Opinion ID: 2995038
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: See Kalis v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., 231 F.3d

Text: 1049, 1057 n.5 (7th Cir. 2000) (’We repeatedly have made clear that perfunctory and undeveloped arguments, and arguments that are unsupported by pertinent authority, are waived.’) (quoting United States v. Berkowitz, 927 F.2d 1376, 1384 (7th Cir. 1991)). Therefore, the only argument that Clay has not waived on appeal is that the district court erred in granting summary judgment for the Hospital on her claim that she was terminated because of her pregnancy in violation of Title VII. /2 The Pregnancy Discrimination Act provides that women affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions shall be treated the same for all employment related purposes . . . as other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work. 42 U.S.C. sec. 2000e(k). /3 The district court stated: This court accepts Dr. Clay’s improperly-filed evidence that she and Seliga were in the same place at the same time on several occasions while Dr. Clay was visibly pregnant. This court also accepts Dr. Clay’s evidence casting doubt on Seliga’s credibility, so as to undercut his explanation that he did not know Dr. Clay was pregnant when he decided to terminate her employment. Nevertheless, this court declines to decide whether Dr. Clay’s evidence is sufficient to create a genuine issue of whether the decision-maker knew she was preg- nant at the time she was terminated under Title VII or whether Holy Cross would have terminated her but for her decision to take a maternity leave under the FMLA. Because plaintiff has made no showing of pretext, this court need not decide whether she has established a prima facie case of discrimination. /4 Dr. Clay also testified that she had no recollection whether she was ever face-to-face with Seliga at that event. /5 On the one hand, Clay testified that she was trying to keep things quiet about her pregnancy from Hospital officials until May 1998, but the affidavit by her husband (in which he avers that he discussed and even celebrated his wife’s pregnancy in the proximity of the same Hospital officials in March 1998) obviously conflicts with her intent. /6 In Clay’s deposition, she was asked: Why didn’t you send that maternity leave request form in earlier than you did [in early May]? Clay answered: Again, because I was trying to keep things quiet. I didn’t want those who were not friends of mine to be aware of the fact that I was pregnant, so that’s why I waited. /7 Without showing that Seliga actually knew of her pregnancy, Clay would not have established the first element of a prima facie case of pregnancy discrimination because she had not shown that her employer knew that she was pregnant. Ilhardt, 118 F.3d at 1154. As noted, the district court by- passed that question. Moreover, it is undisputed that eight other Holy Cross physicians had been pregnant, had taken maternity leave, and had not been terminated. Clay’s response to that fact is that all except one of those physicians were retained before Holy Cross began to lose substan- tial amounts of money. But one of the eight physicians, Dr. Beth Davis-Phillpotts, went on maternity leave, returned, was initially selected for the RIF, but then Seliga determined that she would hustle to build a profitable practice if she were given a second chance, and thus she was retained and placed at another location in the Network. /8 Clay also argues for the first time on appeal that because the Hospital produced no written standards for Network physicians, and no perfor- mance evaluations or other written assessments of Clay’s job performance, that is further evidence of pretext. Because Clay never made this argument to the district court, it is waived. Arendt, 99 F.3d at 237. Moreover, the argument lacks merit. There is no dispute that Clement asked Seliga to assess each physician’s practice, including subjective factors like the physician’s efforts to grow her practice. And it is discernable from the record that Seliga’s method in conducting the RIF involved his consultation with the Hospital’s marketing and practice managers before he selected the physicians for termination under the RIF. While more precise and objective criteria may have been possible, any lack of precision in the articulated standards does not mean that [Clay’s] inclusion in the RIF was necessarily a pretext for [pregnancy] discrimination. Paluck, 221 F.3d at 1014. The dispositive question is whether [Clay] has shown that [the Hospital’s] stated reason for including her in the RIF . . . was pretextual. Id. at 1015. Because Clay has failed to refute the Hospital’s reason for her termina- tion, this argument fails.