# United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted September 17, 2019 *

Decided September 18, 2019

Before

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

AMY C. BARRETT, Circuit Judge

No. 18

‐ 1745

EDWARD F. NOVOTNY, III,

Plaintiff

‐ Appellant

,

v

.

PLEXUS CORP., et al.

, Defendants

‐ Appellees

. Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Northern District of Illinois,

Eastern Division.

No. 13

‐ cv

‐ 05881

Andrea R. Wood,

J udge

.

O R D E R

Edward Novotny sued Plexus Corporation for employment discrimination.

During the litigation he also petitioned for chapter 7 bankruptcy, and his petition

eventually was granted. But during summary

‐judgment proceedings in the

discrimination case, it came to light that Novotny had not disclosed his discrimination

claims to the bankruptcy judge. The district judge concluded that Novotny’s omission

* 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. F ED

. R. A PP

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 NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited onl y in accordance with Fed. R. A pp

. P. 32.1No. 18

‐ 1745 Page 2

was intentional and entered summary judgment for Plexus on grounds that Novotny

was judicially estopped from pursuing those undisclosed claims. We affirm.

Novotny worked for Plexus for four years before being fired. He then brought

this suit against Plexus and one of its employees. The district judge granted the

defendants’ partial motion to dismiss Novotny’s complaint but allowed him to proceed

on his claims of age discrimination under the ADEA, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq

., and race

discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981—claims that he valued at more than $1.3 million.

Three years after filing this lawsuit, Novotny, with the help of counsel,

petitioned for chapter 7 bankruptcy in the Northern District of Illinois. The petition

required that he list all his assets, including any legal claims against third parties.

Novotny disclosed a possible workers’ compensation claim against another former

employer, but he did not disclose his claims in his ongoing litigation against Plexus. The

bankruptcy judge granted Novotny’s petition, discharged his debts, and closed his

case—all without Novotny ever having revealed this litigation.

During discovery, Novotny apparently concealed his bankruptcy history from

Plexus. When asked in an interrogatory whether he had ever filed for bankruptcy,

Novotny objected to the question, asserting that that information was privileged and

not relevant to his lawsuit.

Once Plexus learned about the omission in Novotny’s bankruptcy, it moved for

summary judgment. Novotny lacked standing to sue, Plexus argued, because his

discrimination claim should have been relinquished to the bankruptcy estate. Plexus

argued alternatively that Novotny should be judicially estopped from recovering on the

undisclosed claims and reaping the financial benefits of his concealment.

In response, Novotny moved to reopen his bankruptcy so that he could amend

his disclosure of assets to add his discrimination claims from this lawsuit. The

bankruptcy judge granted his request, and Novotny filed an amended Schedule A/B.

The trustee for Novotny’s bankruptcy estate eventually abandoned the added claims,

and the bankruptcy judge closed the case again. Novotny then responded to

Defendants’ motion for summary judgment and informed the district judge of these

developments.No. 18

‐ 1745 Page 3

Three months later Novotny attempted to reopen his bankruptcy a second time

and convert it to a chapter 13 bankruptcy. He did not inform the district judge or Plexus

of this attempt.

Meanwhile, the district judge entered summary judgment against Novotny. The

judge concluded that Novotny did have standing to sue (because the trustee abandoned

his claims, which then reverted to Novotny) but held that Novotny was judicially

estopped from recovering on the undisclosed claims. She found that Novotny’s

omissions to the bankruptcy court were intentional and determined that he should not

be permitted to personally benefit from adopting a position contrary to the one he took

in his original petition. The judge added that Novotny’s failure to convert his

bankruptcy to the more creditor

‐ friendly chapter 13 also supported the ruling.

A week later, the bankruptcy judge denied Novotny’s conversion request.

On appeal from summary judgment, Novotny challenges the district judge’s

application of judicial estoppel. He contends that the district judge “failed to prove”

that the omissions in his bankruptcy application were intentional; we understand him

to argue that the record evidence does not support the district judge’s finding.

The district judge did not abuse its discretion when it enforced judicial estoppel

against Novotny. Where a plaintiff seeks to benefit from an intentional omission from

an earlier bankruptcy proceeding, judicial estoppel is appropriate, so long as estoppel

would not adversely affect a litigant’s creditors. See Metrou v. M.A. Mortenson Co.

, 781

F.3d 357, 360 (7th Cir. 2015). Here, the evidence supports the district judge’s finding that

Novotny’s omission was intentional. First, Novotny was actively litigating this lawsuit

at the time he filed for bankruptcy. Second, his petition listed a possible workers’

compensation claim against a different employer—an acknowledgment that he

understood the question and did not simply neglect to answer it. Third, when asked in

an interrogatory whether he ever had filed for bankruptcy, Novotny dodged the

question, saying that the information was privileged and “not pertaining to the case at

hand.” Finally, in response to Plexus’s motion for summary judgment, Novotny said

that he omitted his discrimination case from his petition because he “had no idea what

his case was worth at the time of filing”—a demonstrably untrue statement, given his

$1.3 million request for relief. “[J]udicial estoppel raises the cost of lying.” Cannon

‐ Stokes

v. Potter

, 453 F.3d 446, 448 (7th Cir. 2006).No. 18

‐ 1745 Page 4

Novotny further asserts that judicial estoppel should have been foreclosed by his

attempt to convert his bankruptcy from chapter 7 to chapter 13. He cites a district court

case, Lujano v. Town of Cicero

, No. 07 C 4822, 2012 WL 4499326, at *13 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 28,

2012), for the proposition that judicial estoppel is often inappropriate where a debtor’s

chapter 13 petition has been granted and the debtor is pursuing claims on behalf of the

bankruptcy estate. But Novotny’s motion to convert his bankruptcy to chapter 13 was

not granted. Moreover, Novotny did not inform the district judge of his attempt to

convert his bankruptcy until after summary judgment already had been entered, and

district courts decide motions for summary judgment based on the record before them.

See F ED

. R. C IV

. P. 56(c)(3).

Novotny also asks us to review the bankruptcy judge’s decision to deny his

request to convert his bankruptcy. But we cannot entertain this request because we do

not have jurisdiction over his bankruptcy proceedings. In bankruptcy cases, we have

jurisdiction only over appeals from final decisions of the district court. See 28 U.S.C.

§ 158(d)(1); In Matter of Ferguson

, 834 F.3d 795, 798 (7th Cir. 2016). Novotny never

appealed his bankruptcy case to the district court, and it is now too late for him to do

so. See F ED

. R. B ANKR

. P. 8002(a)(1); In re Sobczak

‐ Slomczewski

, 826 F.3d 429, 432 (7th Cir.

2016).

AFFIRMED