‐1576 Page 4

Hewlett‐Packard Co., 547 F.3d 841, 851 (7th Cir. 2008); Armhein v. Health Care Serv. Corp., 546

F.3d 854, 859 (7th Cir. 2008); Scaife v. Cook County, 446 F.3d 735, 742 (7th Cir. 2006).  In light

of MTD’s undisputed evidence that it fired Reynolds solely based on his misconduct, this is

not one of those rare cases where a weak inference regarding suspicious timing alone is

enough to create a triable issue.  

Nor can Reynolds make out a prima facie case under the indirect approach.  He did

not introduce any evidence to show that similarly situated employees who did not engage

in protected activity received more favorable treatment from MTD.  See Mannie, 394 F.3d at

984.  In any event, Reynolds cannot show pretext: he did not provide any evidence to rebut

MTD’s position that the company fired him for falsifying his time cards.  See Stone v. City of

Indianapolis Pub. Utils. Div., 281 F.3d 640, 644 (7th Cir. 2002).  Although he maintains that

MTD’s investigation was flawed, and he denies all allegations of misconduct, Reynolds

cannot show that MTD did not honestly believe its stated justification for discharging him.

See Mattenson v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 438 F.3d 763, 767 (7th Cir. 2006).  

Accordingly, we AFFIRM the district court’s judgment.   

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