United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted August 17, 2021*

Decided August 18, 2021 

Before 

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge 

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge 

MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge

No. 20-2555 

LEVAIL GIVENS, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

DAVID VAUGHN, et al., 

 Defendants-Appellees.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Southern District of Illinois. 

No. 3:16-CV-303-NJR 

Nancy J. Rosenstengel, 

Chief Judge. 

O R D E R 

Levail Givens, an inmate at the Lawrence Correctional Center in Sumner, Illinois, 

sued prison officials for violating his constitutional rights by denying him access to 

religious meals and services. The district court partially granted the defendants’ 

motions for summary judgment, then recruited counsel for Givens in anticipation of 

trial on the remaining claims. Before trial, Givens’s counsel reported that the case had 

*

 We have agreed to decide this 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). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 20-2555 Page 2 

settled and the parties intended to finalize the settlement documents. Givens, however, 

never signed the documents and later argued that he had never agreed to settle. After a 

hearing, the court determined that the case had settled and ordered Givens to sign the 

documents. When Givens refused, the court dismissed the case for disobeying its 

orders. Because the court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the suit, we affirm. 

Givens sued prison officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for denying him access to 

religious meals and services and proceeded on four claims. For the first two, he alleged 

that, by denying him access to his religious services and diet, the defendants violated 

his rights under the First Amendment and federal law, 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1(a). In a third 

claim, Givens alleged that they violated his rights under the First Amendment by 

retaliating against him for filing grievances about his religious needs. And for the last 

claim, Givens asserted that they violated his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment 

by treating his religious-accommodation requests differently based on his race. 

The case appeared headed to settlement. The court partially granted the 

defendants’ motion for summary judgment on exhaustion grounds. After discovery, the 

court entered judgment on all other claims except the religious-services claims and 

some religious-diet claims. Then, the court recruited counsel for Givens in anticipation 

of trial. Just before trial, Givens’s counsel told the court that the case had settled in its 

entirety and the parties just needed time to finalize the corresponding documents. The 

court canceled the trial and gave the parties four months to finalize the documents after 

which it would consider dismissing the case. After four months, the court extended the 

time because Givens had not signed the documents. 

Eight months after Givens’s counsel had reported a settlement, Givens asserted 

that he never agreed to settle and moved to have his counsel removed from the case. 

Givens contended that he had not spoken to counsel in over a year, accused counsel of 

lying in telling the court that the case had settled, and insisted that counsel never sent 

him settlement documents. He attached an unanswered letter that he had mailed four 

months earlier, asking his counsel “please just send me the settlement documents.” 

Counsel responded that, shortly before trial, defendants offered to pay Givens $1,500 to 

settle. Counsel said that he thought the offer was fair, and after he encouraged Givens 

to accept it, Givens hesitated at first but then said to “do what [counsel] wants.” Based 

on this conversation, counsel told the defendants and court that the case had settled. 

 

 The court held a hearing and found that the case had settled. Counsel repeated 

under oath that he told Givens about the $1,500 offer and Givens acquiesced to it. 
No. 20-2555 Page 3 

(Counsel, however, clarified that this conversation happened in March rather than 

April, as he had initially written.) Givens also testified, denying counsel’s account. The 

court credited counsel’s testimony that he had told Givens about the offer and Givens 

replied that counsel could accept it. The court also observed that Givens’s letter—asking 

counsel to send him the settlement documents—undermined Givens’s contention that 

he never gave counsel authority to settle the case. Finding that the case had settled, the 

court ordered Givens to sign the documents reflecting the settlement’s terms. 

 After the hearing, Givens disobeyed the order to sign the documents, and the 

court consequently dismissed the case. In refusing to sign, Givens did not deny that the 

settlement papers reflected the offer to him of $1,500 in return for settlement; rather he 

denied that he had discussed the offer with counsel and authorized counsel to accept it. 

When Givens did not sign the papers, the court repeated its order to sign them and 

warned Givens that failure to do so could result in dismissal with prejudice under 

Rule 41(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Givens responded by repeating that 

his case had not settled, asking the court to recruit him new counsel, and seeking a new 

trial date. The court denied those requests and ordered Givens to return the signed 

documents in one week. After Givens missed that deadline, the court ordered him to 

show cause why his case should not be dismissed under Rule 41(b) for violating court 

orders. The court never received a response, so it dismissed the case with prejudice. 

Givens then moved to alter or amend the judgment, see FED. R. CIV. P. 59(e), attaching 

proof that he had mailed a timely response to the show-cause order. The court 

acknowledged the timely response, but it denied the motion anyway by explaining that 

Givens had merely repeated his earlier, rejected argument that he had never settled. 

 On appeal Givens raises two arguments about the dismissal. First, he contends 

that the court wrongly dismissed the case under Rule 41(b) for failure to obey the order 

to sign the settlement papers. Second, Givens contends that, because he offered proof 

that he timely responded to the show-cause order, the court abused its discretion by 

denying the Rule 59(e) motion. The decision on the Rule 59(e) motion merges with the 

underlying dismissal, Banister v. Davis, 140 S. Ct. 1698, 1703 (2020), and we review both 

decisions for abuse of discretion. O’Donnell v. Saul, 983 F.3d 950, 954 (7th Cir. 2020) 

(denial of Rule 59(e) motion reviewed for abuse of discretion); McMahan v. Deutsche 

Bank AG, 892 F.3d 926, 931 (7th Cir. 2018) (same for dismissal under Rule 41(b)). 

The district court did not err by dismissing the case as a sanction under 

Rule 41(b). When a district court finds that a plaintiff has orally settled, the court may 

vacate that settlement and dismiss the case with prejudice as a sanction under Rule 
No. 20-2555 Page 4 

41(b) for a plaintiff’s refusal, despite warnings that the refusal could lead to dismissal, 

to sign the settlement papers. Lewis v. Sch. Dist. #70, 648 F.3d 484, 488 (7th Cir. 2011). 

Here, the district court did not go so far as to vacate the oral settlement and dismiss the 

case; it just dismissed the case. But like the plaintiff in Lewis, after the court notified 

Givens that it found he had agreed to settle and warned him that failure to sign the 

corresponding papers could result in dismissal, Givens refused to do so. His persistent 

refusal, despite warnings and orders to sign, justified the dismissal. See id. (“Repeated 

orders directing [the plaintiff] to proceed on the basis of a valid settlement should have 

been sufficient to convince her that her [denial of a settlement] had not gained any 

traction with the court. Instead, the court’s orders were consistently met with disregard 

by the plaintiff, leaving [the court] with little recourse but to dismiss the lawsuit.”). 

Givens responds that he had a good reason not to sign—he never agreed to settle 

his case—so the court could not validly order him to sign the papers. We review factual 

findings underlying a Rule 41(b) dismissal—here, that Givens authorized his counsel to 

settle the case—for clear error, Secrease v. W. & S. Life Ins. Co., 800 F.3d 397, 401 (7th Cir. 

2015), and we afford “great weight to the district court’s credibility findings.” Madden v. 

U.S. Dep’t of Veterans Affs., 873 F.3d 971, 973 (7th Cir. 2017) (internal citations omitted). 

Givens insists that the court erred by relying on what he considers his counsel’s lie that 

Givens had authorized the settlement. He points to counsel’s inconsistent statements 

about when the settlement discussion occurred as evidence of this lie. 

The court did not clearly err by crediting counsel’s testimony over Givens’s and 

finding that Givens authorized acceptance of the settlement offer. First, under Illinois 

law (which applies here because Illinois is the place of settlement discussions, see Lewis,

648 F.3d at 486 n.1), an attorney’s statement that his client authorized a settlement can 

establish that the plaintiff settled. See Hernandez v. New Rogers Pontiac, Inc., 773 N.E.2d 

77, 82–83 (Ill. App. Ct. 2002). Also, the district court reasonably ruled that Givens’s letter 

to his lawyer supported counsel’s testimony. In that letter, far from denying that he had 

authorized counsel to settle—he waited eight months to say that—Givens asked counsel 

to send him the settlement papers, a request consistent with having authorized counsel 

to settle. His behavior thus differs from the plaintiff in the case that he cites: Magallanes 

v. Ill. Bell Tel. Co., 535 F.3d 582 (7th Cir. 2008). There, we reversed a finding that the 

plaintiff authorized settlement because the plaintiff consistently denied settling and 

nothing corroborated counsel’s story. Id. at 584; see also Kulchawik v. Durabla Mfg. Co., 

864 N.E.2d 744, 750 (Ill. App. Ct. 2007) (plaintiff’s delay of about six months before 

denying settlement authorization supported inference of authority). Finally, the court 
No. 20-2555 Page 5 

permissibly credited counsel’s account that he made an honest, immaterial mistake 

about the month he discussed the settlement with Givens. See Madden, 873 F.3d at 973. 

 The district court also did not abuse its discretion in denying the Rule 59(e) 

motion. It found that Givens had timely responded to the show-cause order, but 

permissibly ruled that Givens’s response did not warrant relief because the response 

just rehashed the same arguments that the court had previously rejected. See Vesely v. 

Armslist LLC, 762 F.3d 661, 666 (7th Cir. 2014) (explaining “a Rule 59(e) motion is not to 

be used to ‘rehash’ previously rejected arguments.”) 

 Finally, Givens argues that we should overturn the court’s entry of partial 

summary judgment, but we will not review that decision. “[T]he general rule is that 

rulings on interlocutory orders are encompassed within a subsequent final judgment 

and may be reviewed as part of that judgment ... [but] that rule is inapplicable where 

adherence would reward a party for dilatory and bad faith tactics.” Sere v. Bd. of Trs. of 

Univ. of Ill., 852 F.2d 285, 288 (7th Cir. 1988). This exception applies here because a 

review of the partial grant of summary judgment would effectively excuse Givens’s 

repeated disobedience of a valid court order. See Lewis, 648 F.3d at 489 (explaining this 

court need not address plaintiff’s remaining arguments on appeal when court properly 

dismissed for failing to comply with court order); see also DuBose v. Minnesota, 893 F.2d 

169, 171 (8th Cir. 1990) (explaining earlier grant of summary judgment did not merge 

into later dismissal under Rule 41(b) and, therefore, was unreviewable on appeal). 

Accordingly, the earlier summary-judgment ruling remains intact. 

AFFIRMED