Argued
April 11, 2019
Appeal
from the United States District Court for the Central
District of Illinois. No. 16-CV-2273 - Colin S. Bruce, Judge.
Before
Sykes, Scudder, and St. Eve, Circuit Judges.
SYKES,
CIRCUIT JUDGE.
Edith
McCurry worked at an Illinois warehouse owned by Mars, Inc.,
the well-known candy maker, and operated by Kenco Logistics
Services, a third-party management firm. In March 2015 Kenco
lost its contract with Mars and laid off its employees at the
warehouse, including McCurry. More than a year later, she
filed two rambling pro se complaints accusing Kenco, Mars,
and several of her supervisors of discriminating against her
based on her race, sex, age, and disability. She also alleged
that Kenco and Mars conspired to violate her civil rights.
The
district court consolidated the suits and dismissed some of
the claims. The defendants then moved for summary judgment on
the rest. McCurry's response violated the local
summary-judgment rule, so the judge accepted the
defendants' factual submissions as admitted and entered
judgment in their favor. McCurry retained counsel and
appealed.
We
affirm. McCurry doesn't challenge the judge's
decision to enforce the local summary-judgment rule. As a
result, and unsurprisingly, the uncontested record contains
no evidence to support a viable discrimination or conspiracy
claim. Indeed, the appeal is utterly frivolous and
McCurry's monstrosity of an appellate brief is
incoherent, so we also order her lawyer, Jordan T. Hoffman,
to show cause why he should not be sanctioned or otherwise
disciplined under Rules 28 and 38 of the Federal Rules of
Appellate Procedure.
I.
Background
We
begin with the judge's decision to enforce Local Rule
7.1(D), [1] which governs the summary-judgment
process. McCurry violated multiple provisions of the rule. We
include a sampling to provide an understanding of her
noncompliance:
• Under Local Rule 7.1(D)(1)(a)-(c), a response to a
summary-judgment motion must include the follow-ing specific
sections with appropriate headings: an introduction, a
response to the moving party's statement of undisputed
material facts, and an argument section. McCurry's
response to the defendants' motions contained none of
those sections. It was instead a disorganized, rambling,
hard-to-decipher mess.
• Local Rule 7.1(D)(2)(b) requires that the response to
the moving party's statement of material facts must
identify, in separate subsections: (1) the undisputed
material facts; (2) the disputed material facts; (3) the
disputed immaterial facts; (4) the undisputed immaterial
facts; and (5) any additional material facts. Each disputed
fact conceded to be material must be listed by number and
supported by evidentiary documentation that is referenced by
specific page. McCurry's response was woefully
noncompliant with these requirements. She responded to some
facts by number but said only that she objected to them. She
did not state the basis for her objections, nor did she
respond with appropriate and specific citations to
evidentiary documentation.
• Although McCurry did not include an argument section
in her brief, her arguments were scattered randomly
throughout her 62-page response, in probable violation of
Local Rule 7.1(D)(5), which (by cross-reference to Rule
7.1(B)(4)) limits the argument section of a response brief to
15 pages or 7, 000 words.
Under
Local Rule 7.1(D) (2) (b)(6), the failure to properly respond
to a numbered fact in an opponent's statement of facts
"will be deemed an admission of the fact." In light
of McCurry's widespread noncompliance, the judge deemed
the defendants' factual submissions admitted.
As
we've noted, McCurry doesn't challenge the
judge's decision to enforce Rule 7.1(D). Even if she had,
we have repeatedly held that district judges may strictly
enforce local summary-judgment rules, Ammons v. Aramark
Uniform Services, Inc., 368 F.3d 809, 817 (7th Cir.
2004), and the judge reasonably did so here.[2] Accordingly, our
account of the facts is drawn from the defendants'
uncontested factual submissions.
We
begin in 2013 when Mars contracted with Kenco, a third-party
logistics firm, to manage its warehouse in Manteno, Illinois.
Under the parties' agreement, Kenco was responsible for
day-to-day operations and exercised full control over its own
employment policies. Kenco retained several employees from
the previous warehouse manager. One holdover was Edith
McCurry, who worked in human resources. McCurry, a black
woman born in 1962, performed clerical and administrative
duties, such as handling warehouse payroll, generating
reports, and assisting with employee relations. She had no
managerial responsibilities.
In
October 2014 Kenco hired Lori Varvel, a white woman 17 years
younger than McCurry, as the human-resources manager. Varvel
assumed some of McCurry's duties, though McCurry's
pay remained the same.
On
December 9 McCurry worked an hour and a half of unauthorized
overtime in violation of Kenco's timekeeping policy. Ten
days later Varvel gave her a written warning for working
overtime without authorization, misrepresenting her hours,
and failing to report the correct hours. On January 29, 2015,
Kenco announced that it had lost the Mars contract and that
all employees at the warehouse would be let go at the end of
March.
In
August 2016 McCurry filed a 77-page, 386-paragraph pro se
complaint against Kenco, Mars, and several supervisors
alleging discrimination based on her race, gender, age, and
disability. She also alleged a claim for conspiracy to
violate her civil rights and several state-law claims. None
of her claims alleged that she was fired for a discriminatory
reason. Rather, she complained about conduct during the
course of her employment at the Mars warehouse.
Not two
weeks later, McCurry filed a second lawsuit against largely
the same group of defendants. This one, like the first, was
sprawling. Indeed, at 89 pages and 423 paragraphs, the second
complaint was even more rambling than the first, but it more
or less repeated the allegations in the earlier suit. The
district court consolidated the cases.
The
judge dismissed some claims but allowed the following to
proceed: (1) claims against Kenco for discrimination on the
basis of race and sex in violation of Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964; (2) a claim against Kenco, Mars, and the
supervisors for discrimination on the basis of race in
violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981; (3) a claim against Kenco
for violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act
("ADEA"); (4) a claim against Kenco for violation
of the Americans with ...