Smita A. Patel v. LOUIS DeJOY, Postmaster General of the United States Postal Service

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted December 12, 2023
Decided December February 28, 2024
Before
MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
No. 23-1344
SMITA A. PATEL,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
LOUIS DeJOY, Postmaster General of
the United States Postal Service,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 19-cv-04336
Franklin U. Valderrama,
Judge.
O R D E R
Smita Patel sued her employer, the United States Postal Service (the “Postal
Service”) under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e–16; 42 U.S.C.
§ 1981; and the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq. She contends
that the Postal Service unlawfully took adverse actions against her because of her color
(brown), national origin (India), race (Asian), religion (Hindu), sex (woman), disability
(knee injury), and previous complaints about discrimination. The district court ruled
against Patel at summary judgment. Because Patel did not produce evidence that would
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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allow a reasonable juror to infer that any protected characteristics caused any of the
Postal Service’s actions, we affirm.
Background
Because Patel opposed summary judgment, we construe the record in her favor
except where, as the district court ruled, she did not cite evidence opposing the Postal
Service’s Local Rule 56.1 statement, and the district court deemed the statement
admitted. Patel supervised a distribution operation at the Postal Service’s center in
Palatine, Illinois. A knee injury in 2011 kept her off the job for a year. Eventually, based
on new work restrictions from her doctor, the Postal Service extended her time off until
January 2013, when she took a light-duty job that it found for her.
The events precipitating this suit began on January 6, 2015. On that day, several
managers confronted Patel over three instances of inappropriate conduct. First, the
plant manager criticized Patel for entering the attendance office after the Postal Service
had barred her from it because she had copied coworkers’ files for her personal use.
Second, the manager faulted Patel for repeatedly working overtime hours without
permission. Third, the manager told Patel—who had sent an email that management
deemed abusive—to stop writing unprofessional emails. Even so, after the meeting
Patel sent another such email.
Further problems unfolded later that day. When the plant manager called Patel
in for another meeting, she refused to attend without her representative from her union.
Because Patel refused to attend, the manager required that she take “emergency leave”
of the building; when she refused to leave, he called the police to escort her out. That
same day, Patel complained to a different manager about an employee who Patel said
had made an offensive comment about another Indian female worker; during an
investigation of the matter, the employee denied the allegation.
After these events in January 2015, Patel was placed on emergency leave for two
months. She received full pay. She also received a letter of warning—which did not
result in loss of pay or benefits and which was removed from her file after two years—
in lieu of a 14-day suspension.
Upon her return, Patel sought a change in work status. Before her leave, she
worked the night shift, but now she wanted the day shift. She was offered and accepted
a temporary daytime assignment with Fridays and Saturdays off, although she
preferred different days off (which the plant manager could not offer given seasonal

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workload needs). A month later, Patel’s doctor stated that she needed to be seated at
work for one week. Because no such work was available on the temporary, day shift,
Patel moved back to her regular, night shift. The Postal Service later posted permanent
positions on the daytime shift; it filled them with four employees who, unlike Patel, had
applied for the jobs. The following year, when Patel insisted on working overtime at her
discretion, management had a pre-disciplinary interview to review the instructions to
the contrary.
Patel later filed two charges at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,
dividing the above actions by the Postal Service into 17 allegations of discrimination
(based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, and disability) and retaliation.
Among other things, she described as adverse actions the refusal to let her work
overtime without permission, the letter of warning, and the pre-disciplinary interview.
Administrative Judges concluded that the Postal Service had not discriminated or
retaliated against Patel.
Patel then sued the Postal Service, which in turn moved for summary judgment.
First, the Postal Service notified Patel of her obligation, in responding to its motion, to
“cite the specific page(s) of evidence that support[ed] [her] position” or risk having the
judge reject her assertions. It then argued that Patel did not suffer materially adverse
actions or show discrimination (because she did not identify appropriate comparators
outside of her protected class whom it treated more favorably). In any case, it added,
the Postal Service had legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for all of its actions.
The district court entered summary judgment for the Postal Service. After
enforcing Local Rule 56.1 where Patel did not respond with evidence to the Postal
Service’s statement of material facts, the court ruled that no reasonable jury could find
for Patel. As relevant on appeal, it reasoned that only one event was materially
adverse—the police escorting her from the building—but the Postal Service had an
unrebutted, legitimate explanation for calling the police (Patel’s refusal to obey a proper
order to leave). Even if other actions (like assigning Patel to night shifts instead of day
shifts) were adverse, Patel did not rebut the honesty of the legitimate, non-
discriminatory explanations for those actions.
Analysis
On appeal, Patel first challenges the district court’s decision to enforce Local Rule
56.1 against her, arguing that it did not liberally construe her pro se filings. The district
court, however, reasonably applied that rule. See F.T.C. v. Bay Area Bus. Council, Inc.,

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423 F.3d 627, 634 (7th Cir. 2005). “[D]istrict judges are entitled to insist on strict
compliance with local rules designed to promote the clarity of summary judgment
filings.” Stevo v. Frasor, 662 F.3d 880, 887 (7th Cir. 2011). And they may do so even with
pro se litigants. See Pearle Vision, Inc. v. Romm, 541 F.3d 751, 758 (7th Cir. 2008). The rule
requires that a party opposing summary judgment respond to each disputed fact with
“citations to the supporting evidentiary material.” N.D. Ill. L.R. 56.1(e). Moreover, a
movant’s proposed facts “may be deemed admitted if not controverted with specific
citations to evidentiary material.” Id. Patel violated this rule by not citing evidence
when opposing portions of the Postal Service’s statement of facts, and the district court
reasonably enforced the rule by deeming those portions admitted.
Patel responds that, because the Postal Service and the district court cited
excerpts from her deposition, she did not need to cite other excerpts that supported her
own positions. But the local rule does require her to substantiate her own statements,
and she did not. N.D. Ill. L.R. 56.1(e). Moreover, when the Postal Service moved for
summary judgment, it notified her of this precise obligation and the risk that if she
ignored it, the court could reject her statements. The court therefore properly accepted
the defendant’s proposed facts.
Next, Patel challenges the district court’s decision on her discrimination claims.
We review that decision de novo. Igasaki v. Illinois Dep’t of Fin. & Pro. Regul., 988 F.3d
948, 955 (7th Cir. 2021). Title VII prohibits an employer from “discriminat[ing] against
any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of
employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”
42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). In a discrimination case, the ultimate issue is “‘whether the
evidence would permit a reasonable factfinder to conclude that the plaintiff's race,
ethnicity, sex, religion, or other proscribed factor caused the discharge or other adverse
employment action.’” Igasaki, 988 F.3d at 958 (citation omitted).
In her opening brief, Patel primarily argues that even if none of the actions that
she divided up earlier are materially adverse, cumulatively they are. (She waited until
her reply brief to contend that the separate actions were, individually, materially
adverse; by waiting until her reply, she has waived that argument. See White v. United
States, 8 F.4th 547, 552 (7th Cir. 2021).) Patel reads Ortiz v. Werner Enterprises, Inc., 834
F.3d 760, 765 (7th Cir. 2016), to mean that the district court should have totaled the
impact of all separate actions to determine whether she suffered a materially adverse
employment action. See also Igasaki, 988 F.3d at 958. But Ortiz was not about how to
measure adverse actions. It ruled that courts need no longer classify evidence into

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“direct” and “indirect” buckets when deciding whether a proscribed factor could have
caused an adverse action. See Ortiz, 834 F.3d at 765.
But even if this court assumed that the separate actions could add up to a single
materially adverse employment action, for three reasons Patel’s case would still fall
short. First, if Patel wishes to rely on the burden-shifting framework set out in
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), she cannot successfully do so. The
McDonnell Douglas approach requires that a plaintiff “make a prima facie case of
discrimination, at which point the burden shifts to the employer to offer a
nondiscriminatory motive, and, if the employer does so, the burden shifts back to the
plaintiff to show that the employer’s stated reason was a pretext.” Purtue v. Wisconsin
Dep’t of Corr., 963 F.3d 598, 602 (7th Cir. 2020). Under McDonnell Douglas, Patel needs to
show in a prima facie case of discrimination that, among other things, “similarly situated
employees who were not members of her protected class were treated more favorably.”
Skiba v. Illinois Cent. R.R. Co., 884 F.3d 708, 719 (7th Cir. 2018).
Only in her reply brief does Patel even acknowledge the Postal Service’s
argument that she has not shown that, with respect to any of the Postal Service’s
actions, it treated her worse than any similarly situated employee outside of her
protected class. But apart from the problem that new arguments in reply briefs are
impermissible, see Hrobowski v. Worthington Steel Co., 358 F.3d 473, 478 (7th Cir. 2004),
Patel does not support her new arguments. She argues in reply, for example, that none
of her comparators are Hindu, but she testified in her deposition that she was unaware
of her comparators’ religion. Without evidence of suitable comparators, her prima facie
case fails.
Second, even if Patel made out a prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas, she
did not cite in the district court evidence rebutting the sincerity of the Postal Service’s
legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for its actions. See Igasaki, 988 F.3d at 957. Patel
argues that the district court failed to take into consideration her deposition testimony,
not cited until now, that she believes would allow a reasonable jury to find pretext. For
example, she proposes that a jury could find that the Postal Service called the police to
remove her, not because she refused to leave on her own, but because a day before her
removal her supervisor had said that he disliked her for earlier filing a discrimination
charge. But all this shows is suspicious timing between a comment and an action. This
alone, however, is almost never sufficient to suggest that a forbidden motive caused an
adverse action. See Parker v. Brooks Life Sci., Inc., 39 F.4th 931, 937 (7th Cir. 2022); Coleman
v. Donahoe, 667 F.3d 835, 862 (7th Cir. 2012).

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Third, if Patel does not intend to rely on McDonnell Douglas on appeal, she needs
to supply “direct or circumstantial evidence that supports an inference of intentional
discrimination.” Joll v. Valparaiso Cmty. Sch., 953 F.3d 923, 929 (7th Cir. 2020) (citation
omitted); see also Purtue v. Wisconsin Dep't of Corr., 963 F.3d 598, 601–02 (7th Cir. 2020)
(McDonnell Douglas “is just one way that a plaintiff can navigate her way to a jury in a
discrimination case”). That evidence can include “ambiguous or suggestive comments
or conduct; better treatment of people similarly situated but for the protected
characteristic; and dishonest employer justifications for disparate treatment.” Joll, 953
F.3d at 929. As explained above, Patel did not cite, in the district court or in her opening
brief on appeal, any evidence of that sort. And without evidence that would allow a
reasonable jury to infer that a protected characteristic of hers caused the Postal Service
to take any action here, summary judgment was warranted.
AFFIRMED

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