BAILEY CONROY v. BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR CORNELL COMMUNITY CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 426; RANDALL VINCENT, in his individual and official capacities; and the Board of Education for Cornell School District 426 as indemnitor
Case No. 1:23-cv-1315
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS PEORIA DIVISION
July 25, 2024
JOE BILLY McDADE, United States Senior District Judge
This matter is before the Court on Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff‘s First Amended Complaint (“Complaint“) for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. (Doc. 31). Defendants have filed a Memorandum (doc. 32) in support of their Motion, and Plaintiff has filed a Response and Memorandum in opposition (doc. 33). The Motion is fully briefed and ripe for review. For the following reasons, Defendants’ Motion is denied as to Counts I, II, III, and V and granted as to Count IV.
Plaintiff is a former employee of the Cornell Community Consolidated School District No. 426 (the “District” or “Cornell“).2 Plaintiff was hired in July 2021 by the District‘s former superintendent as a bookkeeper and to audit the District‘s current financial situation, and her employment was terminated in December 2021 by Defendant Board of Education for Cornell School District (“the Board“) and Defendant Randall Vincent, the interim superintendent at the time of Plaintiff‘s termination. (Doc. 28 at 4-13). The Board terminated Plaintiff‘s employment by voting to approve Vincent‘s recommendation that Plaintiff be terminated. (Doc. 28 at 13). Plaintiff was never provided with a written contract, but her duties included executive assistance to the superintendent, human resources management, attending board meetings as board secretary, running payroll, purchasing orders, providing expenditure reports for grants, enforcing budget, performing bank reconciliation, and acting as a cafeteria cook. (Doc. 28 at 4-5).
During her tenure, Plaintiff reported numerous issues to the superintendent, the Board, local law enforcement, and two outside agencies, the Illinois State Board of Education and the Regional Superintendent. These issues included problems with school security, financial mismanagement, violations of state and federal laws, overpaying a former bookkeeper, allowing employees to double dip, modifying payroll
On September 21, 2021, a visitor accessed the school through the faulty main entrance doors and was aggressive and hostile towards Plaintiff and the District‘s then-superintendent (Doc. 28 at 7). Plaintiff and the then-superintendent reported the incident to the police. Immediately after the incident, Board President Marilea Groves placed Plaintiff on administrative leave and removed her name from the school‘s letterhead. Id.
Plaintiff suffers from anxiety, which was exacerbated by the incident, leading her doctor to order her off work. (Doc. 28 at 8). Following the security breach, Plaintiff worked from home using her sick time until October 15, 2021. (Doc. 28 at 8). She also provided the Board with a copy of her doctor‘s “no-work” order. (Doc. 28 at 8). During her leave, Board President Groves emailed Plaintiff, asking her to produce work documents, assuring her that she had not been terminated, and ordering her to return to work or resign by September 29, 2021. (Doc. 28 at 8). On October 17, 2021, Vincent ordered Plaintiff to return to work the following morning, (doc. 28 at 8) at which time Plaintiff requested an accommodation to continue working remotely until the school‘s faulty system was repaired and again provided a doctor‘s note. (Doc. 28 at 8). Plaintiff‘s predecessors were allowed to work remotely, but Vincent denied her request, stating that “[t]here is no option for working remotely.” (Doc. 28 at 9).
Plaintiff exhausted her administrative remedies by filing a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC“) on November 22, 2021, alleging various acts of discrimination and retaliation. (Doc. 28 at 3). Plaintiff further filed an amended EEOC charge on her termination. (Doc. 28 at 4). In her Complaint, Plaintiff brings five claims against Defendants. Counts I and II are brought under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA“) against Defendant Board for disability discrimination and retaliation. Count III is brought against both Defendant Board and Defendant Vincent in his official and individual capacities under
LEGAL STANDARD
To survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under the
At this stage, the Court construes the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, accepting all well-pleaded factual allegations as true and drawing “all reasonable inferences from those facts in favor of the plaintiff.” United States ex rel. Berkowitz v. Automation Aids, Inc., 896 F.3d 834, 839 (7th Cir. 2018). However, those statements which are legal conclusions rather than factual allegations are not taken as true. McReynolds v. Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., 694 F.3d 873, 885 (7th Cir. 2012).
DISCUSSION
a. Jurisdiction
As an initial matter, the Court must confirm its jurisdiction over the present action. Plaintiff has initiated this suit under two federal statutes: the ADA (
Plaintiff also asserts an indemnification claim under Illinois state law, pursuant to the Illinois Torts Immunity Act,
Here, Plaintiff‘s state-law indemnification claim arises from the same alleged discrimination, retaliation, and civil-rights infringement claim and is directed
b. Pleading Requirements
The Amended Complaint pleads five counts, with two counts under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA“), two counts pursuant to
A “federal court is not obliged to sift through a complaint to extract some merit when the attorney who drafted it has failed to do so himself.” Stanard v. Nygren, 568 F.3d 792, 800 (7th Cir. 2011). That court‘s observation covers this situation, where Plaintiff has pleaded a factual narrative without complying with Rules 8 and 10 of the
However, in the interest of the efficient and timely administration of justice, the Court will proceed to consider Defendants’ Motion. See
II. Count I: ADA Disability Discrimination
This Count is brought solely against the Defendant Board and the Court assumes that all references to “Defendants” in the relief sought under this claim are to the Defendant Board only, as the ADA only recognizes employer liability and not individual culpability. See Aku v. Chicago Bd. of Educ., 290 F. Supp. 3d 852, 860-61 (N.D. Ill. 2017). Further, an official capacity claim against an employee under the ADA is deemed redundant where the employer is already a defendant. Id. at 860. Consequently, any claims for relief in this count against the Defendant Vincent, in his official or personal capacity, are dismissed with prejudice.
Under the ADA, employers are prohibited from discriminating against disabled employees based on their disability. Dickerson v. Bd. of Trustees of Cmty. Coll. Dist. No. 522, 657 F.3d 595, 600 (7th Cir. 2011). There are two recognized types of discrimination claims under the ADA: a disparate-treatment claim under
Defendant Board does not dispute Plaintiff‘s disability or Defendant‘s awareness of the same. (Doc. 32 at 4-7). Defendant argues however, that Count I should be dismissed because remote work is not a reasonable accommodation and even if it were, Plaintiff failed to adequately plead that she could perform the essential functions of her job with such accommodation. (Doc. 32 at 6-7). Thus, according to Defendant, Plaintiff failed to adequately plead that she is a qualified individual who, with the requested accommodation, could perform the essential functions of her position. (Doc. 32 at 4). Whether or not Plaintiff‘s presence at the school is required to perform the essential functions of her job as argued by Defendant is an issue to be determined on summary judgment or at trial; at the pleading stage, a reasonable inference of the Complaint‘s allegations is that it was not, which must be accepted as true.
The ADA defines a “qualified individual” as “an individual who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the
Taking the facts as pleaded in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, Plaintiff meets the requisite criteria to hold the position of a bookkeeper and executive assistant and presumably able to perform all the duties of her position at Cornell. Plaintiff pleaded that she holds the requisite degree qualifications and received satisfactory and positive feedback for her performance from both the former superintendent and the interim superintendent, Vincent. (Doc. 28 at 4-5). Plaintiff also sufficiently pleaded facts to show that she requested to work remotely until the District‘s faulty doors are fixed, as a reasonable accommodation necessary to perform the essential functions of her job, after the work incident exacerbated her generalized anxiety condition. (Doc. 28 at 13-15).
“An employee begins the accommodation process by notifying her employer of her disability.” Hendricks-Robinson v. Excel Corp., 154 F.3d 685, 693 (7th Cir. 1998). “At that point, an employer‘s liability is triggered for failure to provide accommodations.” Id. (citating Beck v. University of Wis. Bd. of Regents, 75 F.3d 1130, 1134 (7th Cir. 1996)). After an employee discloses a disability to an employer, the ADA requires an employer to “engage with the employee in an ‘interactive process’ to determine the appropriate accommodation under the circumstances.” E.E.O.C. v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 417 F.3d 789, 805 (7th Cir. 2005) (quoting Gile v. United Airlines, Inc., 213 F.3d 365, 373 (7th Cir. 2000)).
Defendant relies on a plethora of cases (doc. 32 at 6-7), in support of its assertion that remote work is not a reasonable accommodation under the ADA: DePaoli v. Abbott Lab‘ys, 140 F.3d 668, 674 (7th Cir. 1998) (the Seventh Circuit affirmed a summary-judgment order because the plaintiff failed to show that she could perform her job‘s essential functions with the accommodations sought); Vande Zande v. State of Wis. Dep‘t of Admin., 44 F.3d 538, 544-45 (7th Cir. 1995) (the Seventh Circuit affirmed a summary-judgment order against the plaintiff, holding that subject to changes in technology, an employer is generally not required to accommodate disability by permitting an employee to work full-time at home); Rauen v. U.S. Tobacco Mfg. Ltd. P‘ship, 319 F.3d 891, 897 (7th Cir. 2003) (the Seventh Circuit affirmed a summary-judgment order, holding that since the plaintiff was able to perform the functions of her job without accommodation, her request for accommodation was unreasonable); Mobley v. Allstate Ins. Co., 531 F.3d 539, 546-47 (7th Cir. 2008) (the Seventh Circuit affirmed a summary-judgment order, holding that the plaintiff‘s employer was only obligated to provide her with reasonable accommodation, not an accommodation she prefers); Bilinsky v. Am. Airlines, Inc., 928 F.3d 565, 570 (7th Cir. 2019) (the Seventh Circuit affirmed a summary-judgment
ADA recognizes job restructuring, part-time or modified work schedules, etc., as possible accommodations. See
At this stage, the allegation in Plaintiff‘s Complaint that with the requested accommodation, she could perform the essential functions of her job must be accepted as true, and any reasonable inferences must be drawn in Plaintiff‘s favor. Thus, giving Plaintiff the benefit of all reasonable inferences to which she is entitled at this stage, the Court finds that Count I of the Complaint adequately alleges a prima facie claim under the ADA that Defendant Board failed to reasonably accommodate Plaintiff‘s disability.
III. Count II: ADA Retaliation Claim
As a preliminary point, the Court notes that although the heading of this count identifies Plaintiff as bringing the claim solely against Defendant Board, in ¶ 107 (doc. 28 at 15-16), Plaintiff asserts that the count is against both Defendant Board and Defendant Vincent. The “ADA provides only for employer, not individual, liability.” Aku, 290 F. Supp. 3d at 860-61 (quoting Silk v. City of Chi., 194 F.3d 788, 797 n.5 (7th Cir. 1999)). Additionally, official-capacity claims against public employees under the ADA are generally considered redundant when the employer is already named as a defendant. Id. at 860. Therefore, the Court will consider this count as applicable to only Defendant Board. Consequently, any claim under Count II against Vincent in his individual and official capacity is dismissed with prejudice.
To establish a causal connection, Plaintiff pleads that in response to her request for accommodation, Defendant stripped her of her official duties, demanded she return her key, and placed her on administrative leave. (Doc. 28 at 7). However, these alleged events happened on September 21, 2021—before Plaintiff‘s first request for an accommodation—as Defendant correctly points out. (Doc. 32 at 8). To establish a causal link, the defendant‘s retaliatory activities must come after the alleged statutorily protected activity. See, e.g., Arce v. Chicago Transit Auth., 738 F. App‘x 355, 359-60 (7th Cir. 2018) (“[T]his November 2012 decision to terminate him
Plaintiff alleges further that on or about October 18, 2021, “Defendant Vincent initiated a campaign to solicit peer complaints against plaintiff, thereby creating a hostile and intimidating work environment.” (Doc. 28 at 16). Defendant argues that this does not establish that Plaintiff engaged in a statutorily protected activity in light of her statement that Vincent only requested the peer comments after Plaintiff‘s attorney informed Defendant‘s attorney that Plaintiff was “uncomfortable with returning to Cornell so long as the main door was not functioning properly.” (Doc. 32 at 9). Defendant contends that the communication between Plaintiff‘s and Defendant‘s attorneys does not amount to a statutorily protected activity under the ADA, relying on Preddie v. Bartholomew Consol. Sch. Corp., 799 F.3d 806, 814-15 (7th Cir. 2015), a case decided at the summary-judgment stage. However, Preddie lends little support to this assertion, as it is not a case about an attorney acting on an employee‘s behalf but about an employee‘s intermittently requesting days off throughout a school year, without actually requesting an accommodation. Id. at 813. Moreover, Plaintiff pleads not just one event, but a sequence of events leading to the solicitation of peer complaints. Plaintiff pleads in her Complaint that she provided a doctor‘s note requesting for accommodation to work from home. (Doc. 28 at 8). The
“In deciding whether there is a causal connection between a plaintiff‘s protected activity and an adverse employment action, courts ‘consider the evidence as a whole,’ including ‘suspicious timing.’ ” Harris v. Martinez, No. 22-CV-00373, 2023 WL 3504930, at *6 (N.D. Ill. May 17, 2023) (citing Parker v. Brooks Life Science, Inc., 39 F.4th 931, 936-37 (7th Cir. 2022)). Here, Plaintiff has sufficiently pleaded factual allegations, including suspicious timing, to support a plausible claim for retaliation at this stage of proceedings. Thus, accepting the well-pleaded facts as true and drawing all reasonable inferences from those facts in Plaintiff‘s favor, Defendant‘s Motion is denied as to Count II, but Plaintiff may proceed only with the claim as to adverse actions that occurred after the request for accommodation, and only against Defendant Board.
IV. Count III: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 Claim for Deprivation of First Amendment Rights and For Wrongful Termination of Employment
Plaintiff asserts a claim under
To establish a First Amendment retaliation claim, a plaintiff must demonstrate that “(1) his speech was constitutionally protected, (2) he has suffered a deprivation likely to deter speech, and (3) his speech was at least a motivating factor
“When public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline.” Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 421 (2006). However, the fact that a communication pertains to an employee‘s job does not automatically make it official-capacity speech:
[T]he mere fact that a citizen‘s speech concerns information acquired by virtue of his public employment does not transform that speech into employee—rather than citizen—speech. The critical question under Garcetti is whether the speech at issue is itself ordinarily within the
scope of an employee‘s duties, not whether it merely concerns those duties.
Lane v. Franks, 573 U.S. 228, 240 (2014).
Where an employee gives testimony before a jury or reports misconduct outside established channels or in violation of office policy, she is speaking as a citizen and not an employee. Spalding v. City of Chicago, 24 F. Supp. 3d 765, 776 (N.D. Ill. 2014). See e.g., Lane, 573 U.S. at 238 (employee subpoenaed to testify before a jury was found to have done so as a private citizen). In contrast, “if the employee reports misconduct in the manner directed by official policy, to a supervisor, or to an external body with formal oversight responsibility, then the employee speaks pursuant to her official duties and her speech is unprotected.” Spalding, 24 F. Supp. 3d at 776; see also, Tamayo v. Blagojevich, 526 F.3d 1074, 1091 (7th Cir. 2008) (holding that an Illinois Gaming Board employee who gave testimony before the Illinois House Gaming Committee, a legislative committee responsible for overseeing the activities of the board, did so as part of her official duties).
Here, Plaintiff was employed as auditor, bookkeeper, and executive assistant. (Doc. 28 at 4). Specifically, Plaintiff averred in her Complaint that she was recruited by the former superintendent to “help fix the books for Cornell since it was a known fact that the financial books were a ‘mess.’ ” (Doc. 28 at 9). Pursuant to this role, Plaintiff discovered and reported financial mismanagement, school security issues, and violations of state and federal law to ISBE and the Regional Superintendent of Schools. As in Tamayo, where an employee testified before the Illinois House Committee responsible for overseeing the activities of Illinois Gaming Board, Plaintiff
However, Plaintiff also argues that she went outside her professional obligations when she reported the embezzlement by the former bookkeeper and the school security breach incident to the police. (Doc. 33 at 13). The Court agrees. While the reports to the ISBE and the Regional Superintendent were made to bodies with oversight responsibility over Cornell—and by extension, Plaintiff—the report to the police was a report to an outside agency. See e.g., Spalding, 24 F. Supp. 3d at 776 (court found that plaintiff police officers spoke as private citizens when they reported official misconduct to the FBI, an outside law-enforcement agency, rather than solely through internal Chicago Police Department channels); see also Kristofek v. Vill. Of Orland Hills, 832 F.3d 785, 793 (7th Cir. 2016) (court found that plaintiff, whose job responsibilities as part-time police officer involved traffic enforcement and placing calls for public service and officer back-up, spoke as a private citizen when he reported official misconduct to the FBI). Here, just as in Spalding and Kristofek, where the plaintiffs reported official misconduct to the FBI, an outside agency, Plaintiff reported the embezzlement by the former bookkeeper and the school security breach incident to the police, an outside agency. Plaintiff‘s official duties as stated in the Complaint
For the foregoing reasons, Count III survives. Defendants’ motion to dismiss Count III is denied. Since the Court finds that Plaintiff‘s reports to ISBE and the Regional Superintendent were made pursuant to her official duties, Plaintiff may only proceed under this claim with respect to her reports to the police.
V. Count IV: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 Claim for Deprivation of Fourteenth Amendment Rights Based on Retaliation
Defendant Vincent moved to dismiss Count IV because the Fourteenth Amendment does not establish a general right to be free from retaliation (doc. 32 at 11). See Boyd v. Ill. State Police, 384 F.3d 888, 898 (7th Cir. 2004); Gray v. Lacke, 885 F.2d 399, 414 (7th Cir. 1989). In response, Plaintiff voluntarily dismissed Count IV. (Doc. 33 at 1). The Court agrees with Defendant Vincent‘s analysis and dismisses Count IV with prejudice since it would be of no consequence to refile it.
VI. Count V: Indemnification
Plaintiff seeks state-law indemnification against Defendant Board for the actions of Defendant Vincent under the Illinois Torts Immunity Act,
CONCLUSION
SO ORDERED.
Entered this 25th day of July 2024.
s/ Joe B. McDade
JOE BILLY McDADE
United States Senior District Judge