Opinion ID: 204284
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Cat's Paw Theory

Text: To prevail on her Title VII claim, Schandelmeier had to prove that she was terminated because of her race. Specifically, she had to provide direct or circumstantial evidence that the decisionmaker has acted for a prohibited reason. A decisionmaker is the person `responsible for the contested decision.' Rogers v. City of Chicago, 320 F.3d 748, 754 (7th Cir.2003) (emphasis in original), quoting Chiaramonte v. Fashion Bed Group, Inc., 129 F.3d 391, 396 (7th Cir.1997). The evidence clearly supports the conclusion that Adams, Schandelmeier's immediate supervisor, harbored an illegal racial animus, but Adams was not the person who pulled the trigger to end Schandelmeier's employment. The person who dideither McDonald or Rowland (the evidence is inconsistent on that point)did not harbor a racial animus against her. Schandelmeier therefore had to demonstrate some causal connection between Adams's bias and McDonald's or Rowland's decision to terminate her employment. She had to bridge that gap. The existence of such a link between an employment decision made by an unbiased individual and the impermissible bias of a non-decisionmaking co-worker has become known in this circuit as the cat's paw theory. The name is based on an old fable in which a scheming monkey convinces an unwitting cat to fetch roasting chestnuts from a fire. The cat burns its paw and the monkey gets the chestnuts. [3] In employment discrimination cases, the cat's paw is the unwitting manager or supervisor who is persuaded to act based on another's illegal bias. With sufficient evidence, we permit juries to draw an inference that another employee's impermissible bias infected a decision when a plaintiff is able to show that the biased employee had some degree of influence over the ultimate decision. Deciding the degree of influence required to permit that inference, however, is not so simple. Recent cases from this circuit suggest that liability for an employment decision may be imputed to the employer only if a biased employee had a singular influence over the ultimate decisionmaker. See, e.g., Martino v. MCI Communications Services, Inc., 574 F.3d 447, 452-53 (7th Cir. 2009) (biased comments of non-decisionmaker relevant only if he had singular influence over decisionmaker); Staub v. Proctor Hosp., 560 F.3d 647, 656-57 (7th Cir.2009) (employer not liable based on a nondecisionmaker's animus unless the `decisionmaker' herself held that title only nominally; evidence of illegal bias of non-decisionmakers should be excluded from trial without showing that biased employees exerted singular influence over decisionmaker), cert. granted, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 2089, 176 L.Ed.2d 720 (2010); Metzger v. Illinois State Police, 519 F.3d 677, 682 (7th Cir.2008) (employee's retaliation claim could not survive summary judgment where employee did not come forth with evidence that biased non-decisionmaker's comments actually influenced decisionmaker, much less were the singular influence that cat's paw theory requires); Brewer v. Board of Trustees of Univ. of Illinois, 479 F.3d 908, 917 (7th Cir.2007) (actions of biased employee can be imputed to the employer under Title VII where biased employee without formal authority to materially alter terms and conditions of plaintiff's employment uses singular influence over decisionmaker by supplying misinformation or failing to supply relevant information, and plaintiff is harmed); Rozskowiak v. Village of Arlington Heights, 415 F.3d 608, 613 (7th Cir. 2005) (no evidence that police commander who was a member of the command staff that recommended to terminate plaintiff had singular influence over the command staff's decision); Lucas v. Chicago Transit Auth., 367 F.3d 714, 730-31 (7th Cir.2004) (affirming summary judgment for employer where the statement given by employee alleged to harbor racial animus was only one element of a comprehensive investigation into incident that was cause of plaintiff's discipline). It was under this high singular influence standard that the district court granted the Park District's motion for judgment as a matter of law. The court found that the decision to terminate Schandelmeier was not controlled by, singularly influenced by, or made in blind reliance on Adams's bias. See Schandelmeier v. Chicago Park Dist., 2009 WL 2916858, at -5 (N.D.Ill. Sept.2, 2009), citing Martino, 574 F.3d at 452-53, Staub, 560 F.3d at 655-59, and Brewer, 479 F.3d at 916-20. [4] Other cases from this court indicate that a lesser degree of influence is sufficient to impute liability to the employer for a non-decisionmaker's bias. See, e.g., Lust v. Sealy, 383 F.3d 580, 584-85 (7th Cir.2004) (explaining that cat's paw theory of liability is not intended to be taken literally and it is enough to show that non-decisionmaker's bias was a cause of employment decision); Maarouf v. Walker Mfg. Co., 210 F.3d 750, 754 (7th Cir.2000) (summary judgment for defendant upheld where plaintiff was unable to show that perception of his poor work performance was based upon biased supervisor's input because performance was also independently noted by other supervisors); Hoffman v. MCA, Inc., 144 F.3d 1117, 1121-22 (7th Cir.1998) (liability can be imputed where non-decisionmaker's bias tainted the decision maker's judgment); Wallace v. SMC Pneumatics, Inc., 103 F.3d 1394, 1400 (7th Cir.1997) (the prejudices of an employee, normally a subordinate but here a coequal, are imputed to the employee who has formal authority over the plaintiff's job . . . where the subordinate, by concealing relevant information from the decisionmaking employee or feeding false information to him, is able to influence the decision); Willis v. Marion County Auditor's Office, 118 F.3d 542, 547 (7th Cir.1997) (judgment for defendant as a matter of law affirmed where plaintiff did not present evidence that the biased employees were able to manipulate the decisionmaking process and to influence the decision); Shager v. Upjohn Co., 913 F.2d 398, 404-05 (7th Cir.1990) (if review committee unaware of manager's age-based animus acted as the conduit of [manager's] prejudicehis cat's pawthe innocence of its members would not spare the company from liability). The statutory language of Title VII and the standard jury instructions in this circuit weigh against too stringent a standard of proof for the cat's paw theory. Title VII is written in terms of what the employer is prohibited from doing: it is unlawful for an employer(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual. . . because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a). The focus is on the employer entity as a whole, not on individual managers or supervisors, who are not individually liable for an employer's violations of federal discrimination statutes. See, e.g., Williams v. Banning, 72 F.3d 552, 553-54 (7th Cir.1995). The statute is also written broadly in terms of cause: because of such individual's race. This circuit's pattern jury instructions in employment discrimination cases focus on They leave plenty of room for counsel to argue a cat's paw theory as a question of fact. The district judge gave the appropriate standard instruction here: To determine that Ms. Schandelmeier-Bartels was terminated because of her race, you must decide that the Park District would not have terminated Ms. Schandelmeier-Bartels had she been non-Caucasian but everything else about Ms. Schandelmeier-Bartels had been the same. See Seventh Circuit Pattern Civil Jury Instructions No. 3.01; see also Achor v. Riverside Golf Club, 117 F.3d 339, 340-41 (7th Cir.1997); Gehring v. Case Corp., 43 F.3d 340, 344 (7th Cir.1994). It is not necessary to instruct the jury about the intricacies of various doctrines the courts have developed for digesting summary judgment motions in employment discrimination cases. The court may and should simply ask the jury the counter-factual question, and the parties may argue whether, for example, the plaintiff's race made the critical difference, regardless of which of the employer's agents made or influenced the decision, or exactly how they did so.