In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 11-2747

CHRISTOPHER SOJKA, JR.,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

BOVIS LEND LEASE, INC.,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 10 C 1607—Suzanne B. Conlon, Judge.

ARGUED JANUARY 18, 2012—DECIDED JULY 10, 2012

Before BAUER, MANION, and WOOD, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Circuit Judge. Christopher Sojka, Jr. sustained

severe eye injuries while working as a carpenter on the

Trump Tower construction project. He sued Trump

Tower’s construction manager, Bovis Lend Lease,

asserting that it had been negligent. Bovis moved for

summary judgment on the ground that it did not owe

Sojka any duty of care to provide a safe workplace, and

(jumping from the general to the particular) that even if
2 No. 11-2747

it did, it had not breached such a duty because it had

no knowledge that Sojka’s safety glasses were inadequate to prevent the injury. Sojka failed to address this

argument in his response to Bovis’s motion for summary judgment. Bovis thus urged the court to grant

its motion in light of what it saw as Sojka’s concession

that there was no dispute of material fact on that point,

and that is exactly what the district court did.

In our view, even though the court was correct that

Sojka conceded the eyewear point by failing to respond

to it, this took too narrow a view of Sojka’s case.

His response to Bovis’s motion for summary judgment—

consisting of both a memorandum of law and a corresponding statement of material facts—addressed several other ways in which Bovis’s negligence allegedly

caused Sojka's injuries. We conclude that because a dispute

of material fact remains on those theories, summary

judgment for Bovis was inappropriate. We therefore

reverse.

I

In 2008, Sojka was working on the upper floors of

the Trump Tower construction project in downtown

Chicago. He was trying to repair a steel cable that held

safety netting around the upper floors of the project when

the wind knocked him back and a piece of metal struck

his eye, causing severe injuries. Although Sojka was

wearing safety glasses at the time, they apparently did

not fit his face properly; instead, they left a small gap

at the top of his eyes that allowed debris to penetrate.
No. 11-2747 3

Sojka sued Bovis Lend Lease in Illinois state court to

recover for his injury. Bovis removed the action to

federal court, as the parties are completely diverse (Sojka

is domiciled in Illinois; Bovis is incorporated in Florida

with its principal place of business in New York) and

the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000.

The complaint contained one count of construction

negligence, a cause of action recognized in Illinois law.

Sojka alleged that Bovis had a duty to provide him with

a safe workplace and then listed seven theories about

how Bovis had breached this duty (in addition to an

eighth catchall allegation that Bovis “was otherwise

negligent”). The first four theories of breach all made

a similar allegation: that Bovis knew or should have

known that weather conditions at the site were unsafe

at the time in question, and it either should not have

allowed work to proceed or should have stopped

ongoing work. The last three theories set forth general

allegations about Bovis’s failure to manage the site,

failure to supervise work, and failure to provide a safe

environment. The complaint made no mention of the

eyewear issued to the workers.

The parties proceeded to discovery and Bovis moved

for summary judgment. Bovis presented two arguments

in support of its motion: it did not owe Sojka a duty of

care under Illinois law, and even if it did, it did not

breach that duty because it had no knowledge that

Sojka’s protective eyewear was inadequate. In Sojka’s

memorandum of law in response, he contested Bovis’s

view of its duties under Illinois law, but he responded
4 No. 11-2747

only generally to Bovis’s argument about breach with

respect to the safety glasses. In fact, Sojka stated that “the

duty to provide a safe work site for all employees goes

well beyond the issue of safety glasses.” He argued that

Bovis “shared responsibility for the dangerous conditions which led to Sojka’s injuries” and thus proximately caused those injuries.

Although Sojka did not elaborate in the memorandum about the other dangerous conditions that caused his

injury, he furnished that information in his attached Rule

56.1 statement of facts. The Rule 56.1 statement referred to

evidence that wind was constantly a problem at the

worksite and was a notable problem on the day of his

injury. Bovis’s employees had the authority to stop work in

unsafe wind conditions and had done so in the past, but

they did not do so on the day Sojka was hurt. The 56.1

statement also pointed to evidence that Sojka was a

“greenhorn” (a carpenter without much experience) and

thus Sojka should have been working with a more experienced “journeyman” to help him respond to the windy

conditions and assess safety threats more accurately.

Bovis’s reply asserted that Sojka had failed to respond

to its argument about breach with respect to the safety

glasses, and thus that the district court should find

that Sojka had conceded the point. With that possibility

conceded, Bovis maintained, it was entitled to summary

judgment in its favor. The district court adopted Bovis’s

suggestion. Although the court found that Bovis owed

Sojka a duty under Illinois law, it granted summary

judgment based on Sojka’s failure to respond to Bovis’s
No. 11-2747 5

argument about the eye protection. The court noted

that Bovis’s original complaint had included theories

of breach unrelated to eyewear, such as the allegation

that conditions that day were too windy to permit safe

work, but it explained that parties “cannot rest on complaint allegations at summary judgment” without

“discuss[ing] any of the alleged acts or omissions” or

“link[ing] them to evidence in the record to create a

factual dispute for trial.”

Sojka filed a motion to reconsider under Rule 59(e),

arguing that his response to the motion for summary

judgment had linked facts in the record to the allegations

in his complaint; in support, he pointed to his Rule

56.1 statement. Sojka further complained that Bovis

had unfairly narrowed the case to be solely about

eyewear, even though that was not Sojka’s theory of

breach. In fact, Sojka admitted that he did not

respond more directly to the eyewear issue because

he conceded that Bovis had no knowledge that

Sojka’s eyewear was insufficient and thus there was

no dispute of fact on that point. But, Sojka argued, that

was not the end of the case. To the contrary, he had

additional theories of breach, which were supported by

deposition evidence set out in his Rule 56.1 statement of

facts.

The district court denied Sojka’s motion to reconsider.

It rejected Sojka’s citation to his Rule 56.1 statement

because, in the court’s view, “merely presenting statements of facts without arguing how they are relevant is

insufficient. The court does not craft arguments for the
6 No. 11-2747

parties.” Sojka now appeals both the grant of summary

judgment and the denial of his motion to reconsider.

II

We review the grant of a motion for summary

judgment de novo, construing the facts and drawing

all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving

party. Moore v. Vital Prods., Inc., 641 F.3d 253, 256 (7th Cir.

2011). Summary judgment is appropriate if there is

no genuine dispute of material fact, and the movant

is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id. (citing FED.

R. CIV. P. 56(a)).

It is clear from the summary judgment filings in

the district court that a dispute of material fact remains,

and thus summary judgment was inappropriate. As

noted above, although Sojka conceded that there is no

dispute of material fact on the eyewear issue, his submissions in response to Bovis’s motion for summary

judgment set out facts that support his theory that

Bovis was negligent in permitting work to proceed in

the first place. The facts, taken in the light most

favorable to Sojka, show that Bovis had authority to

stop work on account of inclement weather conditions,

but it failed to do so even though on the day of Sojka’s

injury there were high winds. In addition, evidence in

the record shows that Sojka should have been working

with a more experienced carpenter, rather than on his

own, in order to help him better respond to the windy

conditions.
No. 11-2747 7

None of Bovis’s arguments in its reply to these facts

convinces us that summary judgment was appropriate. Bovis responded to the allegation that it should

have stopped work by disputing the assertion that it had

final authority to stop work in inclement weather.

Instead, it said, such decisions were the product of a

“group discussion” made with the subcontractor; they

had to make a “unanimous decision” about whether

work would proceed. But even if this is true, it does not

show that Bovis was powerless to stop work that day.

To the contrary, a trier of fact could find that its negative vote in the committee would have blocked a unanimous decision to permit work to go forward. Bovis

also argues that Sojka’s statement of facts misconstrued

the underlying deposition testimony of James Payne, a

concrete superintendent working with McHugh Construction (Sojka’s direct employer), about whether

Sojka should have been working with a more experienced carpenter. In Bovis’s view, Payne’s testimony did

not address safety conditions but simply stated a

truism that one would want all the help one could get

in windy conditions. But that is not an accurate

portrayal of Payne’s deposition. Payne was told about

the weather conditions on the day of the accident and

told that Sojka had been working alone. He was then

asked, “[G]iven [Sojka’s] level of experience, is [working

alone] a safe practice on this project in your opinion?”

Payne’s response: “No, it is not safe. I mean someone

should have stayed there and helped him. . . . Somebody

had to be there with him.” He was then specifically

asked whether that person should have been “a journey-
8 No. 11-2747

man with experience in doing that work” and answered,

“Yes.” This underlying deposition testimony thus supports Sojka’s statement of facts.

There was no reason to grant summary judgment

simply because Sojka included these facts in his

Rule 56.1 statement rather than in his accompanying

memorandum of law. Rule 56.1 is a local rule in the

Northern District of Illinois that supplements Federal

Rule of Civil Procedure 56, which governs summary

judgment. (It is notable in this connection that Rule 56

itself, particularly as amended in 2010 and thus as

worded on May 27, 2011, the date of the district court’s

ruling, does not require the facts or legal arguments to

appear in any particular document. See Rule 56(c)(1).)

Local Rule 56.1 “requires specifically that a litigant

seeking to oppose a motion for summary judgment file a

response that contains a separate ‘statement . . . of any

additional facts that require the denial of summary judgment.’ ” Cichon v. Exelon Generation Co., L.L.C., 401 F.3d

803, 809 (7th Cir. 2005). “The obligation set forth in

Local Rule 56.1 ‘is not a mere formality.’ Rather, ‘[i]t

follows from the obligation imposed by FED. R. CIV.

P. 56(e) on the party opposing summary judgment to

identify specific facts that establish a genuine issue for

trial.’ ” Delapaz v. Richardson, 634 F.3d 895, 899 (7th Cir.

2011) (quoting Waldridge v. American Hoechst Corp., 24

F.3d 918, 924 (7th Cir. 1994)).

For litigants appearing in the Northern District of

Illinois, the Rule 56.1 statement is a critical, and required,

component of a litigant’s response to a motion for sum-
No. 11-2747 9

mary judgment. The purpose of the local rule is to make

the summary judgment process less burdensome on

district courts, by requiring the parties to nail down

the relevant facts and the way they propose to support

them. A litigant need not set out the same facts twice,

however, in both the statement of facts and accompanying memorandum of law, in order to meet its

burden to show that a dispute of fact remains. That

would make the summary judgment process more, not

less, cumbersome. Moreover, a party should not be

faulted for following the rules and presenting material

facts in its Rule 56.1 statement. The local rules “were

not intended to provide a maze of technical traps to

complicate and delay litigation without advancing the

merits.” Stevo v. Frasor, 662 F.3d 880, 887 (7th Cir. 2011).

In his motion to reconsider, Sojka explicitly pointed out

to the district court that his Rule 56.1 statement contained facts supporting his additional theories of breach.

At that stage, our review is only for abuse of discretion,

but we think that the district court went too far when

it refused to consider Sojka’s facts when they were explicitly brought to its attention. In its rejection of

Sojka’s motion to reconsider, the court cited Harney v.

Speedway SuperAmerica LLC, 526 F.3d 1099, 1104 (7th Cir.

2008), for the proposition that presenting facts, without

arguing how they are relevant, is insufficient. But that

reading overstates Harney and discounts the importance

of a Rule 56.1 statement of facts to the summary judgment process. In Harney, we held only that “[i]t is not

the duty of the court to scour the record in search of evidence to defeat a motion for summary judgment; rather,
10 No. 11-2747

the nonmoving party bears the responsibility of identifying the evidence upon which he relies.” Id. (emphasis

added). Sojka did not make the district court scour

the record; he followed Rule 56.1 and the principle in

Harney and brought to the district court’s attention the

evidence in the record supporting his opposition to

summary judgment. His memorandum of law also referred, in general terms, to the existence of additional

theories of breach that went “well beyond the issue

of safety glasses.”

That is not to say that Sojka’s response to Bovis’s

motion for summary judgment was by any measure

ideal. It would have been much better for Sojka to call

the court’s attention more concretely to his additional

theories in the accompanying legal memorandum,

rather than relying just on his statement of facts. He

could have included a separate argument section, for

example, that spelled out why summary judgment was

inappropriate because of the disputes of fact over

Bovis’s ability to stop work in high winds and Sojka’s

need to work with experienced supervision. Sojka’s attorneys failed to do so, it seems, because they were operating on the assumption that they did not need to

mention any of these other theories at all—whether in

the memorandum or the statement of facts—given

that Bovis had focused only on eyewear. Sojka’s attorneys contend that despite the fact Bovis said that it

was seeking summary judgment of the entire case,

it seemed that in reality it was moving for partial summary judgment because Sojka had presented multiple

reasons to find negligence—one for each of his theories
No. 11-2747 11

of breach—and Bovis discussed only one of those theories,

about eyewear.

That view is untenable. Bovis did not move for “partial

summary judgment” on an aspect of the case; Bovis

moved for summary judgment seeking dismissal of the

entire suit. And despite counsels’ protestations, Sojka’s

complaint contains one count and one claim, construction negligence, committed in a variety of ways. A

“claim is ‘the aggregate of operative facts which give

rise to a right enforceable in the courts.’ ” Florek v.

Village of Mundelein, 649 F.3d 594, 599 (7th Cir. 2011)

(quoting Original Ballet Russe v. Ballet Theatre, 133 F.2d 187,

189 (2d Cir. 1943)). One claim supported by multiple

theories does not somehow become multiple claims. See

id. (Fourth Amendment claim of unreasonable seizure

was one claim, even if plaintiff had multiple theories

of why seizure was unreasonable).

Luckily, Sojka’s attorneys did not rest exclusively

on their erroneous view of the proceedings. They also

referred to the additional theories of breach in their

memorandum, and they supported this reference with

facts in the accompanying Rule 56.1 statement. Combined, this was sufficient to defeat summary judgment.

At oral argument, Bovis’s attorney raised the point

that the record does not establish that the wind was

actually unsafe on the day of Sojka’s injury. Bovis had

apparently set a threshold safety level of 25 miles per

hour for wind, and Sojka’s own meteorologist estimated

that the winds that day were 22 miles per hour in the

area in which Sojka was working. But Bovis conceded
12 No. 11-2747

that these facts were not presented in its summary judgment filings. If Bovis believed that this fact precluded

summary judgment, it was Bovis’s burden to “point[]

out to the district court . . . that there is an absence of

evidence to support the nonmoving party’s case.” Celotex

Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986). Bovis did not

mention wind speed specifically, nor did it state in

general terms that the conditions that day were safe.

Even if it had, furthermore, we do not believe that

Bovis could have won summary judgment based on this

evidence. A jury could still find, based on Payne’s testimony among other things, that the actual conditions

were unsafe where Sojka was working. Cf. Mesman v.

Crane Pro Servs., 409 F.3d 846, 852 (7th Cir. 2005)

(safety standard evidence “ordinarily would be relevant

though not conclusive”); see also Jablonski v. Ford Motor

Co., 955 N.E.2d 1138 (Ill. 2011) (same under Illinois law).

III

Seeking to preserve its grant of summary judgment,

Bovis also argues that we should reverse the district

court’s determination that it owed a duty of care to

Sojka in the first place. We decline to do so.

In Illinois, when a project manager like Bovis entrusts

work to an independent contractor—here, McHugh,

Sojka’s employer—the project manager owes the contractor’s employees a duty of care only if it “retains the

control of any part of the work.” Madden v. F.H. Paschen,

916 N.E.2d 1203, 1218 (Ill. App. Ct. 2009) (quoting Re-
No. 11-2747 13

statement (Second) of Torts § 414). There is no dispute

that Bovis retained a high degree of control over this

worksite. But if the project manager never entrusts work

to an independent contractor in the first place, then it

does not matter if the manager exercises control over

the work site. Even if it does, it cannot be liable to the

independent contractor’s employees. O’Connell v. Turner

Constr. Co., 949 N.E.2d 1105, 1108 (Ill. App. Ct. 2011).

Bovis argues that it never entrusted work to McHugh,

because Bovis never entered directly into a contract

with McHugh. Instead, McHugh entered into a contract with the owner of the Tower, and Bovis signed

the contract as the owner’s agent. Bovis thus argues

that, like the construction manager in O’Connell, it never

entrusted work to an independent contractor. But Bovis

overreads O’Connell. In that case, the court concluded

that a project manager did not entrust work to a subcontractor because it had not “actually selected the contractors or subcontractors,” even though it had helped

the site’s owner in drafting contracts and handling construction bids. Id. Here, in contrast, the record shows

that Bovis selected McHugh. Bovis does not explain

why it should matter that it was technically acting as an

agent for the owner when it made the selection. It was

thus correct for the district court to conclude that

Bovis had exercised sufficient control as the owner’s

agent in selecting McHugh to support a finding that

Bovis had entrusted work to McHugh. 

* * *
14 No. 11-2747

We REVERSE the district court’s grant of summary

judgment and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

7-10-12