Kenneth Del Signore v. Nokia of America Corporation

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted February 8, 2024*
Decided February 9, 2024
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge
CANDACE JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge
No. 23-1973
KENNETH DEL SIGNORE,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
NOKIA OF AMERICA
CORPORATION, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 20 C 4019
Jorge Alonso,
Judge.
O R D E R
Kenneth Del Signore sued Nokia of America Corporation and numerous
managers including Christy Gliori, alleging that they retaliated against him and
terminated his employment in violation of several whistleblower-protection statutes.
The district court dismissed some of Del Signore’s claims and quashed a discovery
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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request directed at Gliori’s husband. The court later granted the defendants’ motion for
summary judgment and then denied Del Signore’s motion to alter or amend the
judgment. Del Signore appeals these decisions, and we affirm.
While working for Nokia as an engineer, Del Signore began to suspect that
Verizon Communications, a company for which Nokia manufactured certain
technology, was overstating the performance of its wireless network. He eventually
proposed a project to measure network performance more accurately. Although he
initially received positive feedback, he came to believe that Nokia stopped supporting,
then canceled, the project.
Suffering from work-related stress, Del Signore took time off. Gliori, a case
manager in the human resources department, recommended that Del Signore seek
psychiatric treatment to establish that he was temporarily unable to perform his
essential job functions, as required by Nokia’s short-term disability policy. Del Signore
visited Kara Mulligan, a physician’s assistant with a psychiatric specialty, and he
obtained the necessary support for a fixed period of leave.
During his time off, Del Signore filed two internal ethics complaints with Nokia
and a whistleblower complaint with the federal Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA). In these complaints, he alleged that Nokia and Verizon were
colluding to inflate the measurements of the performance of Verizon’s wireless
network. This, he said, caused them to overbill a fund established by the federal
government to promote universal access to telecommunications services. (An
administrative law judge would later find in favor of Nokia in the administrative action
initiated by Del Signore’s OSHA complaint.)
As part of its disability policy, Nokia required that Del Signore provide medical
documentation showing either that he was fit to return to work at the end of his initial
period of leave or that he was improving enough to warrant a continued—but finite—
leave of absence. Del Signore was warned that if he failed to submit evidence before his
leave expired, his employment would be terminated. Del Signore did not submit
anything, so Gliori contacted his medical provider, Mulligan. Gliori took
contemporaneous notes of their conversation and recorded that Mulligan described Del
Signore as “psychotic and delusional” and unable to return to work in his current state.
Mulligan later submitted an assessment to Nokia in which she stated that Del Signore
was currently unfit for work and that she did not know how long his issues would
persist. Gliori then scheduled an independent medical examination for Del Signore and
offered him a leave of absence while the results were pending, but he stated that he

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No. 23-1973 Page 3
would not attend the examination. Nokia terminated Del Signore’s employment after
his initial period of short-term disability leave expired.
Del Signore sued Nokia and Gliori, among others, in federal court. Del Signore
alleged that Nokia retaliated against him for his whistleblowing activity in violation of
the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3730(h); the Illinois False Claims Act,
740 ILCS 175/4(g); the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1514A; and the Illinois
Whistleblower Act, 740 ILCS 174/15. He also asserted a claim under the Illinois
Whistleblower Act against Gliori individually. As relevant to this appeal, the district
court granted Nokia’s and Gliori’s motions to dismiss (1) a retaliation claim against
Nokia under the Consumer Financial Protection Act because neither Nokia nor Del
Signore was covered by the relevant provision of the Act; and (2) whistleblower
retaliation claims against Gliori under the federal False Claims Act and the Illinois False
Claims Act because individuals cannot be liable under either statute.
After discovery—during which the district court granted Gliori’s motion to
quash a discovery request directed at her husband—Nokia and Gliori moved for
summary judgment. The court granted their motion. The court determined that many of
the actions that Del Signore gave as examples of materially adverse employment actions
did not qualify, and no evidence suggested that Del Signore’s whistleblowing activity
caused, or contributed to, the decision to terminate his employment. Instead, the
undisputed evidence showed that Nokia fired Del Signore because he failed to provide
required information or cooperate with Nokia’s attempts to discern his ability to return
to work before the end of his allotted leave.
Within 28 days of the court’s summary judgment ruling, Del Signore moved to
alter or amend the judgment under Rule 59(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
He argued that the district court failed to consider evidence contradicting Gliori’s notes
about her conversation with Mulligan. The court denied the motion because the
accuracy or credibility of Gliori’s notes was immaterial: the evidence was undisputed
that Nokia fired De Signore because he failed to comply with the leave policy by
demonstrating eligibility for more leave before the original period expired.
On appeal, Del Signore challenges the dismissal of certain claims, the denial of
his discovery request, the entry of summary judgment in favor of the defendants, and
the denial of his Rule 59(e) motion. The appellees assert that we have jurisdiction to
review only the district court’s summary judgment order because Del Signore did not
identify any other rulings in his notice of appeal. But a notice of appeal need not
designate specific orders that merge into the judgment. See F ED. R. APP . P. 3(c)(4);

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see Walton v. Bayer Corp., 643 F.3d 994, 997–98 (7th Cir. 2011) (interlocutory orders merge
into final judgment). And Del Signore filed a timely notice of appeal within 30 days of
the denial of his timely Rule 59(e) motion, so he did not need to file an amended notice
of appeal to challenge the post-judgment order. See F ED. R. A PP . P. 4(a)(4)(B)(ii).
Del Signore’s challenges to the dismissal of some of his claims are unpersuasive.
First, he argues that the district court erred in dismissing his claims of retaliation under
the Consumer Financial Protection Act. See 12 U.S.C. § 5567(a). But Del Signore does not
meaningfully engage with the court’s reasoning or try to establish that he is a covered
employee under 12 U.S.C. § 5567(b). He therefore gives us no reason to reject the district
court’s conclusion that he is not. See Webster v. CDI Ind., LLC, 917 F.3d 574, 578 (7th Cir.
2019) (appellant who does not address rulings and reasoning of district court forfeits
what arguments he might have).
Second, Del Signore challenges the dismissal of his retaliation claim against
Gliori under the False Claims Act and argues that we should hold that the statute
provides for individual liability. But this court “give[s] effect to the clear meaning of
statutes as written,” Star Athletica, L.L.C. v. Varsity Brands, Inc., 580 U.S. 405, 414 (2017)
(citing Estate of Cowart v. Nicklos Drilling Co., 505 U.S. 469, 476 (1992)), and Del Signore
does not explain how the language of 31 U.S.C. § 3730(h) creates personal liability for a
manager involved in an allegedly retaliatory discharge.1
Third, to the extent that Del Signore contends that he should have been
permitted to obtain discovery from Gliori’s husband about what Gliori might have said
about his complaints, his leave, or his termination, he again fails to develop, and thus
forfeits, his argument. See Webster, 917 F.3d at 578. Even so, we see no possible abuse of
discretion in the district court prohibiting this discovery.
Del Signore next argues that summary judgment was unwarranted because a
reasonable jury could find that Nokia fired him for his whistleblowing activity, but he
introduced no evidence of causation beyond his own speculation. We review the
1The district court relied on United States ex rel. Sibley v. A Plus Physicians Billing
Serv., Inc., No. 13 C 7733, 2015 WL 4978686 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 20, 2015) and two subsequent
decisions by our sister circuits that reached the same conclusion. See United States ex rel.
Strubbe v. Crawford Cty. Mem’l Hosp., 915 F.3d 1158, 1167 (8th Cir. 2019); Howell v. Town
of Ball, 827 F.3d 515, 529–30 (5th Cir. 2016). Without a more developed argument from
Del Signore, we need not address the matter further.

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decision on summary judgment de novo and examine the record in the light most
favorable to Del Signore, drawing reasonable inferences in his favor. See Donaldson v.
Johnson & Johnson, 37 F.4th 400, 405 (7th Cir. 2022).
In challenging the conclusion that he failed to produce evidence connecting his
whistleblowing activity to his discharge, Del Signore now asserts that Nokia would
have declared him unfit to return to work and then terminated his employment even if
he had completed the examination. By this, perhaps he means to argue that the reason
for firing him was pretextual and that the requested examination was a fig leaf for an
unlawful motive. But Del Signore’s failure to proceed with the examination means he
cannot prove this theory. Having skipped the exam, Del Signore must rely on
speculative inferences unsupported by admissible evidence, which are insufficient to
defeat a motion for summary judgment. Johnson v. Advoc. Health & Hosps. Corp., 892 F.3d
887, 894 (7th Cir. 2018).
Indeed, as the district court explained, there is undisputed evidence that cuts
against the suggestion of pretext: Nokia referred other employees on leave to
independent medical examinations and terminated other employees for failing to
submit medical documentation of their fitness to return to work after disability leave.
And Nokia and Gliori had no evidence that Del Signore was fit to return to work: Del
Signore’s own medical provider submitted an assessment stating that he was unfit
indefinitely, and Del Signore provided Nokia with no other information.
As for Del Signore’s argument that Nokia had to show by clear and convincing
evidence that it would have taken the same adverse actions absent his whistleblowing
activity, as required by the anti-retaliation provision of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, he
confuses the order of operations. See Verfuerth v. Orion Energy Sys., Inc., 879 F.3d 789, 793
(7th Cir. 2018). The burden of proof shifts to the employer if an employee establishes a
prima facie case. Id. Del Signore never did so because he lacked evidence that his
whistleblowing activity was a contributing factor to an adverse employment action.
Finally, in challenging the denial of his post-judgment motion, Del Signore does
not demonstrate error in the district court’s decision, which we review for an abuse of
discretion. Cincinnati Life Ins. Co. v. Beyrer, 722 F.3d 939, 955 (7th Cir. 2013). A motion
under Rule 59(e) must introduce new evidence or demonstrate a manifest error of law
or fact. Id. at 954–55. Here, Del Signore contends that the court had failed to consider
Mulligan’s medical notes, which he says contradict Gliori’s report about her
conversation with Mulligan. But this evidence does not create a material dispute of fact.
Whether or not Gliori’s notes were accurate, Mulligan later told Nokia in writing that

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Del Signore was not fit for duty, and he submitted no evidence to the contrary. The
district court could have discarded all evidence of Del Signore’s unfitness, and yet he
still would have violated the policy by failing to provide Nokia with information
justifying further disability leave before the original period expired. Del Signore’s
motion therefore did not refer to any evidence that his whistleblowing activity was a
contributing factor in Nokia’s termination of his employment.
AFFIRMED

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