Maurice Franklin v. Maximus, Inc.

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted November 13, 2025*
Decided November 13, 2025
Before
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Chief Judge
DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
No. 25-1038
MAURICE FRANKLIN,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
MAXIMUS, INC., et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 21 CV 4367
Lindsay C. Jenkins,
Judge.
O R D E R
Maurice Franklin sued Maximus, Inc., and its subsidiaries for workplace racial
discrimination, retaliation, and other violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1981; Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2; and the Family Medical Leave Act, 29 U.S.C.
§ 2601. He appeals the district judge’s grant of summary judgment for Maximus.
* 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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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Reviewing the summary judgment de novo and construing all facts and reasonable
inferences in Franklin’s favor, we affirm.
Maximus provides support services for government programs. Franklin, who is
black, was employed there from 2001 to 2003, then rehired in 2008 as a supervisor in the
Child Support division. He became a Vice President a decade later, in 2018. Conflict
came with an internal investigation the next year, when Project Manager Clyde Stith
accused Senior Vice President Laura Rosenak of race discrimination. An executive told
Franklin he would be interviewed by Human Resources and must “go along” with
Rosenak. Franklin admits in his summary judgment response that he did not yet know
that Stith had accused Rosenak of race discrimination; he thought Rosenak had filed
some kind of complaint against Stith and wanted Franklin to take her side. When
Human Resources staff interviewed Franklin that month, he asked to be left out of the
process because he believed that participating would hurt his career. The summary
judgment record does not reflect how the investigation was resolved.
The next year, Rosenak proposed reorganizing the Child Support division. Her
plan would eliminate Franklin’s position and require him to compete for a different
one. Franklin complained that the proposals were unfair; his summary judgment papers
assert that he saw them as retaliation for refusing to cooperate with the Stith
investigation. At this point, Franklin’s internal complaints did not address race. In any
event, Rosenak’s proposed reorganization did not happen.
Instead, a different restructuring proposed by other executives in 2021 led to the
creation of three Lead Vice President positions. Franklin applied but was not chosen.
The successful applicants—at least one of whom was white—had more experience than
him. But Franklin filed an internal ethics complaint alleging that the hiring process was
biased, retaliatory, and racially discriminatory. Maximus hired outside counsel who
investigated the claims and reported that they were meritless. Franklin then complained
to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Shortly after that, he retained
counsel and announced that he was taking six months of FMLA leave.
During that leave, Franklin filed this lawsuit in August 2021. (He ultimately
amended the complaint to include later events.) Meanwhile, Franklin and his counsel
requested a separation agreement, negotiated its terms with Maximus, and signed it on
October 8, 2021. This meant Franklin’s job would end without him taking a full six
months of leave. The agreement awarded Franklin severance pay but released any legal
claims. Maximus formally terminated Franklin the next day. The company deemed his

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No. 25-1038 Page 3
former position unnecessary and eliminated it on October 11, assertedly because his
team had been functioning without him for months.
Yet the agreement did not last. On October 12 (four days after signing), Franklin
timely invoked its revocation clause. He insisted that revoking the agreement undid his
termination. But Maximus read that clause as undoing only the exchange of severance
pay for the release of claims, not the underlying termination.
Eventually, in the federal lawsuit, the district judge granted Maximus’s motion
for summary judgment and denied Franklin’s: refusal to participate in the Stith
investigation was not a statutorily protected activity because it was not based on a belief
that he was opposing discrimination; the reorganization thus was not forbidden
retaliation; no reasonable juror could otherwise link any other adverse action to race
discrimination or Franklin’s attempt to oppose it; Franklin’s summary judgment papers
made no attempt to flesh out his FMLA theory; and no reasonable jury could find that
higher-paid white coworkers were so similarly situated to Franklin that discrimination
could be inferred.
Franklin appeals, arguing that his refusal to participate in the Stith investigation
counts as protected activity because Stith had accused Rosenak of race discrimination.
But protected activity under the antidiscrimination statutes requires a “good-faith and
reasonable belief” that the plaintiff was trying to oppose discrimination. See Ferrill v. Oak
Creek-Franklin Joint Sch. Dist., 860 F.3d 494, 501 (7th Cir. 2017) (quoting O’Leary v.
Accretive Health, Inc., 657 F.3d 625, 631 (7th Cir. 2011)). And the summary judgment
record does not permit a reasonable inference that Franklin sought to oppose race
discrimination or that Maximus officers thought he was doing so. See Scheidler v.
Indiana, 914 F.3d 535, 542–43 (7th Cir. 2019); Owens v. Old Wis. Sausage Co., Inc., 870 F.3d
662, 668–69 (7th Cir. 2017).
Franklin has offered shifting reasons for refusing to participate. In a deposition,
he said that he had thought Rosenak was accusing Stith (not the other way around) of
insubordination and that he feared participating would hurt his career. Later, in his
own unsuccessful motion for summary judgment, Franklin sought to clarify that he had
believed that charges against Stith were pursued in retaliation for Stith’s complaining
about race discrimination. But then Franklin recanted this version in response to
Maximus’s proposed statement of facts; he now asserted that he did not learn that Stith
had complained about race discrimination until after declining to participate. So,
although the Stith investigation involved a claim of racial discrimination, there is no

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record evidence that Franklin thought so at the time. See Scheidler, 914 F.3d at 543. No
reasonable juror could infer that Franklin’s refusal to participate was an attempt to
oppose race discrimination, or that Maximus saw it that way. To be sure, Franklin
emphasizes that the reorganization proposals began soon after his refusal to participate
in the investigation. But that timing is irrelevant because refusal to participate in the
investigation was not a protected activity.
Franklin next argues that the district judge overlooked statements by Maximus
executives that, in his view, reveal an intent to retaliate: that “it was best for both parties
to part ways,” Franklin resigned because he was unhappy and given too few
opportunities, and Maximus did not want him to revoke the separation agreement. But
context does not permit an inference that these statements point to discrimination or
retaliation for protected activity. Maximus entered severance negotiations at Franklin’s
urging; Franklin’s dissatisfaction was apparent to all; and there is nothing suspicious
about a company’s regret that a negotiated agreement has been undone. None of this
ties the breakdown between the parties to discrimination or suggests retaliation for
opposing discrimination.
Franklin also contends that Maximus’s reasons for eliminating his role and not
reinstating him were a pretext for race discrimination or retaliation. To reach a jury on
the pretext question, Franklin needed evidence that Maximus’s “proffered reason” was
“a lie,” which can be demonstrated by implausibility, inconsistency, or contradiction in
the reason for termination. Johnson v. Accenture LLP, 142 F.4th 536, 545 (7th Cir. 2025)
(quoting Parker v. Brooks Life Sci., Inc., 39 F.4th 931, 937–38 (7th Cir. 2022)). But Franklin
offered no evidence that would permit reasonable jurors to infer that the proffered
reason for eliminating his role—that it was no longer necessary—was a lie. See Parker,
39 F.4th at 937–38.
Franklin also asserts that the timeline between his August 2021 lawsuit and
October 2021 termination is evidence of retaliation. But this timing is not suspicious.
Franklin filed suit during severance negotiations that he himself had initiated months
earlier. Maximus ended Franklin’s employment only after he signed the agreement.
Franklin next contends that Maximus breached the agreement’s revocation
clause by refusing to reinstate him. But he did not assert a breach-of-contract claim in
his summary judgment papers and thus cannot pursue one on appeal. See Arnold v.
United Airlines, Inc., 142 F.4th 460, 474–45 (7th Cir. 2025); Lewis v. Ind. Wesleyan Univ.,
36 F.4th 755, 760–61 (7th Cir. 2022). He also says that once he revoked the agreement,

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Maximus violated his FMLA rights when it eliminated his position instead of restoring
him to it and letting him use remaining leave. But Franklin did not develop or defend
his FMLA claim at summary judgment, so, again, he cannot pursue it here.
Franklin also contests the district judge’s ruling that the summary judgment
record showed no pay discrimination during his employment. To reach a jury under
either the burden-shifting framework of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792,
802 (1973), or the holistic framework of Ortiz v. Werner Enters., Inc., 834 F.3d 760, 766
(7th Cir. 2016), Franklin needed evidence that higher-paid white coworkers were
“directly comparable” to him “in all material respects.” Gamble v. County of Cook,
106 F.4th 622, 626 (7th Cir. 2024) (quoting Downing v. Abbott Lab’y, 48 F.4th 793, 805
(7th Cir. 2022)).
But non-racial differences between Franklin and his coworkers present “other
possible explanatory variables” that would not permit jurors to infer that Franklin’s
lower salary was based on race. Downing, 48 F.4th at 805 (quoting Williams v. Off. of Chief
Judge of Cook Cnty., 839 F.3d 617, 626 (7th Cir. 2016)). Peter Baylinson, another Vice
President, had five more years of director-level experience when he took that title.
Franklin says Kelly Boerner had an inflated title and relatively less experience in the
Child Support division, but he did not make this argument at summary judgment, so it
is waived. See Lewis, 36 F.4th at 760–61. Four white subordinates—James Graettinger,
Daryl Reiber, Colleen Duke, and Rick DiLollo—apparently were paid more than
Franklin. But Franklin did not reply to Maximus’s summary judgment arguments for
why Graettinger, Reiber, and Duke were not sufficient comparators, and the district
judge correctly ruled that he had abandoned that issue. See id. Franklin asserts that this
was wrong but does not identify where he made these arguments at summary
judgment. DiLollo, meanwhile, received higher pay because Maximus valued his
19 years’ experience with a subcontractor whose business was critical to the company.
Franklin adds that Maximus used unofficial reporting and “dotted line” organizational
charts (with employees reporting to multiple managers at once), which he says
permitted the company to conceal salary discrepancies. But as the district judge
concluded, Franklin’s citations to the record did not reveal dishonesty or explain how
Maximus tried to hide any information.
Franklin next maintains that the district judge abused her discretion when she
struck his initial summary judgment response under Northern District of Illinois Local
Rule 56.1 for lacking record citations and Local Rule 7.1 for being too long. (He was
permitted to file a second response, which he did.) But the district judge acted within

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her discretion to enforce the rules. See Johnson, 142 F.4th at 542; see also Rongere v. City of
Rockford, 99 F.4th 1095, 1101 (7th Cir. 2024). And Franklin does not identify any detail in
his first response that he could not have included in the second one.
Last, Franklin makes several additional arguments not raised at summary
judgment. For example, he contends that he was excluded from meetings and subjected
to a wide variety of differential treatment that led to his constructive discharge. Because
Franklin did not raise these arguments below, he has failed to preserve them for
appellate review. See Lewis, 36 F.4th at 760–61.
AFFRIMED

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