In the

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 21-1616 

JOANNE KAMINSKI, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v.

ELITE STAFFING, INC., 

Defendant-Appellee. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 1:20-cv-06652 — Franklin U. Valderrama, Judge. 

____________________ 

SUBMITTED* NOVEMBER 8, 2021 — DECIDED JANUARY 19, 2022 

____________________ 

Before ROVNER, SCUDDER, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges. 

*We have agreed to decide this case without oral argument 

because the brief and record adequately present the facts and 

legal arguments, and oral argument would not significantly 

aid the court. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
2 No. 21-1616 

SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. Joanne Kaminski, a Polish-American woman in her fifties, appeals the dismissal of her lawsuit 

against her former employer, Elite Staffing, Inc., for unlawful 

discharge in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 

1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. 

The district court concluded that Kaminski failed to state a 

claim because she did not plead a plausible case of discrimination. Having taken our own fresh look at Kaminski’s complaint, we affirm the district court’s dismissal. In doing so, 

though, we sound a concern that the district court may have 

articulated a pleading standard beyond that imposed by 

Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Supreme 

Court precedent. 

I 

Kaminski’s second amended complaint is far from clear, 

and our takeaways are limited. She seems to say that she 

worked for Elite Staffing, a temporary employment agency, 

for about two-and-a-half years. When assigned to a job, Kaminski traveled to and from the site on a bus equipped with 

security cameras. During her time at Elite Staffing, she never 

received a disciplinary infraction. Nor, she adds, did anyone 

ever reprimand her for poor work or for any other reason. 

In late 2019, Elite Staffing informed Kaminski that the 

warehouse where she was working no longer needed her 

help. As a result, and based on its policy of terminating any 

employee discharged by a host company, Elite Staffing let her

go. At some point following the termination, Kaminski says 

she called Elite Staffing’s human resources department to obtain the names of her former coworkers, but the office declined to supply the information. 
No. 21-1616 3

Kaminski responded by suing Elite Staffing for discrimination under Title VII and the ADEA. After screening her 

complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e) and extending two opportunities to amend, the district court dismissed the case 

with prejudice for failure to state a claim. Relying on summary judgment case law, including our decision in Barricks v. 

Eli Lilly & Co., 481 F.3d 556 (7th Cir. 2007), the district court 

determined that Kaminski failed to plead facts supporting a 

prima facie case of discrimination under either statute. Kaminski’s complaint fell short, the district court explained, because she failed to allege facts showing a connection between 

her membership in a protected class and Elite Staffing’s decision to terminate her. Nor, the district court observed, did Kaminski’s complaint identify any similarly situated employees 

who received more favorable treatment. 

Kaminski now appeals. 

II

Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, entitled 

“General Rules of Pleading,” outlines what a federal complaint must contain to state a claim for relief. To survive a motion to dismiss, the pleading must contain, among other 

things, “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that 

the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2).

Interpreting this requirement, the Supreme Court has explained that a complaint must “contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible 

on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting 

Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). The “[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above 

the speculative level.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. To be sure, 
4 No. 21-1616 

although a plaintiff “need not plead detailed factual allegations to survive a motion to dismiss, she still must provide 

more than mere labels and conclusions or a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action for her complaint to 

be considered adequate.” Bell v. City of Chicago, 835 F.3d 736, 

738 (7th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678). In the employment discrimination 

context, we have said these requirements mean a plaintiff 

must advance plausible allegations that she experienced discrimination because of her protected characteristics. See Graham v. Bd. of Educ., 8 F.4th 625, 627 (7th Cir. 2021). 

Recognizing that Kaminski represents herself, and therefore construing her complaint liberally, we cannot conclude 

that her second amended complaint met these standards. At a 

high level of generality, all agree Kaminski alleges she lost her 

job because of her age, race, and national origin. But Rule 8 

requires more. Beyond saying Elite Staffing wrongfully discharged her, Kaminski includes no factual allegations directly 

or indirectly connecting the termination with her national 

origin, age, or race. It is not enough for the complaint to observe only that federal law prohibits adverse employment actions on those grounds. There must be some facts that make 

the wrongful discharge contention plausible. See Doe v. Columbia Coll. Chicago, 933 F.3d 849, 855 (7th Cir. 2019) (explaining that a plaintiff asserting a discrimination claim “cannot 

rely on ... generalized allegations alone, however, but must 

combine them with facts particular to his case to survive a 

motion to dismiss”). 

The bulk of Kaminski’s allegations focus on bus security 

cameras and phone calls to Elite Staffing’s human resources 

department—events unrelated to her termination. The one 
No. 21-1616 5

detail Kaminski does allege about her discharge is that Elite 

Staffing fired her pursuant to a company policy. But her complaint says no more—nothing allowing us to see a link between any aspect of that policy and her contention that the 

agency discharged her because she is Polish, white, or over 

50. Right to it, Kaminski’s complaint allows no inference that 

Elite Staffing engaged in discrimination. 

While we have no difficulty reaching this conclusion, we 

need to sound a soft note of concern about the approach the 

district court seems to have taken in dismissing Kaminski’s 

second amended complaint. The district court enumerated 

the elements of both a Title VII claim of race discrimination 

and an ADEA claim of age discrimination by drawing on our 

opinion in Barricks. But Barricks addressed whether a plaintiff 

had presented enough evidence to satisfy the McDonnell 

Douglas burden-shifting framework and avoid summary 

judgment. Put differently, Barricks was not about the sufficiency of a pleading but rather about evidentiary sufficiency—and, even more specifically, whether the plaintiff had 

established a prima facie case of discrimination—under 

Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. 

The distinction matters. Satisfying Rule 8 and the accompanying standards articulated by the Supreme Court in 

Twombly and Iqbal does not require a plaintiff to plead a prima 

facie case of employment discrimination. See, e.g., Graham, 8 

F.4th at 627 (citing Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. 506 

(2002)). Put more plainly, a plaintiff need not allege facts 

aligning with her claim’s every element, which she will have 

to prove for her claim to survive summary judgment. She certainly does not need to identify—as the district court seems to 

have suggested—a similarly situated employee who 
6 No. 21-1616 

managed to avoid termination. See Carlson v. CSX Transp., 

Inc., 758 F.3d 819, 830 (7th Cir. 2014) (explaining that, although plaintiffs at summary judgment may need to point to 

similarly situated comparators, plaintiffs need not identify 

comparators in pleadings and often need discovery to identify them). 

To survive screening or a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff 

need only allege enough facts to allow for a plausible inference 

that the adverse action suffered was connected to her protected characteristics. See Graham, 8 F.4th at 627; see also Tamayo v. Blagojevich, 526 F.3d 1074, 1084 (7th Cir. 2008) (interpreting Twombly and explaining that, in the employment discrimination context, avoiding dismissal requires a plaintiff to 

“describe the claim in sufficient detail to give the defendant 

fair notice of what the claim is and the grounds upon which it 

rests” and to allege a right to relief above “a speculative level” 

(cleaned up)). Kaminski’s second amended complaint did not 

meet that standard. 

* * * 

The explanation for what transpired here is obvious. Joanne Kaminski is not trained as a lawyer and, perhaps because of resource limitations, was left to litigate this case on 

her own. All too often that challenge proves too difficult. And 

all we can do is remind litigants, including those who find 

themselves having to proceed pro se, that it is not enough for 

a complaint to allege labels and conclusions without providing facts—some short, plain, and plausible factual narrative 

that conveys “a story that holds together.” Carlson, 758 F.3d at 

826–27 (quoting Swanson v. Citibank, N.A., 614 F.3d 400, 404–

05 (7th Cir. 2010)). A litigant’s best shot at stating a plausible 

employment discrimination claim is to explain, in a few 
No. 21-1616 7

sentences, how she was aggrieved and what facts or circumstances lead her to believe her treatment was because of her 

membership in a protected class. It is the because of allegation 

that was missing here for Kaminski, so we are left to AFFIRM.