Court Opinion

ID: 9402502
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-15 21:01:26.462504+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:00.274688
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                 For the Seventh Circuit
                     ____________________
No. 22-2022
MICHELLE GIESE,
                                                  Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
                                 v.

CITY OF KANKAKEE, DAMON SCHULDT,
and NATHAN BOYCE,
                                               Defendants-Appellees.
                     ____________________

         Appeal from the United States District Court for the
                    Central District of Illinois.
             No. 19-cv-1245 — Colin S. Bruce, Judge.
                     ____________________

       ARGUED MAY 24, 2023 — DECIDED JUNE 15, 2023
                ____________________

   Before SCUDDER, ST. EVE, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges.
   ST. EVE, Circuit Judge. On October 18, 2018, Michelle
Giese—a lieutenant in the Kankakee Fire Department
(“KFD”)—was attacked by another ﬁreﬁghter while respond-
ing to a ﬁre at a senior living facility. The City suspended the
other ﬁreﬁghter for twenty-four hours without pay, ordered
him to complete an anger management course, and directed
him to avoid working on the same shift as Giese for three
2                                                 No. 22-2022

months. Giese experienced ongoing physical and mental in-
juries from the incident, causing her to take leave from work
and apply for workers’ compensation. She returned to work
six months later but permanently left her position shortly af-
ter. She then ﬁled this lawsuit, alleging that the defendants,
among other things, retaliated against her for certain pro-
tected activities under Title VII and condoned aggressive and
inappropriate behaviors as part of a “code of silence” that re-
sulted in her attack. The district court granted summary judg-
ment for the defendants, and this appeal followed.

                       I. Background
    On October 18, 2018, Michelle Giese and several other ﬁre-
ﬁghters, including Lieutenant Nathan Boyce, responded to a
call on the second ﬂoor of a senior living facility. Boyce took
command of operations, while Giese and another ﬁreﬁghter
brought a ﬁre hose up the stairs. Boyce claims that he ordered
the ﬁreﬁghters to wait until the hose was “charged,” or ﬁlled
with water, to proceed through the ﬁre doors into the second-
ﬂoor main hallway, but Giese testiﬁed that she did not hear
the order.
    While Boyce was “ﬂaking out” or unkinking the ﬁre hose
so that it could be charged, Giese and several other ﬁreﬁghters
used thermal imagining technology to evaluate the conditions
behind the ﬁre doors. They determined that the ﬁre was con-
tained in one of the units behind the ﬁre doors and therefore
decided to proceed down the hallway with the uncharged ﬁre
hose. After the ﬁreﬁghters heard moans from inside an apart-
ment, they dropped the hose and entered the apartment to as-
sist an elderly woman who had caught on ﬁre.
No. 22-2022                                                  3

     Boyce realized that Giese and the others had continued
into the hallway in violation of his orders and followed them.
Once he reached the entryway of the apartment, Boyce
grabbed Giese by the harness and pushed her into the wall—
lifting her so high that her feet were oﬀ the ground. After
Giese slid down the wall and regained her footing, Boyce
pushed her against the wall two more times, each time pulling
her back with her harness before pushing her into the wall
again. During the incident, which lasted about a minute to a
minute-and-a-half, the two moved through the apartment
from the entryway into an internal hallway, where Boyce
pushed Giese three more times.
    Giese informed her supervisors of the incident, and over
the following week, Chief Damon Schuldt met with Giese
twice. Schuldt informed her that he would not take the matter
lightly and that Boyce would be disciplined, and he instructed
her to change her work schedule so that she and Boyce would
not be on the same shift. Schuldt ultimately suspended Boyce
for twenty-four hours without pay and required him to com-
plete an anger management course. Schuldt further directed
Boyce not to work on the same shifts as Giese for three months
and instructed that any additional violations of department
rules could lead to further discipline, including termination.
Some ﬁreﬁghters and union members later testiﬁed that they
believed this punishment to be relatively light, and Giese con-
tends that Schuldt imposed a short suspension because the
Police and Fire Commission must approve suspensions of
more than forty-eight hours.
   On November 5, Giese contacted Elizabeth Kubal, the
head of human resources for the City. Giese explained her
frustration that she had been asked to work around Boyce’s
4                                                 No. 22-2022

schedule and that she had not been formally interviewed re-
garding the incident. About ten minutes after Giese ended the
call, Schuldt called Giese, demanding to know why she had
contacted human resources. He reiterated his order that she
amend her schedule to avoid working with Boyce.
    As a result of the incident, Giese experienced ongoing psy-
chological and physical trauma in the form of decreased abil-
ity to focus, panic attacks, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea and
had to use personal sick time to take oﬀ work. On November
15, she put in a workers’ compensation request to cover those
injuries. That request was granted, and the sick time she had
previously used was credited back to her.
    On March 13, 2019, Giese visited the ﬁrehouse. Captain
Michael Casagrande informed Giese that Schuldt had in-
structed the supervisors not to speak with her because she
had retained an attorney and there was a pending lawsuit.
This was false; there was no pending lawsuit at the time.
Nonetheless, Schuldt contends that James Ellexson (the new
head of human resources for the City) instructed him not to
communicate directly with Giese and instead to leave such
communication to Ellexson.
    On April 5, Giese ﬁled a complaint with the Equal Em-
ployment Opportunities Commission (“EEOC”) alleging har-
assment and sex discrimination. A week later, Ellexson called
Giese to discuss her return to work. According to Giese, El-
lexson informed her that if she did not report to work by April
15, she would be terminated.
    Giese began working again on April 14. She was assigned
to light duty, which included tasks such as cooking, cleaning,
and clerical work. Apparently, no one informed Casagrande
No. 22-2022                                                           5

that Giese was assigned to light duty because, on her ﬁrst day
back, Casagrande asked her to assist in an active ﬁre investi-
gation. Giese told Casagrande that she was assigned to light
duty and therefore could not conduct the investigation. Casa-
grande did not insist or require her to complete the ﬁre inves-
tigation or any task she was restricted from doing.
   Giese continued to work light duty until May 10, when
they sent her home because she broke out in hives and blisters
and had an elevated blood pressure. She has not returned to
work since and applied for a disability pension in November
2019. Her application was still pending as of March 2023.
    Giese sued the City, Schuldt, and Boyce, bringing sixteen
claims under federal and state law. The district court granted
summary judgment to the defendants on all federal claims
and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the
remaining state law claims. With respect to her Fourth
Amendment Monell claim, the district court found that Giese
“has introduced no evidence that would allow a rational jury
to conclude that she suﬀered a deprivation of her rights under
… [the] Fourth Amendment.” With respect to her Title VII re-
taliation claim, the district court found that the only protected
activity in this case was the ﬁling of Giese’s EEOC complaint
and the defendants did not engage in any adverse employ-
ment actions after that point.
    Giese timely appealed the district court’s decision with re-
spect to her Fourth Amendment Monell and Title VII retalia-
tion claims, which apply only to the City and Schuldt. 1 She

    1 The only claims alleged against Boyce were state law claims, which
are not on appeal.
6                                                          No. 22-2022

expressly abandoned her sex discrimination claims under Ti-
tle VII and the Equal Protection Clause in her opening appel-
late brief.
                             II. Analysis
A. Fourth Amendment Monell Claim
    “[T]o prevail on a § 1983 claim against a municipality un-
der Monell, a plaintiﬀ must challenge conduct that is properly
attributable to the municipality itself.” First Midwest Bank v.
City of Chicago, 988 F.3d 978, 986 (7th Cir. 2021). Where the
municipality has not directly violated the plaintiﬀ’s rights
and instead caused an employee to do so, the plaintiﬀ must
demonstrate that the municipality acted with deliberate indif-
ference to the plaintiﬀ’s constitutional rights. Id. at 987. Addi-
tionally, the plaintiﬀ must prove that the municipality’s ac-
tion was the ”moving force” behind the plaintiﬀ’s violation.
Id.
    Giese claims that Boyce’s conduct constituted an unlawful
seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. U.S. Const.,
amend. IV. She further contends that the City and Schuldt had
a practice of overlooking the misconduct of ﬁreﬁghters that
allowed her constitutional rights to be violated. 2 Speciﬁcally,

    2 A plaintiﬀ can also prevail on a Monell claim by showing “an express

policy that causes a constitutional deprivation when enforced … [and] an
allegation that the constitutional injury was caused by a person with ﬁnal
policymaking authority.” Id. at 986. Contrary to her counsel’s contention
at oral argument, however, Giese provides no evidence that there was an
oﬃcial City policy that resulted in the attack. Nor does she dispute the
defendants’ contention that the Board of Police and Fire Commissioners,
not the defendants, are the ﬁnal policymakers for KFD. Her Monell claim,
No. 22-2022                                                           7

she maintains that the defendants, despite knowing of the risk
of aggression and violent behavior within KFD, cultivated a
“code of silence” that allowed and emboldened Boyce to vio-
late Giese’s Fourth Amendment rights.
    As a threshold matter, the defendants argue that Giese did
not suﬃciently develop her Fourth Amendment claim in the
district court and thus waived her argument. We disagree.
Giese’s argument was the same below as it is now: the defend-
ants knew about and actively ignored Boyce’s inappropriate
behavioral issues, resulting in his unreasonable seizure of her.
She made clear in her summary judgment brieﬁng that her
claim related to Boyce’s violent behavior. She stated, “City
policymakers’ decision not to adopt policies to respond to
substance abuse, assault and battery, and misconduct among
its ﬁreﬁghters renders the City liable.” She clariﬁed that even
if “Boyce [had] not singled her out for her gender, that cause
of action would remain.” This was suﬃcient to preserve her
claim for appeal.
    On the merits, Giese’s claim fails because none of her evi-
dence, separately or taken together, creates a genuine dispute
regarding whether the defendants had a practice of condon-
ing aggressive behavior, resulting in a constitutional injury.
Although we have previously recognized that a defendant’s
“code of silence” can give rise to a valid Monell claim, such a
claim requires more than evidence of “individual misconduct
by … oﬃcers”; it requires “a widespread practice that permeates
a critical mass of an institutional body.” Rossi v. City of

therefore, hinges on showing that the defendants had a practice that was
the “moving force” behind her constitutional violation.
8                                                     No. 22-2022

Chicago, 790 F.3d 729, 737 (7th Cir. 2015); see also Sledd v. Lind-
say, 102 F.3d 282, 289 (7th Cir. 1996).
   Giese fails to provide such evidence. The undisputed facts
in the record indicate that Boyce’s actions were unprece-
dented. Prior to the incident, no KFD ﬁreﬁghter had ever been
violent against another ﬁreﬁghter while on duty, and the rec-
ord does not suggest that anyone had anger or drinking prob-
lems at work. By itself, Giese’s anecdotal evidence does not
“establish a tie between [Boyce’s actions] and the … depart-
ment as a whole.” Rossi, 790 F.3d at 738.
    Giese cites Estate of McIntosh by Lane v. City of Chicago, No.
15-cv-1920, 2022 WL 4448737 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 23, 2022), for sup-
port, but that case is both nonprecedential and inapplicable
here. In that case, the plaintiﬀ relied upon data spanning the
entire city department, whereas here, Giese’s evidence is al-
most exclusively anecdotal evidence of Boyce’s past behav-
iors. She does not provide any department-wide studies or
statistics that demonstrate such behavior was so widespread
that the department’s failure to address it suggested the exist-
ence of a code of silence.
    Lastly, the record does not support Giese’s contention that
there was such a high risk of constitutional injury from Boyce
that the “single incident” theory of municipal liability applies
here. See Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51, 63 (2011) (describ-
ing the “narrow range of circumstances” in which “a pattern
of similar violations might not be necessary to show deliber-
ate indiﬀerence”) (citation omitted). In such cases, the “risk of
constitutional violations [is] so high and the need for training
so obvious that the municipality's failure to act can reﬂect de-
liberate indiﬀerence and allow an inference of institutional
culpability, even in the absence of a similar prior
No. 22-2022                                                            9

constitutional violation.” J.K.J. v. Polk County, 960 F.3d 367,
380 (7th Cir. 2020). “Qualifying circumstances under this doc-
trine are rare”; “[a] constitutional violation must be a ‘bla-
tantly obvious’ consequence of inaction for single-incident li-
ability” to apply. Orozco v. Dart, 64 F.4th 806, 825–26 (7th Cir.
2023).
    Giese falls far short of meeting this demanding standard.
Although her evidence may show that Boyce had a bad tem-
per, a drinking problem, and poor judgment, no reasonable
jury could ﬁnd that there was such a high risk that Boyce
would act aggressively towards a fellow ﬁreﬁghter at work
that the defendants’ failure to address that risk constituted
deliberate indiﬀerence. Witnesses testiﬁed that Boyce some-
times acted aggressively when drunk at non-work, social
events and that he occasionally yelled or became angry at
work, but no one had ever seen him threaten or lay hands on
anyone at work. Nor is there any evidence in the record that
anyone had ever reported that they felt unsafe working with
Boyce. In fact, Giese and other ﬁreﬁghters stated that they
were shocked by Boyce’s actions because they had not ex-
pected him to act that way. For these reasons, the district court
properly granted summary judgment on Giese’s Monell
claim. 3
B. Title VII Retaliation Claim
   “To prevail on a Title VII retaliation claim, the plaintiﬀ
must prove that (1) [she] engaged in an activity protected by
the statute; (2) [she] suﬀered an adverse employment action;

    3  Because the municipal defendants cannot be held liable under a Mo-
nell theory, we need not discuss whether a reasonable jury could ﬁnd an
underlying Fourth Amendment violation.
10                                                  No. 22-2022

and (3) there is a causal link between the protected activity
and the adverse action.” Lewis v. Wilkie, 909 F.3d 858, 866 (7th
Cir. 2018). For a retaliation claim, an adverse employment ac-
tion is that which would “dissuade[] a reasonable worker
from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.” Bur-
lington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 68 (2006).
The plaintiﬀ must show that the employer took the adverse
employment action because of the protected activity. Lewis,
909 F.3d at 866.
    It is undisputed that Giese’s ﬁling of her April 5, 2019
EEOC complaint constitutes protected activity under Title
VII. She further contends that she engaged in two other pro-
tected activities before she ﬁled that complaint: (1) she ﬁled a
workers’ compensation claim on November 15, 2018, and (2)
she complained to the head of human resources in early No-
vember 2018. Neither our case law nor the record supports
her contention.
    Although we have never expressly addressed whether a
workers’ compensation claim is protected under Title VII,
other circuits have concluded that it is not. See, e.g., Lanza v.
Postmaster General of U.S., 570 F. App’x 236, 241 (3d Cir. 2014);
Reynolds v. Am. Nat'l Red Cross, 701 F.3d 143, 154 (4th Cir.
2012); Jimenez v. Potter, 211 F. App’x 289, 290 (5th Cir. 2006);
Primm v. Dep’t of Hum. Servs., No. 16-6837, 2017 WL 10646487,
at *3 (6th Cir. Aug. 17, 2017); Davis v. Team Elec. Co., 520 F.3d
1080, 1093 n.8 (9th Cir. 2008). We follow the lead of our sister
circuits in holding that ﬁling a workers’ compensation claim
alone is typically not protected activity under Title VII. Title
VII prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, gen-
der, national origin, age, or religion. In most cases, like here,
the work-related injuries at issue in a workers’ compensation
No. 22-2022                                                   11

claim will not relate to the claimant’s protected characteris-
tics. Where that is the case, the ﬁling of a workers’ compensa-
tion claim cannot be the basis of a Title VII retaliation claim.
    In contrast, the parties do not dispute that complaining to
human resources about sex discrimination is protected activ-
ity. See Harper v. C.R. Eng., Inc., 687 F.3d 297, 306 (7th Cir.
2012); Malin v. Hospira, Inc., 762 F.3d 552, 558 (7th Cir. 2014).
But that is not what happened here. In her deposition, Giese
explained that, on November 5, she “advised [human re-
sources] of the incident that had occurred and … [said she]
wasn’t getting anywhere with the ﬁre chief.” Giese com-
plained that she had been directed “to amend [her] schedule
to work around” Boyce and that she “had not been inter-
viewed by the ﬁre chief or chiefs and the union board yet.”
Although we must make all inferences in favor of Giese on
summary judgment, nothing in the record suggests that Giese
informed human resources that she believed she was being
discriminated against on the basis of her sex. Without a link be-
tween the employer’s actions and the plaintiﬀ’s protected
class, this conversation cannot constitute protected activity
under Title VII. See Tomanovich v. City of Indianapolis, 457 F.3d
656, 663 (7th Cir. 2006) (“Although ﬁling an oﬃcial complaint
with an employer may constitute statutorily protected activ-
ity under Title VII, the complaint must indicate the discrimi-
nation occurred because of sex, race, national origin, or some
other protected class.”). For these reasons, the only protected
activity on which Giese can base her retaliation claim is the
ﬁling of her EEOC complaint.
   To prevail on a Title VII retaliation claim, the plaintiﬀ can-
not merely show that she engaged in protected activity; she
must also show that the defendants retaliated against her for
12                                                   No. 22-2022

that activity. Although Giese provides a long list of alleged
adverse employment actions to support her retaliation claim,
we need only address those that occurred after April 5, 2019,
the date she ﬁled her EEOC complaint. As the district court
thoughtfully explained, “[i]t is axiomatic that an employer
cannot ‘retaliate’ against an employee for conduct in which
the employee has not yet engaged.” See also Nischan v. Strato-
sphere Quality, LLC, 865 F.3d 922, 933 (7th Cir. 2017) (“The
problem with Nischan’s claim, however, is that Nischan
lodged no complaint until after Stratosphere removed her
from the lot.”).
    Giese points to only three actions occurring after April 5:
(1) the defendants’ requirement that she return to work
against medical advice; (2) their threat to ﬁre her if she did not
return to work by April 15; and (3) their failure to tell Casa-
grande about her light work assignment. None of these asser-
tions satisfy the adverse employment action element on this
record.
    First, the record does not support Giese’s contention that
she was required to return to work against medical advice.
The workers’ compensation provider required that Giese be
evaluated by a psychologist for a possible return to work, but
Giese relies entirely on the opinion of her personal therapist.
In contrast, the two psychologists who evaluated Giese con-
cluded that she was capable of doing light work. The ﬁrst psy-
chologist, who had been referred to Giese by her personal
therapist, concluded that Giese was “capable of working so
long as it did not involve any life or death decision-making.”
Further, Giese admitted in her deposition that, at the time of
the evaluation, she agreed that she could engage in light
work. The second psychologist similarly concluded that Giese
No. 22-2022                                                            13

could return to work with some light duty arrangement. Con-
sidering the whole record, no reasonable jury could ﬁnd that
the defendants forced Giese to return to work as retaliation.
The only reasonable inference from the medical evidence in
this case is that the defendants required Giese to return to
work for light duty because they believed her physically and
mentally able to do so.
    Second, although Giese contends that Ellexson told her
that they would terminate her if she did not return to work by
April 15, there is no evidence in the record supporting this
contention. Giese did not testify in her deposition that El-
lexson made this threat and cites only her complaint allega-
tion in her statement of undisputed facts. 4 See Burrell v. City of
Mattoon, 378 F.3d 642, 648 (7th Cir. 2004) (“[M]ere allegations
in the pleadings, unsupported by record evidence, cannot cre-
ate an issue of fact defeating summary judgment.”).
    Third, although the defendants did not tell Casagrande of
her light work assignment, Giese concedes that she was never
required to perform tasks that she was not authorized to per-
form. She admitted in her deposition that Casagrande did not
“insist that [she] do things that [she was] restricted from do-
ing”; that “neither Captain LaRoche or Captain Casagrande
insist[ed] that [she] go ahead and do the[] [investigation] even
though [she] said [she] didn’t think it was a good idea”; and
that there was no “time during her light duty where [she was]
… ordered or required to do [a] task” she could not do. These
statements belie her arguments on appeal.

    4At oral argument, Giese’s counsel was unable to point the Court to
any speciﬁc evidence, stating only that—if such evidence did, in fact, ex-
ist—it would be in Giese’s deposition.
14                                                 No. 22-2022

                       III. Conclusion
    We are sympathetic to Giese, who continues to suﬀer men-
tal and physical injuries from an attack that should never have
occurred. But Giese’s remedy, if any, is not in federal court.
For the foregoing reasons, Giese fails to create a genuine dis-
pute of material fact precluding summary judgment regard-
ing her Fourth Amendment Monell claim and her Title VII re-
taliation claim. The district court, therefore, properly granted
summary judgment to the defendants.

                                                     AFFIRMED