Michael Dean v. ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS , DEE DEE BROOKHART, and KELLY RICHARDSON

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Argued May 22, 2026
Decided July 14, 2026
Before
F RANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
K ENNETH F. R IPPLE, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR , Circuit Judge
No. 25-1676
M ICHAEL DEAN ,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
I LLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF C ORRECTIONS ,
DEE D EE BROOKHART, and K ELLY R ICHARDSON ,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States
District Court for the Central
District of Illinois.
No. 21-cv-3025
Sue E. Myerscough,
Judge.
O R D E R
Michael Dean worked as a guard in the Illinois prison system from 2012 until he
was fired in 2019. He contends that his discharge violated his rights under the Family
and Medical Leave Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 2601–54 (FMLA or the Act), and the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district judge granted summary judgment to
the defendants. 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 280911 (C.D. Ill. Mar. 31, 2025).
Dean’s complaint names five defendants: the state’s Department of Corrections;
Dee Dee Brookhart, the Warden of Lawrence Correctional Center when Dean was fired;

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No. 25-1676 Page 2
Kelly Richardson, an administrative assistant at the prison; Rob Jeffries, the Director of
the Department of Corrections as of May 2019; and John Baldwin, his predecessor. The
district judge dismissed the complaint against Jeffries and Baldwin, ruling that Dean
had not explained how the heads of the Department could be liable for their subordi-
nates’ actions. But the dismissal was without prejudice, so Dean had an opportunity to
allege any acts they took personally that might support liability. 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS
48469 (C.D. Ill. Mar. 18, 2022). For the rest of the litigation Dean ignored Jeffries and
Baldwin. The district court’s judgment, entered after a remand from this court with di-
rections to comply with Fed. R. Civ. P. 58, recited that the claims against Jeffries and
Baldwin were dismissed without prejudice. When we asked at oral argument how that
judgment could be appealed as final under 28 U.S.C. §1291, counsel for Dean appeared
to have forgotten who they are and why the dismissal had been without prejudice.
Overlooking two of the defendants does not make the judgment final, however,
and we called for jurisdictional memoranda after oral argument. Dean responded by fil-
ing a document abandoning with prejudice his claims against these two defendants. We
entered an order on June 8 dismissing them as appellees. Now that it is impossible for
Dean to proceed further against them, the judgment is final and allows an appeal. See,
e.g., Minnesota Life Insurance Co. v. Kagan, 724 F.3d 843, 847–48 (7th Cir. 2013); Palka v.
Chicago, 662 F.3d 428, 433 (7th Cir. 2011).
Dean’s appellate brief ignores not only Jeffries and Baldwin but also Brookhart
and Richardson. It is captioned as if the Department of Corrections were the only de-
fendant. If that were right, the due process claim would be doomed, for it rests on 42
U.S.C. §1983. The Department of Corrections, a constituent of the State of Illinois, is not
a “person” subject to suit under that statute. Will v. Michigan Department of State Police,
491 U.S. 58 (1989). But Dean has never dismissed Brookhart or Richardson as a defend-
ant, and his notice of appeal does not limit appellate proceedings to the Department
alone, as Fed. R. App. P. 3(c)(6) would have allowed. Dean’s notice of appeal includes
Brookhart and Richardson in the caption. The Attorney General of Illinois has filed a
brief on behalf of the Department, Brookhart, and Richardson, treating all three as de-
fendants. We treat them the same way.
Dean’s leave began after a prisoner bit off the end of his right thumb. Some of the
leave was covered by the state’s version of a workers’ compensation system and some
by the Act. In January 2019, while Dean was on FMLA leave, his physician notified the
Department that he could return to work (with restrictions). But he was not reinstated,
and he contends that this violated the Act.
His problem, as the district judge pointed out, is that on the dates he proposed to
return to work he was confined in jail. On December 18, 2018, Dean was arrested in Illi-

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No. 25-1676 Page 3
nois on a charge of domestic battery. On January 7, 2019, while living apart from his
wife, Dean was arrested in Indiana for possessing marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
Both Illinois and Indiana took him into custody. He testified by deposition that he re-
mained in custody in one state or the other until “at least” January 28, 2019. Eventually
the domestic battery charge was dismissed and the drug charge led to a diversionary
disposition. But Dean was not available on January 8 or 16, the dates he now says he
should have returned to work.
Regulations implementing the FMLA say that “[a]n employee has no greater
right to reinstatement or to other benefits and conditions of employment than if the em-
ployee has been continuously employed during the FMLA leave period.” 29 C.F.R.
§825.216(a). A person “continuously employed” cannot work while in jail; no more does
the FMLA entitle a person to work while imprisoned.
At oral argument Dean’s lawyer asked us to ignore his client’s testimony that he
was in jail until January 28. Counsel implied that Dean has a poor memory and failed to
prepare for questions such as this. Yet if the January 28 date was mistaken, Dean could
have followed up by producing documents showing the district judge the dates on
which he had been released. But he did not do so.
A plaintiff cannot make headway in litigation by asking a court to treat his own
testimony as false. As a last gasp, counsel might have proffered documents of which
this court could have taken judicial notice. That did not happen. Our own search for re-
liable, official documents turned up evidence that Dean was still in custody on January
21, after his proposed reinstatement dates. We could not find any public document
showing, beyond all doubt, when Dean’s custody ended. So his claim under the FMLA
fails.
With respect to the due process claim Dean’s brief asserts that the defendants did
not offer him a hearing. That’s true to a degree: defendants did not offer a hearing be-
fore they placed Dean on unpaid status (on February 2, 2019) pending the resolution of
the criminal proceedings. But defendants held an earlier hearing, on December 26, 2018,
while Dean was still on workers’ compensation and FMLA leave, and it was the results
of that hearing that supported the move to unpaid status once all sources of leave
ended. Then defendants held pre-discharge and post-discharge hearings. Dean does not
contest the adequacy of these three hearings. There was no need for a fourth. Nor does
Dean explain why the criminal charges were inadequate to justify a suspension. Formal
charges that justify holding a person in custody justify a suspension of pay as well. Af-
ter all, Dean was not working while the criminal charges were being resolved.

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No. 25-1676 Page 4
Finally, Dean relies on a state statute that, he says, forbids employers in Illinois
from relying on arrest records to discipline or discharge their workers. Defendants re-
ply that Dean’s discharge was based on his criminal misconduct, not simply on his ar-
rests. To this Dean does not offer a reply.
A FFIRMED

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