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Parties Involved:
Tubonimi Bob-Manuel
Appellant
Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc.
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted July 22, 2015*

Decided July 22, 2015 

Before 

RICHARD A. POSNER, Circuit Judge 

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

No. 15-1337 

TUBONIMI BOB-MANUEL, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL, INC., 

 Defendant-Appellee.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division. 

No. 12 C 750 

Rubén Castillo, 

Chief Judge. 

O R D E R

After a six-day trial, a jury ruled that Tubonimi Bob-Manuel, a Nigerian-born, 

United States citizen, did not show race- or national-origin based discrimination by his 

former employer, Chipotle Mexican Grill. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 2000e-2. Bob-Manuel 

appeals that verdict, but he does not develop an argument challenging the jury’s ruling 

or any of the district court’s decisions. Accordingly, we dismiss this appeal. 

 

*

 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). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

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

Case: 15-1337 Document: 28 Filed: 07/22/2015 Pages: 2
No. 15-1337 Page 2 

The following facts are presented in a light consistent with the jury’s verdict. 

See Burzlaff v. Thoroughbred Motorsports, Inc., 758 F.3d 841, 843 (7th Cir. 2014). 

Bob-Manuel worked for three years at a Chipotle restaurant in Oak Park, Illinois, and 

repeatedly was reprimanded for poor performance and insubordination. He worked 

under four different managers, all of whom, he said, discriminated against him by 

among other things mocking him, unfairly reprimanding him, denying him training and 

opportunities for advancement, and imposing harsher work conditions on him than on 

his white and Hispanic coworkers. This mistreatment, he said, worsened after he filed an 

administrative charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Later he 

received a disciplinary citation for tardiness and was told that it was “the last write up.” 

He eventually was fired after an incident in which a manager reported that he threw 

dishes in the kitchen, acted disrespectfully, and violated food-safety protocols. 

Bob-Manuel, proceeding on appeal pro se, has filed a voluminous brief that 

recites a litany of grievances against Chipotle. But his “statement of the issues,” see FED.

R. APP. P. 28(a)(5), has little to do with what happened at trial, and he does not develop 

any of these issues into arguments, see id. 28(a)(8). Further, half of the 28-page fact 

section duplicates paragraphs elsewhere in the brief, and nowhere does he provide 

citations to the record. See id. 28(a)(6), 28(e). Although we construe pro se briefs 

generously, an appellate brief still must contain a cogent argument and reasons 

supporting it, with citations to relevant authority and parts of the record on which the 

appellant relies. See Friend v. Valley View Comm. Sch. Dist. 365U, No. 13-3307, 2015 WL 

3644015, at *4 (7th Cir. June 12, 2015); Anderson v. Hardman, 241 F.3d 544, 545–46 (7th Cir. 

2001). Even after Chipotle pointed out the absence in Bob-Manuel’s brief of any coherent 

appellate argument, he submitted nothing in reply. Finally, to the extent that 

Bob-Manuel now suggests that the district court impermissibly permitted Chipotle to 

exercise two peremptory challenges on racial grounds, we cannot review any such 

contention because he failed to provide a transcript of voir dire. See FED. R. APP.

P. 10(b)(2); RK Co. v. See, 622 F.3d 846, 852–53 (7th Cir. 2010); United States v. Brody, 705 

F.3d 1277, 1280–81 (10th Cir. 2013). 

DISMISSED. 

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