Veerasikku Bommiasamy v. NES OKLAHOMA, INC. and GALESBURG HOSPITAL CORP.

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted February 10, 2025
Decided August 14, 2025
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
No. 24-1654
VEERASIKKU BOMMIASAMY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
NES OKLAHOMA, INC. and
GALESBURG HOSPITAL CORP.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of Illinois.
No. 4:21-cv-04001-SLD-JEH
Sara Darrow,
Chief Judge.
O R D E R
NES Michigan, Inc. (NES) is a physicians group that contracted with Galesburg
Hospital Corporation (Galesburg or the Hospital) to locate and place physicians in its
emergency department. Plaintiff Veerasikku Bommiasamy was one of those physicians
who contracted with NES and was assigned to work at Galesburg. He had worked for
the Hospital since 2007 through a different physicians group, but on November 30,
2017, when the Hospital entered into a contract with NES, Dr. Bommiasamy
simultaneously entered into his own contract with NES to provide his services to the
Hospital.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

-- 1 of 11 --

No. 24-1654 Page 2
Dr. Bommiasamy’s contract with NES described him as an independent
contractor and contained many provisions that aligned with that designation. For
example, by contract, the Hospital did not deduct or pay taxes for him, maintain his
medical malpractice insurance, bill or collect payments for his professional services,
provide health or life insurance, or provide paid vacation time. The Hospital did
provide Dr. Bommiasamy with a room in which to stay during winter months when he
worked consecutive shifts, allowed him to use the employee-only exercise area, and
paid for continuing education and tail insurance. Dr. Bommiasamy alleges that he was
required to use certain medications and was not allowed to use his discretion in
determining what tests to run. He testified, “I make decisions, but my decisions are
curtailed by the hospital.” R. 35-3 at 199.1 His contract with NES required him to
comply and cooperate with the standards set by the Hospital and state and federal law,
including by maintaining his licenses and registrations at his own expense, and
required him to perform medical services “with that degree of skill and expertise that
qualified and licensed physicians in the community would exercise in the same or
similar circumstances,” R. 36-6 at 2. Within those parameters, the contract between the
Hospital and NES allowed Dr. Bommiasamy the “free and complete exercise of [his]
good and competent medical judgment and skill.” R. 36-2 at 5. The contract between
NES and Dr. Bommiasamy also allowed termination “if [NES was] notified either orally
or in writing by an administrative employee or by a licensed physician at a medical
institution in which the Physician is providing medical services pursuant to this
Agreement that the service of the Physician is unsatisfactory to the medical institution.”
R. 36-6 at 1.
In his complaint in the district court, Dr. Bommiasamy alleged that he faced
repeated harassment from Dr. Singel, the Site Medical Director, who was also an
employee of NES and contracted to work at the Hospital. As medical director, Dr.
Singel supervised Dr. Bommiasamy and also served on the peer review committee.
According to Dr. Bommiasamy, whose facts we assume to be true for purposes of this
motion for summary judgment, Dr. Singel told him on many occasions that his skin
looked dirty because of its color. Referencing his national origin, Dr. Singel asked how
many wives Dr. Bommiasamy had. Dr. Singel complained about the smell of Dr.
Bommiasamy’s food and told him that he should not eat it in the doctor’s room, wash
his plates there, or use the doctor’s room at all. On multiple occasions Dr. Singel told
Dr. Bommiasamy that he was too old and worked too many hours for his age, and also
that he made too much money. He frequently stood in a threatening posture close to Dr.
Bommiasamy while making these harassing comments.
1 The record page numbers in this order refer to the CM/ECF page numbers rather than the document
page numbers.

-- 2 of 11 --

No. 24-1654 Page 33
Dr. Bommiasamy testified that when he complained to Dr. Singel about the
harassment, Dr. Singel retaliated by threatening to cut Dr. Bommiasamy from the
schedule and to place him on night shifts. Dr. Bommiasamy complained to four high-
level Hospital administrators about the harassment, without effect. He also spoke once
to Tom Brown, the Regional Vice President of NES, to complain about the harassment,
but never received any follow-up communication.
In addition to his trouble with Dr. Singel, after the shift to NES as his employer,
Dr. Bommiasamy began having trouble with scheduling. He had not worked night
shifts since 2012, and before signing the agreement with NES, he informed the Vice
President of Operations at NES and the Chief Executive Officer of the Hospital that he
wished to continue working only day shifts but would be willing to work holidays and
weekends. According to Dr. Bommiasamy, on several occasions, he filled in for shifts at
the last minute at great personal and financial expense. Nevertheless, beginning in 2018,
Dr. Singel assigned him to work portions of two night shifts. According to the terms of
the contract, Dr. Bommiasamy should have had the sole discretion to select the days
and hours he was available to work, but he claims Dr. Singel controlled the schedule.
Historically, Dr. Bommiasamy had asked NES to schedule his shifts in clusters as he did
not drive and commuted 300 miles round trip. Up to the time of his termination, the
NES schedulers had been accommodating this request, but eventually the Hospital
claimed that it was too difficult to accommodate his requested clustered schedule and
that it “could have an adverse effect on physicians’ productivity and the quality of
care.” R. 67-9 at 3.
Beginning in autumn 2018, Hospital staff began to express concerns to Hospital
officials about Dr. Bommiasamy’s clinical competence. They reported concerns about
his practices around extubating a dying patient, his choice to run a stress test on a non-
ambulatory patient, his reactions to handling two near-death “code” situations, and his
struggles mastering the electronic records system. Dr. Bommiasamy disputes that his
clinical judgment or practices were lacking.
On September 23, and October 23, 2018, NES and Hospital officials met to
discuss problems the Hospital staff had been experiencing with Dr. Bommiasamy. They
discussed his ineffectiveness as a provider, his problems navigating the electronic
records system, and the problems during the “coding” situations. On October 24, Dr.
Singel wrote to Dr. Bommiasamy regarding two complaints with his provision of
services—leaving in an endotracheal tube after removing a patient from a ventilator
and scheduling a stress test for a non-ambulatory patient.
On November 20, 2018, the CEO of the Hospital wrote to NES requesting that it
remove Dr. Bommiasamy from the staffing schedule at the Hospital. As a result of that
letter, on December 18, 2018, NES wrote to Dr. Bommiasamy to terminate his

-- 3 of 11 --

No. 24-1654 Page 4
employment, citing “a number of performance related issues and scheduling challenges
[that] have led to the Hospital requesting you be removed from the schedule.” R. 36-17
at 2.
Dr. Bommiasamy filed charges against both NES and the Hospital with the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging that he had been subjected to
harassment throughout his employment and discriminatorily discharged on January 3,
2019. After receiving his right to sue letter, Dr. Bommiasamy filed a complaint in the
district court alleging that the Hospital and NES discriminated against him in violation
of the ADEA and Title VII. 29 U.S.C. §621-34; 42 U.S.C. §2000e-e17. Both NES and the
Hospital filed motions for summary judgment denying that Dr. Bommiasamy’s
termination was discriminatory and asserting that his claims for harassment and other
claims were time barred or not exhausted. In its motion, the Hospital also argued that it
was not Dr. Bommiasamy’s employer. After determining that several claims were
untimely or had been waived, the district court granted summary judgment, concluding
that Dr. Bommiasamy’s only viable claim was for discriminatory termination but that
there were no material disputes warranting a trial. We review the district court’s grant
of summary judgment de novo, construing and inferring the reasonable facts in Dr.
Bommiasamy’s favor, and asking whether any reasonable trier of fact could find in his
favor at trial. See Culp v. Caudill, 140 F.4th 938, 942 (7th Cir. 2025).
A. Exhaustion of administrative remedies
Before filing suit under Title VII or the ADEA, a plaintiff must exhaust
administrative remedies by filing a charge with the EEOC within the required time
limits. Anderson v. United Airlines, Inc., 140 F.4th 385, 390 (7th Cir. 2025) (Title VII);
Tyburski v. City of Chicago, 964 F.3d 590, 601 (7th Cir. 2020) (ADEA). To be cognizable,
the plaintiff’s claim in the federal district court must be “like or reasonably related to
the allegations of the charge [filed with the EEOC] and growing out of such
allegations.” Huri v. Off. of the Chief Judge of the Cir. Ct., 804 F.3d 826, 831 (7th Cir. 2015)
(internal citation omitted). Courts review the scope of an EEOC charge liberally,
recognizing that charges are usually filed by lay complainants. Id. at 831. Nevertheless,
at a minimum, the claims made in federal court must relate to the same conduct and
implicate the same individuals. Id. at 831–32. Making this determination “requires a
careful examination and comparison of the charges and the complaint.” Chaidez v. Ford
Motor Co., 937 F.3d 998, 1005 (7th Cir. 2019).
In this appeal, Dr. Bommiasamy complains of discrimination that occurred both
when he was removed from the Hospital’s schedule, and when he was terminated by
NES. Dr. Bommiasamy’s two charges filed with the EEOC, however, alleged in relevant
part only that NES and the Hospital discharged him from employment on January 3,
2019. Termination and removal from the schedule however are two separate acts. Under

-- 4 of 11 --

No. 24-1654 Page 55
the terms of the agreement between the Hospital and NES, the Hospital could request
that a physician be removed from the schedule, but it could not terminate a physician’s
employment. As we will discuss further below, NES physicians did not work for the
Hospital. They worked for NES. Only NES had entered into an agreement with Dr.
Bommiasamy, and only NES could terminate his employment under that contract. Even
if Galesburg asked to have Dr. Bommiasamy removed from the schedule, theoretically,
Dr. Bommiasamy could continue his employment for NES at another hospital. It is
certainly true that once the Hospital requested that NES remove Dr. Bommiasamy from
the schedule based on clinical competence concerns, it seemed unlikely in practice that
NES would want to retain him as an employee to work at another hospital.
Nevertheless, Dr. Bommiasamy’s allegation in the EEOC charge about termination did
not exhaust any claim about removal from Galesburg’s schedule.
In any event, Dr. Bommiasamy did not argue in the district court that
termination and removal from the schedule were the same act, therefore that argument
has been waived and we should not consider it on appeal. Love v. Vanihel, 73 F.4th 439,
455 (7th Cir. 2023), cert. denied sub nom., Love v. Neal, 145 S. Ct. 138 (2024). In his reply
brief in this appeal, he concedes that although he addressed the timeliness of his EEOC
charge in the district court, he did not “specifically explain this as ‘administrative
exhaustion’” but did explain how removal from the schedule was a “full termination.”
Reply Brief at 3. We reviewed the record reference to which he cited to support this
statement and did not find an argument that his removal from the schedule was the
equivalent of termination. In fact, on the page Dr. Bommiasamy references, he states
that “NES’s removal [of Bommiasamy] from the January 2019 schedule was only a
temporary removal, rather than a complete, permanent removal and termination of
Plaintiff from his employment.” R. 67 at 96. This statement appears to indicate that Dr.
Bommiasamy viewed removal from the schedule and termination from employment as
two separate acts. We find that this argument—that removal from the schedule and
termination were the same—has been waived.
Dr. Bommiasamy also concedes on appeal that his harassment claim was both
untimely and not administratively exhausted. Thus the only claim that remains for our
review is the charge that Dr. Bommiasamy was terminated from employment for
discriminatory reasons. The Hospital alleges as a defense that it was not Dr.
Bommiasamy’s employer and therefore cannot be liable under Title VII and the ADEA
at all.
B. The Hospital as joint employer
The district court concluded that it need not determine whether Galesburg was a
joint employer along with NES because it found the harassment and shift-reduction
claims against Galesburg were either time-barred or not exhausted and found that

-- 5 of 11 --

No. 24-1654 Page 6
Galesburg did not have the authority to terminate Dr. Bommiasamy’s contract with
NES. We agree but also determine that an explanation of why Galesburg did not have
the authority to terminate Dr. Bommiasamy’s contract is in order.
A determination of the Hospital’s status as employer is necessary because the
Hospital and NES had different sources of and access to information. NES could only
base termination decisions on information it received from the Hospital. It had no
independent manner to assess Dr. Bommiasamy’s performance. Therefore, as we
discuss in more detail below, even if employees at the Hospital had a discriminatory
motive, if NES employees did not know of that motive, and honestly believed the non-
discriminatory reasons for the Hospital’s dissatisfaction, its rationale for terminating Dr.
Bommiasamy cannot be pretext for discrimination. See Downing v. Abbott Lab’ys, 48 F.4th
793, 804–05 (7th Cir. 2022); Whitaker v. Milwaukee Cnty., Wisconsin, 772 F.3d 802, 811–12
(7th Cir. 2014). On the other hand, if the Hospital was a joint employer, and lodged
complaints about Dr. Bommiasamy’s unsatisfactory performance to NES as cover for its
actual discriminatory motive, and if those actions caused Dr. Bommiasamy’s ultimate
termination by NES, then the Hospital could be liable for discriminatory action. See
Whitaker, 772 F.3d at 811–12.
Galesburg contends that Dr. Bommiasamy waived his joint employer argument
by addressing it too superficially in his opening brief. We agree that the discussion was
quite perfunctory indeed and covered only the first of the five factors that a court must
consider when analyzing whether someone is an employee. Nevertheless, we give Dr.
Bommiasamy the benefit of the doubt and address his argument that the Hospital
jointly employed him along with NES. The factors we consider, often called an
“economic realities test,” are as follows:
(1) the extent of the employer’s control and supervision over the
worker, including directions on scheduling and performance of work,
(2) the kind of occupation and nature of skill required, including
whether skills are obtained in the workplace, (3) responsibility for the
costs of operation, such as equipment, supplies, fees, licenses,
workplace, and maintenance of operations, (4) method and form of
payment and benefits, and (5) length of job commitment and/or
expectations.
Knight v. United Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co., 950 F.2d 377, 378–79 (7th Cir. 1991).
The extent of the employer’s control over the employee is the most important of
the economic realities considerations. Bronson v. Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hosp.,
69 F.4th 437, 449 (7th Cir. 2023). And the contractual and workplace terms are a good
starting place for determining whether an entity has a right to control the purported
employee. Levitin v. Nw. Cmty. Hosp., 923 F.3d 499, 502 (7th Cir. 2019). In this case, Dr.

-- 6 of 11 --

No. 24-1654 Page 77
Bommiasamy had no contractual relationship with the Hospital, only with NES, and
that contract indicated very clearly, five times, that Dr. Bommiasamy was an
independent contractor. R. 36-6 at 1, 3. Of course the wording of the contract only goes
so far if the reality of the parties’ behavior differs in practice. We continue, therefore, to
look at both the contract wording and the parties’ practices.
Of all control factors, the ability to hire and fire carries the most weight and NES
both hired and fired Dr. Bommiasamy. See, e.g., Bronson, 69 F.4th at 449. The Hospital
had no contractual authority to do either. Dr. Bommiasamy asserts that the Hospital
was his employer because it had significant control over his work, arguing that
NES set his schedule and he was supervised by another physician who
had a contract with NES. The Hospital dictated policies, required that
his work be submitted for peer review, and seemingly had a hand in
what his work schedule was going to be. Further, Dr. Bommiasamy had
worked at the Hospital long before NES became involved.
Dr. Bommiasamy Brief at 27. These factors, however, do not definitively indicate the
existence of an employer-employee relationship. “We have repeatedly held that a
physician with hospital practice privileges is not the hospital’s employee merely
because he is subject to peer review.” Levitin, 923 F.3d at 501. The same is true when
physicians are subject to quality-of-care reviews, medical education standards, and
reporting processes. Id. at 502. As Dr. Bommiasamy conceded, he made medical
decisions, even if those decisions sometimes were “curtailed by the hospital.” R. 36-9 at
199.
As for scheduling, the agreement between Dr. Bommiasamy and NES indicated
that Dr. Bommiasamy had sole discretion to select the hours and dates that he would be
available to perform his services. Dr. Bommiasamy alleges that in practice, Dr. Singel
controlled the schedule, but his allegation is belied by the record evidence Dr.
Bommiasamy himself sets forth. Dr. Bommiasamy complained after being placed on the
overnight schedule twice and thereafter was removed from overnight shifts going
forward. He chose the number of hours he worked per month, and until he was
terminated, he successfully requested being scheduled in blocks of four to five shifts at
a time because of his lengthy commute. But even if we assume that Dr. Singel controlled
the schedule, we have held that a doctor is not an employee of an institution simply
because that institution sets schedules, working hours, and requires the doctor to be on
call. See Hojnacki v. Klein-Acosta, 285 F.3d 544, 552 (7th Cir. 2002); Alexander v. Rush N.
Shore Med. Ctr., 101 F.3d 487, 493 (7th Cir. 1996), as amended on denial of reh’g and reh’g en
banc (Feb. 7, 1997). Certainly, the Hospital did have some level of input into
scheduling—after all, it requested that Dr. Bommiasamy be removed from the schedule.
Catering to a client’s wishes on staffing, however, does not make the client an

-- 7 of 11 --

No. 24-1654 Page 8
employer. Nischan v. Stratosphere Quality, LLC, 865 F.3d 922, 929 (7th Cir. 2017). As we
described in Nischan, a law firm might add or remove an associate from a client’s legal
team based on that client’s requests, but this does not make the client the associate’s
employer.2 Id.
An evaluation of the other Knight factors likewise indicates that the Hospital was
not Dr. Bommiasamy’s employer. The contract between the Hospital and NES required
that he pay his own taxes and licensing fees and, in fact, Dr. Bommiasamy did not list
the Hospital as his employer on his tax returns. See Alexander, 101 F.3d at 493. The
Hospital did not pay for his malpractice or health insurance, or provide vacation, paid
leave, or other benefits. See Love, 779 F.3d at 705–06; Alexander, 101 F.3d at 493. The
Hospital did not bill his patients or collect fees from patients for his services. See
Alexander, 101 F.3d at 493. It did not provide him with his paycheck. See Id. Dr.
Bommiasamy could freely associate with other hospitals if he so chose. See Id. Dr.
Bommiasamy possessed specialized skill as an emergency department physician that he
developed on his own. See Id. It is true that Dr. Bommiasamy worked for many years at
the Hospital, but “[a] mutual expectation of continued work is not, of itself, indicative
of the kind of extensive control on which a finding of employee status is typically
based.” Bridge v. New Holland Logansport, Inc., 815 F.3d 356, 363 (7th Cir. 2016). In short,
Dr. Bommiasamy was not an employee of Galesburg. And because the Hospital did not
employ Dr. Bommiasamy it can have no liability under Title VII or the ADEA.
C. Discriminatory termination
To determine whether Dr. Bommiasamy’s discriminatory termination claims
against NES can survive a motion for summary judgment, we look to “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.” Ortiz v. Werner Enters., Inc., 834 F.3d 760, 765 (7th Cir. 2016). The
query is the same under the ADEA—“at the summary judgment stage, in the ADEA
context, a court must consider all the evidence in the record to determine ‘whether a
reasonable jury could find that the plaintiff suffered an adverse action because of her
age.’” Vassileva v. City of Chicago, 118 F.4th 869, 873 (7th Cir. 2024) (emphasis deleted)
(quoting Carson v. Lake Cnty., 865 F.3d 526, 533 (7th Cir. 2017)).
In this case, Dr. Bommiasamy alleges that NES terminated him because of his
race (Indian) and age (over forty). NES counters that it terminated the doctor based on
reports of his work performance and scheduling problems. It is not our role to
2 Of course an employer cannot accommodate a client’s wish to remove one of its employees based on a
discriminatory animus. See Chaney v. Plainfield Healthcare Ctr., 612 F.3d 908, 913 (7th Cir. 2010). But an
employer can accommodate staffing requests based on factors such as quality of work, personality fit, and
other non-protected criteria, as long as they are not cover for discrimination.

-- 8 of 11 --

No. 24-1654 Page 99
determine whether Dr. Bommiasamy performed adequately. We only assess whether
Dr. Bommiasamy could convince a reasonable jury that the NES decisionmakers did not
honestly believe their stated rationale for terminating the contract but rather used the
false reasoning as pretext for discrimination. “When determining whether an
employer’s justification is pretextual, the question is not whether the employer’s stated
reason was inaccurate or unfair, but whether the employer honestly believed the reason
it offered to explain the adverse action. Pretext requires more than a mistaken
judgment; it requires a lie.” Hoffstead v. Ne. Ill. Reg'l Commuter R.R. Corp., 132 F.4th 503,
512 (7th Cir. 2025) (internal quotation omitted).
Dr. Bommiasamy does not offer any reason to question NES’s honest belief of the
reports from the Hospital about his clinical performance. Instead, his arguments about
discriminatory rationale describe only the Hospital’s actions and motives. In analyzing
pretext, however, the perceptions of the decisionmakers control. Downing, 48 F.4th at
804–05. There can be no pretext if the decisionmaker honestly believes the
nondiscriminatory reasons proffered by the providers of the information. Id. at 804.
There is ample evidence in the record indicating that the Vice President of Operations
and Chief Medical Officer of NES believed that they had legitimate and sufficient
grounds to terminate Dr. Bommiasamy’s contract. First, Galesburg asked NES to
remove Dr. Bommiasamy permanently from the schedule based on unsatisfactory
performance. In meetings between NES and Galesburg administrators, the Hospital
reported to NES that its officers received complaints from other medical providers that
Dr. Bommiasamy failed to remove an endotracheal tube after disconnecting a ventilator
(an act that the Chief Medical Officer of NES believed to be “torture.” See R. 35-21 at 3–
4), reports of his slow and addled response to two code situations, inappropriately
referring a patient for a stress test, reports of his struggles using the electronic medical
records system, and the difficulties the Hospital had accommodating his scheduling
requests. NES’s Chief Medical Officer testified that Dr. Bommiasamy’s response to
either code situation or the incident with the endotracheal tube alone was sufficient to
warrant termination. The NES manager responsible for creating the schedules averred
that Dr. Bommiasamy’s lack of availability on certain days was a significant barrier to
scheduling, and that none of the other emergency department physicians had
scheduling demands and periods of unavailability that were remotely similar to Dr.
Bommiasamy’s. She testified that because Dr. Bommiasamy requested that he work in
clusters of shifts, it became very difficult to find doctors to replace him for multiple
shifts when he was absent. Even accepting Dr. Bommiasamy’s testimony that he often
offered to take more shifts and filled in when others could not work, those offers did
not compensate for the primary concerns.
The evidence is undisputed that the Hospital reported to NES that Dr.
Bommiasamy’s performance was not acceptable. Therefore, even were we to assume

-- 9 of 11 --

No. 24-1654 Page 10
that Galesburg administrators desired to rid themselves of Dr. Bommiasamy because of
his race and age, there is no evidence in the record to support a conclusion that NES
knew that the Hospital administrators were insincere when they reported problems
with his performance.
As for Dr. Singel’s comments about Dr. Bommiasamy’s age and national origin,
those comments certainly could form the basis of a hostile work environment claim
against NES if Dr. Bommiasamy could demonstrate that NES was aware of the
comments and took no action. Indeed, Dr. Bommiasamy alleges that he did make a
complaint to NES’s Vice President of Operations about Singel’s comments and behavior
one time. The district court correctly found, and Dr. Bommiasamy concedes, that such a
claim was time barred. Dr. Bommiasamy wishes to use the comments, however, as
evidence that NES had a discriminatory motive when it terminated Dr. Bommiasamy.
Dr. Singel, like Dr. Bommiasamy, was employed by NES and acknowledged that he
recommended to someone—“probably to Tom Brown [NES’s Vice President of
Operations] or Steve Wexler [NES’s Chief Medical Officer]” that Dr. Bommiasamy be
terminated from the Hospital. R. 67-13 at 64. Even if we take the facts in the light most
favorable to Dr. Bommiasamy and assume that Dr. Singel was motivated by animus
based on Dr. Bommiasamy’s age and national origin, there is no evidence that his
personal animus infected any decisions made by NES. Dr. Singel had no authority
himself to terminate Dr. Bommiasamy. The question then becomes whether he had such
influence over those making the decision to terminate Dr. Bommiasamy that his
discriminatory animus can be imputed to the decisionmakers. This is known as the
“cat’s paw” theory of causation, and it requires a plaintiff to show that “(1) a
subordinate actually harbored retaliatory or other unlawful animus against the
employee, and (2) the subordinate’s scheme proximately caused the adverse action.”
Johnson v. Accenture LLP, 142 F.4th 536, 544 (7th Cir. 2025). Even were we to assume that
Dr. Singel harbored the unlawful animus, Dr. Bommiasamy has offered no evidence
that a jury could use to find that Dr. Singel’s actions proximately caused Dr.
Bommiasamy’s termination. An employer may avoid cat’s-paw liability if “the
decisionmaker is not wholly dependent on a single source of information and conducts
her own investigation into the facts relevant to the decision. So long as the employer’s
investigation results in an adverse action for reasons unrelated to the supervisor’s
original biased action ... the employer will not be liable.” Sinha v. Bradley Univ., 995 F.3d
568, 574 (7th Cir. 2021) (cleaned up). The CEO and Chief Medical Officer testified in
their depositions that they based their decision to terminate on reports from Hospital
administrators about Dr. Bommiasamy’s performance issues and scheduling problems.
Even if they had considered the opinion of Dr. Singel, it would have been but one line
of input among many voices.

-- 10 of 11 --

No. 24-1654 Page 11 11
We find no evidence that NES’s stated reasons for terminating Dr. Bommiasamy
were pretext for discrimination. Moreover, the Hospital was not Dr. Bommiasamy’s
employer as defined in Title VII and the ADEA. For these reasons, the opinion of the
district court granting summary judgment to NES and the Hospital must be
AFFIRMED.

-- 11 of 11 --