1 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA 

HAMMOND DIVISION 

KENDRA MABRY, et al., ) 

 Plaintiffs, ) 

) 

 v. ) CAUSE NO.: 2:16-CV-402-JVB-JEM 

 ) 

CITY OF EAST CHICAGO, et al., ) 

 Defendants. ) 

OPINION AND ORDER

 This matter is before the Court on Plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to File First Amended 

Complaint [DE 91], filed April 13, 2020, and a Request for Judicial Notice in Support of Atlantic 

Richfield Company and BP Products North America Inc.’s Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Motion for 

Leave to File First Amended Complaint [DE 106], filed May 27, 2020. 

I. Background

 Plaintiffs, residents of the East Chicago Housing Authority (“ECHA”) affordable housing 

development known as the West Calumet Housing Complex (“Complex”) in East Chicago, 

Indiana, filed a Complaint on September 15, 2016. It included claims against Defendants for 

violations of the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”), the Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of 

law, the Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection, and of Plaintiffs’ property rights under 

42 U.S.C. § 1982, arising out of the eviction of the Complex in the summer of 2016. Plaintiffs 

allege that Defendants knew or should have that the Complex was contaminated with toxic 

substances, including arsenic and lead, but hid the extent of the contamination from the Complex’s 

residents. In June or July of 2016, tenants received a directive signed by East Chicago Mayor 

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Anthony Copeland stating that the City of East Chicago and ECHA had recently been informed of 

the contamination and that the Complex residents needed to relocate quickly. 

 Defendants all filed motions to dismiss the original Complaint. On September 27, 2017, 

District Court Judge Joseph S. Van Bokkelen entered two opinions. One dismissed with prejudice 

all claims against Defendant Anthony Copeland in his official capacity as Mayor of East Chicago, 

and dismissed all Plaintiffs’ claims against Mayor Copeland in his individual capacity and 

Plaintiffs’ claims against the City of East Chicago (collectively, “City Defendants”) for violations 

of the FHA, § 1982, and the Equal Protection clause, with leave to file a motion to amend the 

Complaint. [DE 76]. The second dismissed all the claims against BP Products North America, Inc., 

Atlantic Richfield Company, and E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (the “Corporate 

Defendants”). [DE 77]. On February 11, 2020, Judge Van Bokkelen entered a third opinion 

dismissing with prejudice all claims against Defendant Tia Cauley in her official capacity as 

director of ECHA and dismissing Plaintiffs’ claims against Defendant ECHA and Defendant 

Cauley in her individual capacity (collectively, “ECHA Defendants”) for violations of the FHA, 

§ 1982, and the Equal Protection clause, with leave to file a motion to amend the Complaint. [DE 

83]. The claims for due process violations against the City Defendants and ECHA Defendants 

remained pending. 

 On April 13, 2020, Plaintiffs filed the instant Motion to Amend, seeking to amend their 

Complaint to allege claims against all Defendants for intentional violations of the FHA, violations 

of the FHA by disparate impact, violations of § 1982, violations of the Equal Protection Clause 

and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and claims of personal liability against 

Defendants Mayor Copeland and Director Cauley. The City Defendants filed a response on April 

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27, 2020, and on May 4, 2020, Plaintiff filed a reply. On May 27, 2020, the ECHA Defendants 

and the Corporate Defendants filed responses to the Motion to Amend, and the Corporate 

Defendants filed the instant Motion for Judicial Notice. Plaintiffs filed a combined response and 

reply brief on July 2, 2020. 

II. Standard of Review

 A party may amend a pleading with the Court’s leave, and the Court “should freely give 

leave when justice so requires.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). Thus, if the underlying facts or 

circumstances relied upon by a plaintiff are potentially a proper subject of relief, the party should 

be afforded an opportunity to test the claim on the merits. Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 

(1962). The decision whether to grant or deny a motion to amend lies within the sound discretion 

of the district court. Campbell v. Ingersoll Milling Mach. Co., 893 F.2d 925, 927 (7th Cir. 1990). 

However, leave to amend is “inappropriate where there is undue delay, bad faith, dilatory motive 

on the part of the movant, repeated failure to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed, 

undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of allowance of the amendment, or futility of the 

amendment.” Villa v. City of Chicago, 924 F.2d 629, 632 (7th Cir. 1991) (citing Foman, 371 U.S. 

at 183). An amendment is futile if the new claims “could not withstand a motion to dismiss for 

lack of subject matter jurisdiction or for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” 

Moore v. State of Ind., 999 F.2d 1125, 1128 (7th Cir. 1993). 

 To survive a Rule12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the complaint must 

first provide “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,” 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), such that the defendant is given “fair notice of what the . . . claim is and 

the grounds upon which it rests.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) 

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(quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957)); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 677-

78 (2009). Second, the “complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state 

a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 

570); see also Tamayo v. Blagojevich, 526 F.3d 1074, 1082 (7th Cir. 2008). In ruling on a motion 

to dismiss, a court accepts as true all of the well-pleaded facts alleged by the plaintiff and all 

reasonable inferences that can be drawn therefrom. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555-56; Tamayo, 

526 F.3d at 1082. 

III. Analysis

 Plaintiffs seek to amend their Complaint to add additional facts and allegations against all 

Defendants. They allege that Defendants were motivated by racism and disregard for families with 

children when they first developed the Complex on contaminated land and continued to hide the 

extent of the contamination as long as possible, knowing that the residents were primarily 

minorities and families with children, and then evicted the tenants once they could no longer hide 

the extent of the contamination. Plaintiffs allege that the Corporate Defendants were aware of but 

hid the scope of the contamination on the land prior to their 2014 settlement with the EPA, and 

that they coordinated with the City Defendants and ECHA Defendants to evict the residents from 

the Complex and repurpose the land for commercial use rather than remediating it for housing, to 

benefit the Corporate Defendants. In particular, Plaintiffs seek to amend and clarify their claims 

arising under the Fair Housing Act, both for intentional discrimination and disparate impact on 

protected classes, § 1982, and the Equal Protection Clause. 

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A. Discrimination Claims: City and ECHA Defendants 

 The Fair Housing Act makes it unlawful to refuse to rent to, to “otherwise make unavailable 

or deny,” and “[t]o discriminate against any person in the terms, conditions, or privileges of sale 

or rental of a dwelling, or in the provision of services or facilities in connection therewith because 

of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin.” 42 U.S.C. § 3604(a), (b). “A 

violation of the FHA can be proven against a city or other locality by demonstrating that a city 

policy or practice either has a discriminatory intent or, under some circumstances, a discriminatory 

effect, or disparate impact” City of Joliet v. Mid-City Nat’l Bank of Chicago, No. 05 CV 6746, 

2014 WL 4667254, at *22 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 17, 2014), aff’d sub nom. City of Joliet, Illinois v. New 

W., L.P., 825 F.3d 827 (7th Cir. 2016). 

 Plaintiffs seek to amend their claims of discrimination under the FHA against the City 

Defendants and the ECHA Defendants. Plaintiffs allege that they were discriminated against on 

the basis of their race and family status by the City Defendants and ECHA Defendants, who evicted 

them from their homes in the summer of 2016 and allegedly treated them poorly before the 

eviction. Defendants argue that “Plaintiffs still have not shown in their Proposed Amended 

Complaint that the City Defendants’ [sic] intentionally discriminated against them because they 

are Black,” City Def. Resp. Br. at 4 [DE 96], and that amendment would be futile because Plaintiffs 

do not identify any similarly situated people outside of the protected classes that were treated 

differently than Plaintiffs. Despite Defendants’ arguments about appropriate comparators or 

specific factual allegations of intentional discrimination, at the pleading stage a complaint need 

only include the type of discrimination alleged to have occurred, its timing, and the identity of 

those alleged to be responsible. Herndon v. Hous. Auth. of S. Bend, Indiana, 670 F. App’x 417, 

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418-19 (7th Cir. 2016) (“The district court erred when it required Herndon to plead more specific 

facts that would establish the defendants’ discriminatory intent because nothing more was required 

for Herndon to state a claim of racial discrimination” on a motion to dismiss.); Swanson v. 

Citibank, N.A., 614 F.3d 400, 405 (7th Cir. 2010) (reversing district court’s motion to dismiss Fair 

Housing Act claims because “[the plaintiff]’s complaint identifies the type of discrimination that 

she thinks occurs (racial), by whom . . . , and when . . . [and] [t]his is all that she needed to put in 

the complaint”); Bennett v. Schmidt, 153 F.3d 516, 518 (7th Cir. 1998) (“[A] complaint is not 

required to allege all, or any, of the facts logically entailed by the claim. A plaintiff does not have 

to plead evidence. A complaint does not fail to state a claim merely because it does not set forth a 

complete and convincing picture of the alleged wrongdoing.”) (quoting Am. Nurses’ Ass’n v. State 

of Ill., 783 F.2d 716, 727 (7th Cir.1986)) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Tamayo, 526 

F.3d at 1084 (“[O]nce a plaintiff alleging illegal discrimination has clarified that it is on the basis 

of her race, there is no further information that is both easy to provide and of clear critical 

importance to the claim.”) (quoting E.E.O.C. v. Concentra Health Servs., Inc., 496 F.3d 773, 781–

82 (7th Cir. 2007)) (citing Bennett, 153 F.3d at 518; Kolupa v. Roselle Park Dist., 438 F.3d 713, 

714 (7th Cir. 2006)). Plaintiffs have sufficiently stated a claim for intentional discrimination under 

the Fair Housing Act, and amendment of their claim is appropriate. 

 Plaintiffs also seek to amend their Complaint to include allegations that the eviction and 

the actions of the City Defendants and ECHA Defendants around the eviction had a disparate 

impact on Black people and families with children. “[S]tat[ing] a disparate impact claim under the 

FHA requires allegations that Defendants’ actions, despite being unintentional, had a 

‘discriminatory effect’ upon a protected class.” Cty. of Cook v. HSBC N. Am. Holdings Inc., 136 

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F. Supp. 3d 952, 966 (N.D. Ill. 2015) (quoting Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp. v. Vill. of Arlington 

Heights, 558 F.2d 1283, 1289-90 (7th Cir.1977). Plaintiffs have alleged, and included census data 

showing, that the Complex had a higher percentage of Black residents than the city as a whole and 

more Black residents than at least one of the remaining low-income housing complexes 

administered by ECHA. The City Defendants argue that one of the other housing complexes in the 

city had a higher percentage of Black residents than the West Calumet Complex did. The fact that 

a single, smaller complex had a slightly higher percentage of Black residents than that of the closed 

Complex is not fatal to the disparate impact claim at this stage, since it is apparent that the effect 

of the closure had an outsized effect on the protected classes of Black residents. See Chapman v. 

Yellow Cab Coop., 875 F.3d 846, 848 (7th Cir. 2017) (“It is enough to plead a plausible claim, 

after which ‘a plaintiff receives the benefit of imagination, so long as the hypotheses are consistent 

with the complaint.’ A full description of the facts that will prove the plaintiff's claim comes later, 

at the summary-judgment stage.”) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 563). Similarly, the percentage 

of children at the Complex was much higher than that in the rest of the City or other identified 

ECHA facilities. The City Defendants argue that the percentage of children is an inaccurate 

representation of the protected class of families with children, but the percentage of children is an 

adequate indirect measure of the percentage of family unit at this stage of the proceedings. At this 

stage of the proceedings, Plaintiffs’ Proposed Amended Complaint sufficiently alleges a disparate 

impact claim under the FHA and amendment is appropriate. 

 Plaintiffs’ Proposed Amended Complaint also states claims for violations of § 1982 and 

for violations of their Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection. “The purpose of the equal 

protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is to secure every person within the State’s 

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jurisdiction against intentional and arbitrary discrimination, whether occasioned by express terms 

of a statute or by its improper execution through duly constituted agents.” Vill. of Willowbrook v. 

Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564 (2000) (quoting Sioux City Bridge Co. v. Dakota Cty., Neb., 260 US 441, 

445 (1923)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, an equal protection claim in this 

context requires an allegation of government action that intentionally discriminated against 

Plaintiffs because of their membership in a protected class. Gray v. Lacke, 885 F.2d 399, 414 (7th 

Cir. 1989); Trigg v. Fort Wayne Cmty. Sch., 766 F.2d 299, 300 (7th Cir. 1985). Similarly, “[t]o 

state a claim under § 1982, plaintiffs must allege that the defendant had a racial animus, intended 

to discriminate against the plaintiff, and deprived the plaintiff of protected rights because of the 

plaintiff's race.” Whisby-Myers v. Kiekenapp, 293 F. Supp. 2d 845, 850 (N.D. Ill. 2003); see also 

Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb, 481 U.S. 615, 616 (1987) (“Section 1982 guarantees all 

citizens of the United States, ‘the same right . . . as is enjoyed by white citizens . . . to inherit, 

purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.’ The section forbids both official 

and private racially discriminatory interference with property rights.”) (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 1982) 

(citing Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409 (1968)). 

 As described above, Plaintiffs have satisfactorily alleged that the evicted Complex 

residents were members of protected classes, Black and family units, and that the City Defendants 

and ECHA Defendants, government entities and actors, took away their right to lease real property 

at the Complex because of their membership in protected classes. Their motion to amend is not 

futile with respect to their claims against the City Defendants and ECHA Defendants arising under 

§ 1982 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

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B. Discrimination Claims: Individual Defendants 

 Plaintiffs also seek to amend their claims against Mayor Copeland and Director Cauley 

individually. In particular, Plaintiffs seek to allege claims of personal liability against Mayor 

Copeland and Director Cauley for violations of Plaintiffs’ § 1982 rights to property, the Equal 

Protection Clause, and §§ 3406(a), (b) and 3617 of the Fair Housing Act. 

 In order to state a claim for constitutional violations against individual officers, Plaintiffs 

must allege “a causal connection between (1) the sued officials and (2) the alleged misconduct.” 

Colbert v. City of Chicago, 851 F.3d 649, 657 (7th Cir. 2017); see also Palmer v. Marion Cty., 

327 F.3d 588, 594 (7th Cir. 2003) (“§ 1983 lawsuits against individuals require personal 

involvement in the alleged constitutional deprivation to support a viable claim.”). Plaintiffs allege 

that Mayor Copeland personally knew about the contamination of the Complex before 2016 and 

worked with Director Cauley to hide the contamination from the Complex’s residents. They allege 

that Mayor Copeland and Director Cauley were part of a scheme to transfer the property to private 

actors, rather than have the property be remediated for continued residential use, in exchange for 

political support from the private actors. In addition, Plaintiffs specifically allege that Director 

Cauley and Mayor Copeland acted with the intention to discriminate against Black tenants and 

those who were families with children. 

 Although the ECHA Defendants do not include any specific arguments about why the 

proposed amendments are futile as to Director Cauley, the City Defendants argue that the 

additional allegations are insufficient to state a claim to hold Mayor Copeland individually liable 

for participation in the alleged scheme to transfer the land to private actors. While the claims 

against the Corporate Defendants have been dismissed and will not be revived, as discussed below, 

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Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged that Mayor Copeland and Director Cauley personally 

discriminated against members of protected classes by interfering with their rights to lease property 

at the Complex, because of Plaintiffs’ family status and/or because they are Black. Amendment of 

the Complaint to include claims that Mayor Copeland and Director Cauley are individually liable 

for violations of Plaintiffs’ § 1982 rights to property, the Equal Protection Clause, and § 3406(a), 

(b) of the Fair Housing Act is appropriate. The claims arising under § 3617 are addressed below. 

C. Intimidation Claims 

 Plaintiffs also seek to assert new claims arising under § 3617 of the FHA. To state a claim 

under 42 U.S.C § 3617, Plaintiffs must allege that they are (1) “protected individual(s) under the 

FHA” who are (2) “engaged in the exercise or enjoyment of [their] fair housing rights, (3) the 

defendants coerced, threatened, intimidated, or interfered with the plaintiff[s] on account of [their] 

protected activity under the FHA, and (4) the defendants were motivated by an intent to 

discriminate.” Bloch v. Frischholz, 587 F.3d 771, 783 (7th Cir. 2009). Defendants’ interference 

must rise to the level of “a ‘pattern of harassment, invidiously motivated.’” Id. (quoting Halprin 

v. Prairie Single Fam. Homes of Dearborn Park Ass'n, 388 F.3d 327, 330 (7th Cir. 2004). Plaintiffs 

allege that Mayor Copeland’s directive ordering immediate relocation of the Complex residents 

and the subsequent communications about relocation were pretextual since the contamination of 

the property had been known for a long time and the eviction was part of a scheme to turn the land 

over to corporate entities for commercial development. They allege that Director Cauley was part 

of the scheme and involved in the decision to issue the directive and allege generally that the City 

Defendants and the ECHA Defendants engaged in otherwise unspecified “coercive conduct.” 

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 The kind of harassment contemplated by § 3617 is often violent, see Whisby-Myers v. 

Kiekenapp, 293 F. Supp. 2d 845, 851-52 (N.D. Ill. 2003) (“Illustrative cases [of prohibited 

discriminatory conduct] have involved acts such as cross-burning, firebombing homes or cars, 

shooting shotguns, physical assaults, or throwing Molotov cocktails.”) (listing cases), and always 

must go beyond a quarrel or isolated act of harassment to be actionable. Halprin, 388 F.3d at 330 

(describing “other, less violent but still effective, methods by which a person can be driven from 

his home and thus ‘interfered’ with in his enjoyment of it” including sexual harassment and 

economic pressure) (listing cases). Official communications from government officials to tenants 

about a required eviction are not coercion, threats, or intimidation as prohibited by 42 U.S.C. 

§ 3617. Plaintiffs may not amend their Complaint to include these claims against the entities or 

against either Director Cauley or Mayor Copeland individually. 

D. Corporate Defendants 

 As an initial matter, the Corporate Defendants filed a motion requesting that the Court take 

judicial notice of numerous deeds recorded in the time period from 1946 to 1970 that they argue 

confirm the historical ownership chain of the Complex. Plaintiffs argue that the Court may take 

note that certain deeds were recorded but cannot use the deeds to prove the truth of anything 

contained therein. A court may take judicial notice of a document filed in another court not for the 

truth of the matters asserted, but only to establish the fact of such litigation and related filings. 

Opoka v. I.N.S., 94 F.3d 392, 395 (7th Cir. 1996). The Court finds that judicial notice should extend 

only to the fact that these deeds are of public record, without consideration of the matters contained 

within. 

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 All claims against the Corporate Defendants were dismissed on September 27, 2017. They 

argue that the claims against them were dismissed with prejudice and cannot now be amended. 

Plaintiffs now seek to amend their Complaint to reallege the previously dismissed claims and add 

claims against the Corporate Defendants for violations of § 1982, the Equal Protection Clause, and 

the Due Process Clause. 

 Although the claims against these defendants have been dismissed, that does not foreclose 

the instant Motion. As the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has explained, even after dismissal of 

a complaint for failure to state a claim, “the district court retains the discretion to treat a Rule 15(a) 

motion as one also made under Rules 59 or 60.” Camp v. Gregory, 67 F.3d 1286, 1290 (7th Cir. 

1995) (citing Car Carriers, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 745 F.2d 1101, 1112 (7th Cir. 1984); Paganis 

v. Blonstein, 3 F.3d 1067, 1074 (7th Cir. 1993)) (finding no abuse of discretion in the district court 

considering a motion to amend complaint after case was terminated on motion to dismiss). Motions 

to reconsider will be granted in situations of misunderstanding, errors of apprehension, changes in 

the law, or discovery of significant new facts. Broaddus v. Shields, 665 F.3d 846, 860 (7th Cir. 

2011), overruled on other grounds by Hill v. Tangherini, 724 F.3d 965, 967 n.1 (7th Cir.2013) 

(citing Bank of Waunakee v. Rochester Cheese Sales, Inc., 906 F.2d 1185, 1191 (7th Cir. 1990)). 

 In this case, although Plaintiffs have not explicitly requested relief pursuant to Rule 59 or 

60, they argue that there was an error of law or fact in the previous opinion granting the Corporate 

Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss and that new evidence has come to light. In particular, all of the 

Complex residents have now been evicted from the land and plans have come to light to have the 

land repurposed for commercial use rather than remediated for housing, plans that Plaintiffs assert 

will financially benefit the Corporate Defendants. However, the new details do not save the 

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previously dismissed claims, and addition of the new claims is inappropriate since they would be 

futile. As described above, Plaintiffs’ Proposed Amended Complaint fails to state a claim under 

§ 3617 of the Fair Housing Act for harassment by any of the defendants. 

 Plaintiffs seek to assert claims of intentional discrimination against the Corporate 

Defendants. The Fair Housing Act makes it unlawful to “make unavailable or deny” housing and 

to discriminate in housing rental or “in the provision of services or facilities in connection 

therewith,” 42 U.S.C. § 3604(a), (b), and a claim for violation of § 1982 requires Plaintiffs to 

“demonstrate [] interference with property rights,” including the right to lease real property. Lac 

Du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Stop Treaty Abuse-Wisconsin, Inc., 991 

F.2d 1249, 1257 (7th Cir. 1993) (citing 42 U.S.C. § 1982). Plaintiffs do not allege that the 

Corporate Defendants owned or administered the Complex or the land on which it was built, either 

now or while Plaintiffs lived there. Plaintiffs allege that the Corporate Defendants coordinated 

with the City and the ECHA to conceal the dangers posed by the contamination and exerted 

influence on the City and the ECHA to evacuate the Complex so that the Corporate Defendants 

would profit from the planned remediation and development, but there is no allegation that the 

Corporate Defendants themselves acted in any direct way to make housing unavailable to 

Plaintiffs. Although in their reply brief Plaintiffs mention cases in which intentional pollution was 

found to be actionable under the Fair Housing Act, Pl. Rep. Br. at 8 [DE 116], Plaintiffs have not 

included any claims of intentional pollution of a minority neighborhood in their Proposed 

Amended Complaint. 

 As to the other claims, the “Fourteenth Amendment[] to the Constitution protect[s] citizens 

from conduct by the government, but not from conduct by private actors, no matter how egregious 

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that conduct might be.” Hallinan v. Fraternal Ord. of Police of Chicago Lodge No. 7, 570 F.3d 

811, 815 (7th Cir. 2009). Accordingly, Plaintiffs’ claims against the Corporate Defendants for 

violation of rights to due process1 and equal protection require allegations of a conspiracy between 

the private and state actors. Plaintiffs “must demonstrate that: (1) a state official and private 

individual(s) reached an understanding to deprive the plaintiff of his constitutional rights, and 

(2) those individual(s) were willful participant[s] in joint activity with the State or its agents.” Fries 

v. Helsper, 146 F.3d 452, 457 (7th Cir. 1998). “[M]ere allegations of joint action or a conspiracy 

do not demonstrate that the defendants acted under color of state law and are not sufficient to 

survive a motion to dismiss.” Spiegel v. McClintic, 916 F.3d 611, 616 (7th Cir. 2019), cert. denied, 

140 S. Ct. 51, 205 L. Ed. 2d 43 (2019) (citing Fries, 146 F.3d at 458)). 

 Plaintiffs reiterate and expand upon their assertion that, “[u]pon information and belief, 

[the Corporate Defendants] . . . have designs on the subject property and are among, or behind, the 

potential developers” and that they “secretly planned this in coordination with the City and the 

ECHA.” Prop. Am. Compl. ¶ 20 [DE 91-1]. However, “[a] complaint must allege ‘some specific 

facts to support the legal claims asserted.’” Lavalais v. Vill. of Melrose Park, 734 F.3d 629, 633 

(7th Cir. 2013) (quoting McCauley v. City of Chicago, 671 F.3d 611, 616 (7th Cir.2011)). “[M]ere 

suspicion that persons adverse to the plaintiff had joined a conspiracy against him or her [is] not 

enough.” Cooney v. Rossiter, 583 F.3d 967, 971 (7th Cir. 2009) (upholding motion to dismiss 

where “[t]he complaint . . . , though otherwise detailed, is bereft of any suggestion, beyond a bare 

conclusion, that the remaining defendants were leagued in a conspiracy” and “[n]o factual 

1

 The Court notes that Plaintiffs include no argument about their due process claims against the Corporate Defendants 

in either their opening brief or reply brief, but analyzes them here for completeness. 

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allegations tie the defendants to a conspiracy with a state actor”); see also Brooks v. Ross, 578 F.3d 

574, 581 (7th Cir. 2009) (“[A]t the pleading stage . . . plaintiffs’ ‘[f]actual allegations must be 

enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.’ . . . [C]ourts must accept a plaintiff's 

factual allegations as true, but some factual allegations will be so sketchy or implausible that they 

fail to provide sufficient notice to defendants of the plaintiff's claim.”) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. 

at 555). Plaintiffs admit that they are merely guessing that the Corporate Defendants are behind 

the bid to redevelop the land. Mere assertions of this kind are insufficient, even at the pleading 

stage. Plaintiffs’ claims rely on suppositions of a secret conspiracy between the Corporate 

Defendants and the other Defendants and would not survive a motion to dismiss. Accordingly, the 

motion to amend the complaint is denied as to the Corporate Defendants, who are no longer parties 

to this case. 

IV. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, the Court hereby GRANTS the Request for Judicial Notice in Support 

of Atlantic Richfield Company and BP Product North America Inc.’s Opposition to Plaintiffs’ 

Motion for Leave to File First Amended Complaint [DE 106] as described above. 

 The Court GRANTS in part and DENIES in part Plaintiffs’ Plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave 

to File First Amended Complaint [DE 91]: The Court GRANTS the motion insofar as it seeks to 

amend the Complaint to add claims of discrimination against the City of East Chicago and East 

Chicago Housing Authority, and against East Chicago Mayor Anthony Copland and East Chicago 

Housing Authority Director Tia Cauley in their official and individual capacities, including claims 

for discriminatory intent and disparate impact in violation of the Fair Housing Act 42 U.S.C. 

§ 3604(a), (b), violations of § 1982, and violations of the Equal Protection Clause and the Due 

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Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court DENIES the motion to amend the 

Complaint as to all claims against Defendants BP Products North America, Inc., Atlantic Richfield 

Company, and E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company and all claims under 42 U.S.C. § 3617. 

 The Court ORDERS Plaintiffs to file an amended complaint consistent with this Opinion 

and the Opinions granting previous motions to dismiss by April 21, 2021. Defendants’ answers 

are to be filed in accordance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(a). 

 SO ORDERED this 24th day of March, 2021. 

 s/ John E. Martin_____________________ 

 MAGISTRATE JUDGE JOHN E. MARTIN 

 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

cc: All counsel of record 

Counsel for Atlantic Richfield Company, BP Products North America Inc., 

and E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company

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