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Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 19-1746 

URIJA ELSTON, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v.

COUNTY OF KANE, 

Defendant-Appellee. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. 

No. 16-cv-4979 — Sara L. Ellis, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED NOVEMBER 6, 2019 — DECIDED JANUARY 28, 2020 

____________________ 

Before EASTERBROOK, MANION, and BARRETT, Circuit 

Judges. 

BARRETT, Circuit Judge. Urija Elston and his friends were 

playing basketball at a park in DuPage County while Brian 

Demeter, an off-duty sheriff’s deputy for neighboring Kane 

County, was watching his child’s soccer game on an adjacent 

field. When Elston and his friends started heckling one another with salty language, Demeter confronted them and demanded that they stop using expletives. Flashing both his 

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badge and gun from under his plainclothes, Demeter also 

warned the group to “watch who you’re messing with.” When 

the boys refused to clean up their language, Demeter grabbed 

Elston by the neck, threw him to the ground, and climbed on 

top of him. At some point during the struggle, Demeter tried 

to pull Elston’s arms behind his back, as though attempting to 

arrest him. Bystanders separated Demeter and Elston, but not 

before Demeter could rip Elston’s shirt in an attempt to keep 

hold of him. 

After the fight broke up, Demeter called 911 from his personal cell phone, identifying himself as a police officer in need 

of assistance. When Elston’s father, whom Elston had called 

for help, arrived at the park, Demeter explained the incident 

by saying something along the lines of “I just lost it” or “I 

snapped.” He then told Elston’s father that he was a police 

officer attempting to take Elston into custody for disorderly 

conduct and that he intended to turn Elston over to the Aurora 

Police Department. 

Elston was never charged with any offense, but Demeter 

pleaded guilty to violating Aurora’s ordinance against battery. Elston then sued Demeter under both 42 U.S.C. § 1983 

and Illinois state law, winning a default judgment and an 

award of $110,000 in compensatory damages. 

Elston also sued Kane County under Illinois’s Tort Immunity Act, which provides that “[a] local public entity is empowered and directed to pay any tort judgment or settlement 

for compensatory damages ... for which it or an employee 

while acting within the scope of his employment is 

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No. 19-1746 3 

liable ... .” 745 ILCS 10/9-102.1 Elston maintained that the 

County was obligated to pay the judgment that he had obtained against Demeter because Demeter was acting within 

the scope of his employment during the assault. The County 

moved for summary judgment, the district court granted the 

motion, and Elston appeals that determination. But the district court got it right. As a matter of law, Demeter was acting 

as a private citizen, not within the scope of his duties as a sheriff’s deputy, when he injured Elston. 

Under Illinois law, there are three necessary criteria for an 

employee’s action to be within the scope of his employment. 

First, the relevant conduct must be of the kind that the employee was employed to perform. Second, the conduct must 

have occurred substantially within the time and space limits 

authorized by the employment. And third, the conduct must 

have been motivated, at least in part, by a purpose to serve 

the employer. See Adames v. Sheahan, 909 N.E.2d 742, 755 (Ill. 

2009) (citing RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF AGENCY § 228 (AM.

LAW INST. 1958)). Because “all three criteria ... must be met,” 

1 The County correctly argues that the Kane County Sheriff’s Office 

was Demeter’s employer and thus the “local public entity” that Elston 

needed to sue under the Act. See Carver v. Sheriff of LaSalle Cty., 787 N.E.2d 

127, 138 (Ill. 2003) (holding that the Sheriff’s Office is the “local public entity” under section 10/9-102). The County is also a necessary party, but that 

is because it is ultimately responsible for funding any judgment entered 

against the Sheriff’s Office—not because it is the “local public entity” that 

employs Demeter. Carver v. Sheriff of LaSalle Cty., 324 F.3d 947, 948 (7th Cir. 

2009) (“[A] county in Illinois is a necessary party in any suit seeking damages from an independently elected county officer ... in an official capacity.”). But because Elston cannot recover under the Act in any event, it 

would be futile for him to amend his complaint to add the Sheriff’s Office 

as a defendant. 

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failure to establish any one of them is sufficient to place conduct outside the scope of employment. Id. Thus, to survive the 

County’s motion for summary judgment, Demeter must show 

that a reasonable jury could find in his favor on all three criteria. 

The parties dispute whether Demeter’s action satisfied the 

first criterion—i.e., whether the conduct was of the kind that 

Demeter would perform as a sheriff’s deputy. We’re willing 

to assume for the sake of argument that it was. Even so, Elston 

cannot succeed because he has not met his burden on the second and third criteria. 

On the second, Elston must show that there is a genuine 

dispute of material fact with respect to whether Demeter’s 

conduct occurred substantially within the time and space limits authorized by his employment. See Anderson v. Liberty 

Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248–49 (1986). In general, the fact that 

an employee engaged in conduct outside of work hours, 

standing alone, is not dispositive. See Brown v. King, 767 

N.E.2d 357, 361 (Ill. App. Ct. 2001) (“The fact that [an employee] was off duty at the time of the incident does not establish, as a matter of law, that he was acting outside the scope 

of his employment.”). Nor is the mere fact that conduct occurred outside of the spatial boundaries of one’s employment. 

See RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF AGENCY § 234 cmt. a (AM. LAW.

INST. 1958) (“One may be a servant, although a bad servant, in 

performing his master’s business at a forbidden place if the 

place is within the general territory in which the servant is 

employed.”). The determination is a matter of degree: it is dependent on the interaction between both time and place, in 

light of all the facts. See id. § 234 cmts. b & c. 

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No. 19-1746 5 

Here, that interaction leads to only one conclusion: that 

Demeter was not acting substantially within the time and 

space limits authorized by his employment. Demeter was not 

on duty during his altercation with Elston; he was spending 

his day off with his family, watching his child’s soccer game. 

Demeter was not in uniform when he attacked Elston; he was 

dressed in a t-shirt and shorts. And the assault took place in 

DuPage County, while Demeter is authorized as a sheriff’s 

deputy only in Kane County. Thus, Demeter was neither on 

the clock nor within his jurisdiction when he attacked Elston. 

That, combined with the facts that Demeter was in casual 

dress and on a family outing, dictates a finding against Elston 

on this element. 

Likewise, no reasonable jury could find for Elston on the 

third criterion—that Demeter’s conduct was caused, at least 

in part, by a purpose to serve the Sheriff’s Office. See Anderson, 

477 U.S. at 248–49. We’ve characterized the inquiry as whether 

“the employee’s motive, or at least a motive, in committing 

the tort was to serve his employer.” Doe v. City of Chicago, 360 

F.3d 667, 670 (7th Cir. 2004). While a mixed motive may be 

enough to create liability, an employee who acts purely in his 

own personal interest cannot create liability for his employer. 

See Wolf v. Liberis, 505 N.E.2d 1202, 1206 (Ill. App. Ct. 1987). 

Demeter had no authority to make an arrest or take other 

actions to “keep the peace” during the incident. As we’ve 

noted, the Office’s policy prohibits off-duty deputies from 

making arrests or performing other enforcement actions outside the jurisdictional limits of Kane County. It is true that an 

employee’s actions do not automatically fall outside the scope 

of his employment simply because they are prohibited by his 

employer. See Gaffney v. City of Chicago, 706 N.E.2d 914, 923 

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(Ill. App. Ct. 1998). But a plaintiff must show that the conduct, 

despite being nominally prohibited by the employer, was 

nonetheless undertaken to serve the employer’s interests. For 

example, in Gaffney, the court held that an off-duty officer 

acted within the scope of his employment when he negligently stored his unlocked firearm in an unlocked cabinet at 

home. The gun was used by the officer’s son to shoot and kill 

a victim. The court held that the officer served his employer’s 

interest, at least in part, by storing his gun as he did because 

he was a Chicago police officer and “‘on call’ 24 hours a day” 

in the City of Chicago, so he “desire[d] to have the gun accessible in the event of an emergency.” Id. at 922. And that was 

true notwithstanding the fact that the police department’s 

policy prohibited storing official sidearms in that manner. Id.

at 923. 

But not every action motivated by notions of the public interest will count as furthering a government employer’s purpose. For example, in Copeland v. County of Macon, we held 

that a correctional officer who encouraged inmates to physically assault a detainee accused of child abuse did not act in 

furtherance of his county-jail employer’s purpose because the 

jail had no interest in extrajudicially punishing suspected 

criminals. 403 F.3d 929, 934 (7th Cir. 2005). Instead, the jail’s 

only interest was in protecting the public by incarcerating and 

supervising offenders, not determining punishments to impose on its wards. Id.

Like the correctional official in Copeland, Demeter’s conduct did not advance any valid goal of his employer. The 

Kane County Sheriff’s Office had no interest in “maintaining 

the peace” in a neighboring county. And it’s not as though Demeter was responding to an emergency—no one would 

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No. 19-1746 7 

characterize the use of expletives as a crisis. No reasonable 

jury could conclude that Demeter’s actions were motivated, 

even in part, by an intent to serve his employer’s interests. Instead, on his day off with his family, Demeter acted out of 

personal animus to accost, threaten, and physically assault a 

teenager for using foul language within earshot of spectators 

and players at his child’s soccer game. The fact that Demeter 

used his badge, gun, and training in an unauthorized manner 

in pursuit of that purely personal goal does not bring his conduct within the scope of his employment. 

The district court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of 

the County is AFFIRMED. 

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