In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 18-3737

SHAKA FREEMAN,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

METROPOLITAN WATER RECLAMATION

DISTRICT OF GREATER CHICAGO,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 17 C 4409 — Harry D. Leinenweber, Judge.

____________________

SUBMITTED MAY 30, 20191 — DECIDED JUNE 14, 20192

____________________

 

1 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. FED. R. APP. 

P. 34(a)(2)(C).

2 This opinion was originally issued as a nonprecedential order on 

June 3, 2019. The court has decided to re-issue it as a precedential opinion.
2 No. 18-3737

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and ROVNER,

Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM, Shaka Freeman, an African-American man 

who suffers from alcoholism, sued the Water Reclamation 

District of Greater Chicago, his former employer, for firing 

him because of his race and disability. The district court dismissed his complaint for failure to state a claim. See FED. R.

CIV. P. 12(b)(6). We conclude, however, that Freeman has 

pleaded enough to state his discrimination claims, and so we 

vacate the judgment and remand for further proceedings with 

respect to those issues. We affirm with respect to Freeman’s 

contention that the District fired him pursuant to a policy that 

is unlawful under Monell v. Department of Social Services., 436 

U.S. 658, 694–95 (1978).

For purposes of this appeal, we assume the truth of the 

allegations in Freeman’s complaint and its attachments. 

See Carmody v. Bd. of Trs. of the Univ. of Ill., 747 F.3d 470, 471 

(7th Cir. 2014). Freeman began working for the District in 

May 2015 as an operator of a treatment plant. The District is a 

municipal corporation. See 70 ILCS 2605/1. Freeman’s job involved the collection and transportation of temperature-sensitive water samples across the mile-long plant. Although operators typically transport these samples in District-owned 

vehicles, the job description does not require a driver’s license. In his first year, Freeman, like all new hires, was a probationary worker, employed at will. Id. at 2605/4.11. Once he 

completed his first year, the District would be able to fire him 

only for cause.

About three months after Freeman was hired, he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and his license was suspended for six months. Freeman began seeing a 
No. 18-3737 3

substance-abuse counselor for his alcohol problem. As required by his job contract, he also told the District about the 

license suspension and his counseling. To ensure that concerns about his alcohol problem or license suspension did not 

interfere with his job, he did three things: (1) he bought a bike 

and a cooler to transport samples around the plant, (2) he 

asked if he could use a John Deere go-cart, which does not 

require a driver’s license on private property, and (3) he applied for an occupational driving permit from the state that 

would permit him to drive a company vehicle while working. 

(The state authorized his permit conditional on the District’s 

approval, but the District refused to grant his request.) The 

District fired Freeman while he was on probation, asserting 

“unsatisfactory performance.” Freeman alleges that this explanation is pretextual; the District’s real reason for firing him 

he said, was because of his race and because it regarded him 

as an alcoholic. 

Freeman sued the District for employment discrimination.

Its path in the district court was a rocky one, and the case presented some managerial challenges for the district court. At 

the outset of the suit, the court recruited an attorney to represent Freeman. That relationship broke down and the attorney 

was excused; three additional attorneys followed. Each one

moved to withdraw because of disagreements with Freeman 

about litigation strategy. Second, while proceeding pro se, 

Freeman filed three sprawling amended complaints, each 

over 70 pages. On the District’s motions, the judge dismissed 

two of these filings for failure to comply with the requirement 

under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a) calling for a “short 

and plain statement of the claim.” Freeman withdrew the 

third iteration.
4 No. 18-3737

His operative complaint—the fourth amended version—

raises claims of race and disability discrimination and of retaliation, in violation of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, Title VII of the 

Civil Rights Act of 1964, id. § 2000e-2, and the Americans with 

Disabilities Act, id. at § 12112. He alleges that the District fired 

him “due to his race” (African-American) and “disability” (alcoholism). He next asserts that the District failed reasonably 

to accommodate his alcoholism by refusing to let him travel 

around the grounds of the plant without using a car. He also 

accuses the District of retaliating against him by firing him after he sought reasonable accommodations. Finally, he alleges 

that the District fired him under an unconstitutional policy.

The district court dismissed Freeman’s complaint with 

prejudice for failure to state a claim. Its opinion began with 

Freeman’s assertion that the District fired him because of his 

alcoholism. The court reasoned that Freeman pleaded neither 

that his alcoholism caused “substantial limitations” to major 

life activities nor that it caused his firing. Next, the court said, 

Freeman’s retaliation and reasonable-accommodations claims 

failed because he had requested accommodations only for his 

license suspension, not his alcoholism. Turning to Freeman’s 

race-discrimination claims under § 1983 and Title VII, the 

court ruled that Freeman “fail[ed] to plead the final element”—that he was treated less favorably than at least one 

colleague who was not African-American. Freeman had no 

claim under § 1981 because, the court explained, that statute

generally does not allow a private right of action against public actors. Finally, the court concluded that Freeman had not 

stated a “policy” claim under Monell because he had not identified the policy or practice that he challenged.
No. 18-3737 5

On appeal Freeman (still acting pro se) contends that his 

complaint sufficiently states each of his claims. He argues that 

the district court erroneously “judg[ed] the truth of [his] factual allegations,” including his allegation that the District’s 

decision to fire him for “unsatisfactory performance” was pretextual. 

We conclude that the district court erred by demanding 

too much specificity in Freeman’s complaint. A plaintiff alleging race discrimination need not allege each evidentiary element of a legal theory to survive a motion to dismiss. 

Swierkiewicz v. Sorema, N.A., 534 U.S. 506, 510–14 (2002); Tamayo v. Blagojevich, 526 F.3d 1074, 1081 (7th Cir. 2008). Rather, 

to proceed against the District under § 1983 or Title VII, Freeman needed only to allege—as he did here—that the District 

fired him because of his race. Tamayo, 526 F.3d at 1084; see also

Bennett v. Schmidt, 153 F.3d 516, 518 (7th Cir. 1998) (“‘I was 

turned down for a job because of my race’ is all a complaint 

has to say.”). His failure to plead the evidentiary element 

about comparable coworkers, therefore, is not fatal. 

Similarly, Freeman has stated a claim for disability and retaliation claims under the ADA. The general rule in federal 

court calls only for notice pleading, see Erickson v. Pardus, 

551 U.S. 89, 93 (2007), but some theories of recovery require 

more detail than others in order to give the required notice. 

That is why we noted in Tate v. SCR Medical Transportation, 809 

F.3d 343, 345 (7th Cir. 2015), that a plaintiff advancing a claim 

under the ADA must allege that he is disabled but, with or 

without reasonable accommodation, can still do the job. Normally he also must allege what exactly makes him disabled. 

The district court here faulted Freeman for not alleging 

that his alcoholism substantially limits a major life activity. 
6 No. 18-3737

See Tate, 809 F.3d at 345–46. But we read Freeman’s complaint 

as alleging that the District regarded him as an alcoholic,

see 42 U.S.C. § 12102(1)(C), because of his suspended license 

for driving under the influence of alcohol, and then it concluded from his suspension that his alcoholism impaired his 

ability to work at any job that involves safely moving items 

across a facility. Because that activity includes a broad class of 

work, a jury could conclude that it is a major life activity.

See 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(i)(1); Miller v. Ill. Dept. of Transp., 

643 F.3d 190, 195–97 (7th Cir. 2011). Freeman also alleged that 

he could fulfill his duties with a reasonable accommodation 

(bike, John Deere cart, or occupational permit), but that the 

District fired him anyway “due to” his alcoholism and his request to accommodate his condition. These allegations state 

claims for disability discrimination and retaliation. 

See 42 U.S.C. § 12102(1)(C); Gogos v. AMS Mech. Sys., Inc., 

737 F.3d 1170, 1172–73 (7th Cir. 2013). 

We emphasize that we are holding only that these allegations suffice to initiate Freeman’s litigation. Later proceedings 

will determine whether he can prove them. For example, as 

the district court anticipated, Freeman will need to prove that 

his disability and his request for an accommodation, as opposed to the suspension of his driver’s license (which he alleges he is not required to have for the job), motivated his discharge. We have recognized that alcoholism does not “cause” 

a license suspension for driving under the influence of alcohol, and so a sincere reliance on an employee’s license suspension may justify an adverse employment action. Despears 

v. Milwaukee Cty., 63 F.3d 635, 636–37 (7th Cir. 1995). But for 

now his allegations say enough. 
No. 18-3737 7

That brings us to Freeman’s contention that his allegation 

that a District “policy” caused his discharge should also have 

passed muster. To succeed on this type of claim under § 1983, 

he had to allege that a District policy, custom, or act by a final 

decisionmaker caused him to suffer a constitutional injury.

Monell, 436 U.S. at 694–95; Spiegel v. McClintic, 916 F.3d 611, 

617 (7th Cir. 2019). (The same is true for his discrimination 

claim under § 1981; that law does not create a private right of 

action against public bodies unless the plaintiff has raised Monell allegations. See Campbell v. Forest Preserve Dist. of Cook 

Cty., 752 F.3d 665, 667, 669 (7th Cir. 2014).) Freeman alleges 

that the District disproportionately fires probationary employees who are African-American. But Freeman does not allege whether the policy is to treat African-Americans disparately or that the District’s probation powers have a disparate 

impact on them. The legal consequences are different. 

See Lewis v. City of Chicago, 560 U.S. 205, 214–15 (2010) (explaining that disparate-treatment claims require showing of 

intent, but disparate-impact claims do not). Because the district court recruited four attorneys to assist Freeman with 

pleading this claim adequately, and he had four opportunities 

to amend his complaint to do so and yet never did, we see no 

abuse of discretion in the dismissal of this claim without additional leave to amend. See FED. R. CIV. P. 15(a)(2); Lee v. Ne. 

Ill. Reg’l Commuter R.R., 912 F.3d 1049, 1052–53 (7th Cir. 2019).

This leaves one final matter. Mindful of the case-management difficulties to which we alluded earlier, we have considered whether we should affirm the district court’s dismissal 

on another ground: Freeman’s arguable failure, even in his 

fourth and operative complaint, to comply with Rule 8(a)’s 

requirement of brevity and clarity. See Bennett, 153 F.3d 

at 518. But because Freeman’s complaint—though 
8 No. 18-3737

unwieldy—adequately states his claims, we and the district 

court may ignore the excess in his complaint. Id.

We thus VACATE the judgment and REMAND for further 

proceedings with respect to Freeman’s race and disability discrimination claims. We AFFIRM with respect to his Monell

claim.