NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1



# United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted April 19, 2013 *

Decided May 23, 2013



### Before

F RANK H. E ASTERBROOK , Chief Judge

A NN C LAIRE W ILLIAMS , Circuit Judge

D AVID F. H AMILTON , Circuit Judge

No. 13

- 1280

A TRELLA R. R EYNOLDS , Plaintiff

- Appellant

,

v

.

AAA A UTO C LUB E NTERPRISES , Defendant

- Appellee

. Appeal from the United
States District Court for the
Southern District of Illinois

.

No. 3:12

- cv

- 00200

- DRH

- PMF David R. Herndon

, Chief J udge

.

Order At a job fair in St. Louis, Atrella Reynolds applied for a job with “ AAA Auto Club Enterprises, ” the name the organization used at the fair. She did not get the position and filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC. It concluded that Reynolds w anted a job with AAA Missouri, one of many businesses that formerly used the title “Amer ican Automobile Club,” and attempted to conciliate her grievance with AAA Texas. This is not as strange as the names suggest. “Auto Club Enterprises,” an AAA business
b ased in Southern California, has agreements with more than 20 AAA organizations across the nation to provide administrative services. One service apparently is hiring at job fairs, and another is the handling of discrimination complaints, which for some

ye ars Auto Club Enterprises handled through attorney Derek Lipscombe, who lived in

* Defendant did not enter an appearance in the district court and is not participating in this appeal. We have decided that oral argument is not necessary . See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a); Cir. R. 34(f).No. 13

- 1280 Page 2

Texas. By the time the EEOC attempted to deal with Lipscombe, however, he had left this position, and either Auto Club Enterprises had not named a replacement or the
EEOC did not discover the right person to contact.

After the EEOC sent Reynolds a right

- to

- sue letter, she hired a process server to serve the complaint on:

AAA Auto Club Enterprises Derek Lipscombe, Esq. Managing Counsel AAA Texas, LLC Texas Regional Headquarters 6555 North State Highway 161 Irving, Texas 75039

This was th e address the EEOC specified . The process server visited the address but was turned away and informed Reynolds: “I was told by administrative assistant [that] Derek Lipscombe does no t receive papers at AAA Texas .... Instead they go to Kerville,
TX office o f National Registered Agents Inc . 1614 Sidney Baker St. Kerville Tx 78028.” The process server did not explain why he failed to leave a set of the papers with AAA Texas, which is not entitled to refuse service just because it thinks another address be tter. (Service was being attempted on AAA Auto Club Enterprises, the named defen dant , and potentially on AAA Texas as its agent , but not on Lipscomb e ; he is a lawyer, not a litigant .)

Rey nolds then tried serving “AAA Auto Club Enterprises c/o National Regis tered Agents ” by mail; it refused to accept the papers. Reynolds checked with the Texas Se cretary of State’s office, which told her that National Registered Agents is indeed the re gister ed agent for service of process on AAA Texas. An online check by this court co nfirms this information. By then the district court had instructed the Marshals Service to serve process on Reynolds’s behalf. 28 U.S.C. §1915(d); Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(c)(3). The Ma rshals Service twice tried to deliver the complaint and summons to either AAA Auto Club Enterprises or AAA Texas via National Registered Agents in Houston , which both
times ref used to accept the papers even though the Houston address to which the Ma rshals Service tried to deliver the papers is the precise one listed by the Texas Secretary of State as the place where AAA Texas should be served . P uzzlingly

, on both occa sions the federal agent walked away , rather than leaving the papers for National Registered Agents and its clients to deal with. (National Registered Agents must have retained at least one copy, however; it sent a letter on February 13, 2013, with copy to the court, stating that “AAA Auto Club Enterprises” had been served but asserting that it i s not a Texas business. The letter did not say whether National Registered Agents had fo rwarded the papers to its client AAA Texas or to Auto Club Enterprises.)No. 13

- 1280 Page 3

At this point the district court dismissed the suit for failure to achieve service within
the time required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(m). The district judge did not analyze the several service attempts , did not say what Reynolds should (or could) have done differently, and did not recognize that documents delivered in hand have been served , no matter wh at the recipient does with them. A recipient that believes itself an improper defen dant must file a motion to dismiss the suit. By failing to accept documents despite three
deliveries in hand (one direct and two to its registered agent, plus a mailing to i ts agent) , AAA Texas (at least) exposed itself to a default judgment. District courts have entered default judgment under similar circumstances, with this court’s approbation.
See Swaim v. Moltan Co ., 73 F.3d 711, 721 (7th Cir. 1996). It is hard for us to understand why the district court dis missed the suit when plaintiff had done all that was possible, and the fault appears to lie with the confusing web of relations among AAA entities plus a cavalier attitude by the staff of AAA Texas and National Register ed Agents

.
Perhaps it would have been prudent for the Marshals Service to have served three

sets of papers : one on Auto Club Enterprises in California, one on AAA Missouri in Missouri, and one on AAA Texas (though the last of these, at least, did receive service, and Auto Club En ter prises may have made AAA Texas or National Registered Agents its agent for employment

- discrimination complaints). The Marshals Service is supposed to do what is necessary to accomplish service. 28 U.S.C. §1915(d); Graham v. Satk oski , 51 F.3d 710, 712

– 13 (7th Cir. 1995). It did not satisfy its duties with respect to Reynolds.

The order dismissing the suit must be vacated. On remand, the district judge should decide whether to authorize another round of attempted service, or to de clare AAA Texas in default and leave the three AAA entities to work out among themselves where the responsibility lies.

We have considered another possibility: affirmance on the ground that the co mplaint is too skeletal to satisfy Fed. R . Civ. P. 8. But the Supreme Court held in
Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A ., 534 U.S. 506 (2002) , that a conclusory complaint of emplo yment discrimination is adequate. See also Bennett v. Schmidt , 153 F.3d 516 ( 7th Cir. 1998)

. There is undoubtedly tension betwe en Swierkiewicz and later decisions, such as Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662 (2009), and Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544 (2007) . But neither Iqbal nor Twombly overrules Swierkiewicz , and our du ty is to apply the Supreme Court’s precedents unle ss the Justices themselves inter them. See, e.g., State Oil Co. v.
Khan , 522 U.S. 3 (1997)

. The district judge may think it prudent to require Reynolds to file a more definite statement, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(e), but the complaint cannot be di smissed as i nadequate under Rule 8 or Rule 12(b)(6).

V ACATED AND R EMANDED