In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14-1317

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA on the relation of THERESA HILL,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

CITY OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 08 C 4540 — Rebecca R. Pallmeyer, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED OCTOBER 27, 2014 — DECIDED NOVEMBER 14, 2014

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and 

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. When applying for several 

federal grants between 2005 and 2008, Chicago represented 

that it had “formulated an Equal Employment Opportunity 

Plan in accordance with 28 C.F.R. §42.301, et seq., subpart E, 

that was signed into effect within the past two years by the 

proper authority and that it is available for review.” This certification is required by regulations implementing a portion 
2 No. 14-1317

of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 

under which the grants were made. The regulations to 

which the certification refers require that an equal employment opportunity program commence within 120 days of 

the initial grant. So the City was certifying two things: that it 

had a plan and that it would implement a program.

Theresa Hill contends in this qui tam action under the 

False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729–33, that the first certification was false because, although the City had a written plan, 

and implemented an equal opportunity and affirmative action program, the program differs from the plan. For example, although the plan provides that the “Commissioner of 

Personnel” chairs the “Equal Employment Opportunity / Affirmative Action Advisory Council”, the City has not had a 

“Commissioner of Personnel” since a reorganization in 2000. 

That position was replaced by a “Commissioner of Human 

Resources” and the advisory council by an “Executive Diversity Committee”.

The Commissioner of Human Resources testified by 

deposition that she had never heard of an “Equal Employment Opportunity / Affirmative Action Advisory Council” 

and was not familiar with an “Equal Employment Opportunity Plan.” But the Commissioner also testified that the 

City has an equal opportunity and affirmative action program, to which the Department devotes considerable efforts. 

Hill does not contend that the City’s program falls short of 

federal requirements in any way. Instead the claim is formal: 

the program does not follow the written plan. Hill insists 

that the City thus did not “really” have a plan between 2005

and 2008 and is liable for falsely certifying that it did. After 

the United States declined to intervene and adopt Hill’s ar-
No. 14-1317 3

guments, the district court granted summary judgment to 

the City. 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4698 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 14, 2014).

The district court was right to say that the City had a 

plan. Chicago also was implementing the plan’s substance, 

though not all of its details. Any written plan sensibly can be 

understood to allow adaptations. Given the substantial 

agreement between the written plan and what the City was 

doing in fact, no federal agency has parted with money under false pretenses.

More than that: the record does not establish that the 

people in the Police Department and other bureaus who 

wrote grant applications and attached the City’s plan knew 

that the Department of Human Resources was implementing 

a program different from the plan, and without knowledge 

of falsity there cannot be a knowingly false claim, as 

§3729(a)(1), (b)(1) requires for liability.

Doubtless the people who submitted the grant applications knew that bureaucracies tend to develop their own 

folkways. Job descriptions don’t match what employees do 

in fact. Organization charts show a hierarchy that does not 

reflect who actually reports to whom, who has final authority to sign off on a project, or which supervisor handles what 

tasks. A plan may show that four levels of the staff (an original decision plus three levels of review) process equal employment complaints, while only two levels of review are 

used in practice. Departing from the formal documents in 

order to get things done more quickly or accurately is common, and some flexibility is essential when administrators

encounter circumstances that plan-writers did not anticipate. 

Chicago has a huge bureaucracy; what works in one bureau 

may not work in another, and slavishly following a single 
4 No. 14-1317

plan could be counterproductive. Unions that call on members to “work to rule” as an alternative to a strike know that 

nothing cripples a bureaucracy faster than handling everything by the book. No one who stands in line for service at a 

public agency, or waits impatiently for an agency to resolve 

a grievance or issue a license, wants every written procedure

to be followed. Practical accommodations are a relief.

The record shows that Chicago’s Department of Human 

Resources gets the job done pragmatically rather than by following all of a written plan’s details. But as long as it has a 

plan, and does get the job done, the City is in compliance 

with the representations made to obtain the grants.

AFFIRMED