United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted September 2, 2020*

Decided September 4, 2020 

Before 

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge 

MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge 

AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge

No. 19-2572 

TANIESHEIA HARDEN, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

COMCAST CORPORATION, 

 Defendant-Appellee.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division. 

No. 16 C 1931 

Matthew F. Kennelly, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

After Taniesheia Harden was fired from her job in customer service, she sued her 

former employer, Comcast Corporation, for unlawful discrimination and a violation of 

the Illinois Personnel Records Review Act. The district court entered summary 

judgment on Harden’s claim under the Act, and Comcast prevailed at a trial on the 

discrimination claims. Harden challenges only the entry of summary judgment under 

*

 We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs 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). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 19-2572 Page 2 

the Act. Because in opposing summary judgment Harden failed to point to evidence 

showing that Comcast violated the Act, and she cannot do so now, we affirm. 

Harden sought her personnel records after Comcast fired her for performance 

issues. Her last job, after 15 years with Comcast, was as a supervisor at a call center in 

Tinley Park, Illinois. After her discharge, Harden filed a discrimination charge with the 

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Then, a couple months later, she emailed 

Comcast’s human-resources directors, requesting a copy of “all of [her] employee 

records/files.” Comcast mailed her over 400 pages of her employment records. She 

responded by telling Comcast that she had not received her entire personnel file 

because the mailing did not include three specific categories of documents: (1) records 

of her weekly meetings with a supervisor during the last seven months of work, (2) the 

forms Harden completed as a call-center supervisor to document the resolution of 

customer complaints, and (3) email correspondence between her and a former 

subordinate that had led Comcast to place Harden on administrative leave shortly 

before she was fired. Comcast did not respond. 

When Harden did not receive the three groups of further documents that she 

requested after filing her EEOC charge, Harden, represented by counsel, sued Comcast. 

Bringing two sets of claims, she alleged that Comcast unlawfully discriminated against 

her and, by failing to provide the additional documents, violated the Illinois Personnel 

Records Review Act, 820 ILCS 40/2. 

Comcast moved for and received summary judgment under the Act. Noting that 

820 ILCS 40/2 covers only records about a worker’s “qualifications” for “employment, 

promotion, transfer, additional compensation, discharge or other disciplinary action,” 

Comcast filed an affidavit of compliance with the Act. Its human-resources director 

stated that, upon Harden’s request, Comcast mailed her “all documents in Comcast’s 

possession used or relied upon by Comcast to determine Harden’s qualifications for 

employment, promotion, transfer, additional compensation, or other disciplinary 

action.” Acknowledging that it had not, until discovery in this case, sent her the three 

categories of further documents that she wanted, Comcast argued that the Act did not 

require disclosure of those materials. It explained that Harden filed her charge with the 

EEOC before requesting any records, 820 ILCS 40/10(f) excludes “records relevant to ... 

[a] pending claim between the employer and employee,” and the new request fell 

within that exception. (Comcast also contended that her claim failed on the ground that 

she offered no evidence that any nondisclosure harmed her.) In response, Harden did 

not contest Comcast’s statement that the three categories of documents withheld until 
No. 19-2572 Page 3 

discovery fell within an exception to the Act and that Comcast otherwise produced her 

personnel records. Based on Harden’s failure to contest Comcast’s position, the district 

court entered summary judgment for Comcast under the Act. A subsequent trial on the 

discrimination claims resulted in judgment for Comcast. 

Harden, proceeding pro se on appeal, argues that even if her opposition to 

summary judgment was deficient, the district court should have assessed whether a 

reasonable jury could have concluded that Comcast violated the Act. See Gerhartz v. 

Richert, 779 F.3d 682, 686 (7th Cir. 2015) (even if nonmovant does not respond at all, 

district court still must assess whether the moving party has met its burden). But 

Harden invokes this principle incorrectly. First, she attempts to assert, for the first time 

on appeal, that while she was still employed by Comcast and before she filed her EEOC 

charge, she made two requests for her personnel records that Comcast ignored. But we 

must reject her “attempts to inject more facts into the case on appeal than she presented 

to the district court.” Burton v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of Wis. Sys., 851 F.3d 690, 695 

(7th Cir. 2017). Harden waived reliance on any “specific factual arguments that were 

absent from her briefing below” because Comcast never had an opportunity to counter 

them, nor did the district court have a chance to pass on them. Id. Second, and similarly, 

with respect to the three categories of documents that she requested after she filed her 

EEOC charge, she cannot now assert that Comcast needed to cite an exception to the 

Act before she sued. She waived that argument too by failing to raise it in the district 

court. 

Waiver to the side, on our de novo review of the record in the district court, we 

conclude that no evidence suggests that Comcast violated the Act. The Act requires 

that, upon an employee’s request, the employer must allow the employee to “inspect 

any personnel documents which are, have been[,] or are intended to be used in 

determining that employee's qualifications for employment, promotion, transfer, 

additional compensation, discharge or other disciplinary action, except as provided in 

[820 ILCS 40/10].” 820 ILCS 40/2. One such exception is “records relevant to any other 

pending claim between the employer and employee which may be discovered in a 

judicial proceeding.” 820 ILCS 40/10(f). The evidence cited by Comcast and materially 

uncontradicted by Harden in the district court showed that Comcast provided her all 

required documents related to determining her qualifications for employment. 

Furthermore, Comcast permissibly excluded the additional documents that she sought 

after filing her EEOC charge. Those documents, bearing on her performance, were 

relevant to her pending claim, were discoverable in this proceeding, and were in fact 

produced. See Landwer v. Scitex Am. Corp., 606 N.E.2d 485, 489 (Ill. Ct. App. 1992)
No. 19-2572 Page 4 

(employer did not violate the Act by withholding documents, which otherwise would 

be subject to disclosure, based on statutory exception). Accordingly, the district court’s 

ruling on summary judgment was correct. 

We need not consider Harden’s argument that she was not required to show that 

she was harmed by a violation of the Act because she did not satisfy the initial hurdle of 

presenting sufficient evidence of a violation. 

AFFIRMED