United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted January 6, 2015*

Decided January 13, 2015

Before

DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge

RICHARD D. CUDAHY, Circuit Judge

JOHN DANIEL TINDER, Circuit Judge

No. 14-1125

ANDRE SNEED,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

CITY OF HARVEY, ILLINOIS, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division.

Nos. 11 C 6616 & 11 C 7082

John F. Grady,

Judge.

O R D E R

The City of Harvey, Illinois, fired Andre Sneed from his job as a police officer, 

giving as its reason that Sneed had falsely accused a superior officer of assaulting him. 

Sneed contends, however, that really he was fired because he suffers from 

post-traumatic stress disorder and because he spoke out about fraud and corruption in 

* After examining the briefs and record, we have concluded that oral argument is 

unnecessary. Thus the appeal is submitted on the briefs and 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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

 
No. 14-1125 Page 2

the police department. He filed two lawsuits (which were consolidated and resolved 

together) against the City and its mayor, the City’s corporation counsel, the police chief, 

the officer who allegedly assaulted him, and several other coworkers. Sneed principally 

claimed violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12201–12213, and 

the First Amendment. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants 

on all claims, and Sneed appeals. We agree with the district court that a jury could not 

reasonably find for Sneed on any of his claims.

Except as noted, the following facts are undisputed and presented in the light 

most favorable to Sneed, as the party opposing summary judgment. See Kvapil v. 

Chippewa County, Wis., 752 F.3d 708, 712 (7th Cir. 2014); Chaib v. Indiana, 744 F.3d 974, 981 

(7th Cir. 2014). Sneed joined the Harvey police force in 2007 and was assigned to a unit 

that investigated crimes involving gangs and drugs. While Sneed was in that unit, fellow 

officer Archie Stallworth began providing security for an undercover FBI agent he 

thought was a drug dealer. Stallworth eventually was convicted of trying to possess 

cocaine for distribution and also falsifying a police report to impede the FBI’s 

investigation. See United States v. Stallworth, 656 F.3d 721, 723–24 (7th Cir. 2011). Sneed 

had logged in the false report in violation of the police department’s procedures but was 

not charged with any crime. See id. at 725. In November 2008, after Stallworth’s arrest, 

the police department disbanded his and Sneed’s unit and reassigned Sneed.

Sneed injured his shoulder while on duty in January 2009 and was placed on paid 

medical leave. After that he filed a series of administrative charges of discrimination 

with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The first, filed in February 2009, 

accused the police department of age discrimination. The second, filed less than two 

months later in April, alleged that the department had agreed to a monetary settlement 

to resolve the February charge but then failed to tender a check, purportedly in 

retaliation for filing that first charge.

At the end of April 2009, Sneed’s psychiatrist declared him unfit for duty because 

of PTSD. The psychiatrist attributed that condition to Sneed’s involvement in multiple 

shootings while on duty along with “significant paranoia (psychotic episode)” 

experienced after his shoulder surgery. The psychiatrist recommended that Sneed be 

limited to “desk duty and midnight shift,” but the only position of that kind—the late 

shift in the radio room—was filled, so Sneed remained on paid medical leave.

He was still on medical leave a year later, in April 2010, when he followed the 

City’s chief of police, Denard Eaves, to a bowling alley in nearby Dolton, Illinois. When 
No. 14-1125 Page 3

Eaves left the bowling alley, Sneed reported to Dolton police that he was driving while 

intoxicated. Dolton officers responded and took Eaves to the Dolton police station but 

released him without charges. When Eaves exited the building, he saw Sneed standing 

outside the station and called him a “psycho.”

Sneed then hired a lawyer and complained to the City’s corporation counsel, 

Bettie Lewis, that Eaves and other officers were committing unspecified misconduct. 

Lewis and outside counsel tried to investigate Sneed’s allegation but closed the matter as 

“inconclusive” after Sneed and his lawyer failed to submit what they said was evidence 

that would substantiate Sneed’s accusation.

Then in September 2010 Sneed filed a third administrative charge with the EEOC, 

this time accusing the police department of retaliating for his April 2009 charge by 

refusing a reasonable accommodation for his PTSD and not promoting him or raising his 

pay while he was on medical leave. A few months later, in January 2011, Sneed reported 

to the police department’s internal affairs division that unnamed officers were violating 

department rules by working private security details at local schools while on duty.

Sneed resumed active duty in March 2011 once he was medically cleared to do so.

That month and the next he sent several letters to Harvey police officials and the City’s 

mayor, Eric Kellogg, accusing Chief Eaves of corruption, incompetence, attending a 

political fundraiser while on duty, and targeting Sneed in order to harm him or 

terminate his employment. Near the end of April 2011, Commander Cameron Forbes 

instructed Sneed to accompany him to a meeting with another commander to discuss 

one of Sneed’s letters to the department. After that meeting Sneed said he was 

“unlawfully confined” by Forbes and filed a demand under the Illinois Freedom of 

Information Act, 5 ILCS 140, for videos from security cameras in the meeting room. In 

May 2011 the department responded that no video was available because the cameras 

had been inoperable. Two days later Sneed delivered a union grievance to Forbes, who 

accepted it but refused to sign a receipt. Sneed then asked Sergeant John Rizzi, whose 

office was next door, to witness Forbes’s refusal to sign the receipt. While Sneed was 

standing outside Rizzi’s office, Forbes exited his own office, entered Rizzi’s, and shut the 

door.

During this encounter Commander Forbes had no physical contact with Sneed, 

yet immediately afterward Sneed wrote to another sergeant accusing Forbes of having 

“very very forcefully shoved” the door at him, “intentionally attempting to strike” him.

He required medical treatment for a sore shoulder, Sneed continued, because he had 
No. 14-1125 Page 4

blocked the swinging door with his body to stop it from striking his face. Sneed also filed 

a formal incident report accusing Forbes of battery and a claim for worker’s 

compensation stating that the “door was slammed shut onto” his arms. The police 

department investigated and concluded after reviewing security videos that Sneed was

lying. After a pretermination hearing in October 2011, see Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. 

Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 545–46 (1985), the department fired Sneed for falsifying reports 

about the encounter with Forbes. Sneed proceeded to binding arbitration, and in 

January 2013 the arbitrator upheld Sneed’s dismissal after finding that his accusation

against Forbes and his application for workers’ compensation contained “grossly 

inaccurate and incorrect” versions of what occurred and that he had engaged in 

“unbecoming conduct.”

Meanwhile, Sneed had commenced this litigation in September 2011. As noted, he 

principally claimed that the City had violated the ADA by not assigning him to a 

midnight-shift desk job to accommodate his PTSD, and that he was fired in violation of 

the First Amendment for speaking up about fraud and corruption in the police 

department. (Sneed lodged additional claims under federal and state law, including a 

claim of battery against Commander Forbes. Sneed’s appellate brief alludes to some of 

these other claims but does not develop an argument about any of them. See FED. R. APP.

P. 28(a)(8); Ball v. City of Indianapolis, 760 F.3d 636, 645 (7th Cir. 2014).) In granting 

summary judgment for the defendants, the district court assumed that Sneed had been

disabled but concluded that a jury could not find for him on his ADA claim because he 

didn’t dispute that suitable jobs weren’t available when he sought accommodation. As 

for the First Amendment, the court continued, the applicable statute of limitations 

barred resting the claim on events more than two years before Sneed filed suit and, 

regardless, Sneed lacked evidence that his speech—letters accusing coworkers of 

engaging in fraud and corruption—was a motivating factor in his dismissal.

On appeal Sneed argues that his ADA claim should have survived summary 

judgment because, he insists, there is a genuine issue of material fact about whether the 

police department had a “desk duty and midnight shift” position available. Yet Sneed 

never contested the defendants’ evidence that only the late shift in the radio room, which 

was filled, met the work restrictions his psychiatrist had imposed. The ADA requires 

employers to assign disabled employees to vacant positions for which they are qualified 

so long as the accommodation would not be unreasonable or cause the employer undue 

hardship. EEOC v. United Airlines, Inc., 693 F.3d 760, 764–65 (7th Cir. 2012); Amadio v. Ford 

Motor Co., 238 F.3d 919, 928 (7th Cir. 2001). The police department was not required, 

however, to reassign other employees to create a new vacancy for Sneed. See Ozlowski v. 
No. 14-1125 Page 5

Henderson, 237 F.3d 837, 841 n.2 (7th Cir. 2001); Gile v. United Airlines, Inc., 213 F.3d 365, 

374 (7th Cir. 2000); Duvall v. Georgia-Pacific Consumer Prods., L.P., 607 F.3d 1255, 1261 

(10th Cir. 2010).1 Additionally, while Sneed’s PTSD might have constituted a physical or 

mental impairment that substantially limited a major life activity even though the 

condition was temporary, see Summers v. Altarum Inst., Corp., 740 F.3d 325, 329, 332 (4th 

Cir. 2014), Sneed does not dispute that the police department provided paid medical 

leave for the entire time that his PTSD prevented him from performing his regular 

duties, which may itself have been a reasonable accommodation of disability, see Basith 

v. Cook Cnty., 241 F.3d 919, 932 (7th Cir. 2001); Amadio, 238 F.3d at 928; Dark v. Curry 

Cnty., 451 F.3d 1078, 1090 (9th Cir. 2006).

Sneed also challenges the district court’s conclusion that his First Amendment 

retaliation claim is barred by the statute of limitations to the extent it rests on conduct 

occurring more than two years before this action was commenced. Sneed contends that 

the statute of limitations governing § 1983 claims in Illinois is five years. As the district

court correctly recognized, however, a two-year statute of limitations governs § 1983 

actions arising in Illinois. Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 387 (2007); Moore v. Burge, 771 F.3d 

444, 446 (7th Cir. 2014). As for the merits of his First Amendment claim, Sneed repeats 

his contention that the City, Chief Eaves, Mayor Kellogg, and corporation counsel Lewis 

fired him because he complained about fraud and corruption in the police department.

Although a job loss can be a deprivation likely to deter speech, the district court correctly 

explained that Sneed did not submit evidence from which a jury reasonably could find 

that his accusations, even if protected speech, were at least a motivating factor in the 

City’s decision to fire him. See Hobgood v. Ill. Gaming Bd., 731 F.3d 635, 643 (7th Cir. 2013); 

Kidwell v. Eisenhauer, 679 F.3d 957, 965–66 (7th Cir. 2012). Sneed does not dispute that his 

own workplace misbehavior—submitting to the department multiple false documents

relating to the incident with Forbes—was the cause of his dismissal.

1 In his complaint Sneed separately cast the alleged failure to accommodate his 

PTSD as a conspiracy by the defendants actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Sneed could 

not invoke § 1983 to expand or supplant the ADA’s comprehensive remedial scheme. 

See Okwu v. McKim, 682 F.3d 841, 844 (9th Cir. 2012); Latasha v. Hous. Indep. Sch. Dist., 629 

F.3d 450, 456–57 (5th Cir. 2010); M.M.R.-Z v. Puerto Rico, 528 F.3d 9, 13 n.3 (1st Cir. 2008); 

Aslbrook v. City of Maumelle, 184 F.3d 999, 1010–11 (8th Cir. 1999); Holbrook v. City of 

Alpharetta, Ga., 112 F.3d 1522, 1531 (11th Cir. 1997). In any event, the absence of evidence 

from which a jury reasonably could find that the ADA was violated also forecloses 

Sneed’s conspiracy theory. See Sow v. Fortville Police Dep’t, 636 F.3d 293, 304–05 (7th Cir. 

2011); Cefalu v. Vill. of Elk Grove, 211 F.3d 416, 423 (7th Cir. 2000).

 
No. 14-1125 Page 6

We have reviewed Sneed’s remaining contentions, and none has merit.

Accordingly, the district court’s judgment is AFFIRMED.