Chaparro v. City of Chicago

47 F. Supp. 3d 767, 2014 WL 2619468, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 79910, 123 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 724
District Court, N.D. Illinois·Decided June 12, 2014·No. No. 11 C 2659·Published·Cited by 6 cases

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

John J. Tharp, Jr., United States District Judge

Eloísa Chaparro, a Chicago police officer, brought this suit against two fellow officers, Brian Roney and Ron Bonadurer, her supervisor, Sergeant James Wash-burn, and the City of Chicago, asserting sexual harassment and sex discrimination, among other claims, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Previously, this Court (Holder-man, J.) granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motions to dismiss. Dkt. 46. Sergeant Washburn was dismissed from the suit. The only remaining claims in this case are: (1) equal protection under § 1983 against Brian Roney in his individual capacity; (2) equal protection under § 1983 against Ron Bonadurer in his individual capacity; (3) equal protection under § 1983 against the City; and (4) sexual harassment under Title VII against the City. The remaining defendants filed separate motions for summary judgment. Although the evidence is sufficient to establish that defendants Roney and Bonadurer routinely engaged in juvenile, sexually oriented conduct that has no place at work (or anywhere else, for that matter), the Court is constrained to conclude that Ms. Chaparro cannot prevail on her remaining legal claims and that the motions for summary judgment must be granted.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Chaparro’s Local Rule 56.1(b)(3) Response and Statement of Additional Facts.1

The Court must first address Chaparro’s failure to comply with Northern District of [770] Illinois Local Rule 56.1, which provides litigants with instructions and procedures for properly filing and responding to motions for summary judgment. Rule 56.1(b) requires:

a concise response to the movant’s statement that shall contain ... a response to each numbered paragraph in the moving party’s statement, including, in the case of any disagreement, specific references to the affidavits, parts of the record, and other supporting materials relied upon, and ... a statement, consisting of short numbered paragraphs, of any additional facts that require the denial of summary judgment, including references to the affidavits, parts of the record, and other supporting materials relied upon.

N.D. 111. L.R. 56.1(b)(3)(A)-(C). As the defendants correctly point out, Chaparro has failed to comply with these requirements. Her responses to the defendants’ statements of fact include inaccurate citations to the record, the absence of any citations to the record, and general denials without any support. “[A] district court is entitled to expect strict compliance with rule 56.1.” Ammons v. Aramark Uniform Servs., Inc., 368 F.3d 809, 817 (7th Cir.2004). Any statements of fact offered by a defendant and not properly responded to by Chaparro are deemed admitted to the extent they are supported by admissible record evidence. See Smith v. Lamz, 321 F.3d 680, 683 (7th Cir.2003).

In addition, the Court will disregard paragraphs 4-5, 15, 20-23 in Chaparro’s statement of additional facts, which rely on an affidavit which she attaches as an exhibit to her submission. See Dkt. 150-2; see Pl.’s Stmt. ¶¶4-5, 15, 20-23. That affidavit contradicts Chaparro’s deposition testimony. For example, Chaparro testified that she heard Roney and Bonadurer make inappropriate comments between 20 and 50 times (Pl.’s Dep. (Dkt. 115-1) at 92:6-93:2, 109:4-12), but she could only recall four specific incidents for each defendant and added that nothing would refresh her memory at the time. Id. at 94:9-14 (“I’m sure there were [more comments], but I don’t remember verbatim.”); 105:11-16 (“I’m sure that there [are] times that I haven’t told you because I can’t remember the exact dates or times.”); 108:7-14 (“I can’t think of any [more comments] right now, but I know there were some.”); 112:5-18 (“Q: Are you able to list [Bonadurer’s] comments? A. Not right now.”).

The Seventh Circuit “ha[s] been highly critical of efforts to patch up a party’s deposition with his own subsequent affidavit.” Russell v. Acme-Evans Co., 51 F.3d 64, 67 (7th Cir.1995). Where deposition testimony and an affidavit are in conflict, the affidavit is to be disregarded “unless it is demonstrable that the statement in the deposition was mistaken, perhaps because the question was phrased in a confusing manner or because a lapse of memory is in the circumstances a plausible explanation for the discrepancy.” Id. at 67-68; see also United States v. Funds in Amount of One Hundred Thousand One Hundred and Twenty Dollars, 730 F.3d 711, 718 (7th Cir.2013) (“we do not allow litigants to manufacture material fact questions by affidavit testimony that contradicts prior sworn testimony.”). Chaparro makes clear in her deposition that she cannot recall additional comments or incidents of harassment, and told the questioner that nothing at the time would refresh her memory. It is unclear, and Chaparro pro[771] vides no explanation, as to why Chaparro is now able to recall additional incidents but could not do so at her deposition-That omission is particularly problematic given that she has now added to the inventory more incidents than she offered during her deposition (this is not a case where a witness neglected to mention a single incident) and the alleged incidents involved graphic conduct by the defendants which she now purports to recall clearly. The purpose of discovery is to narrow the issues and give the opponent an opportunity “to secure information about the existence of evidence that may be used at trial ...” 8 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice And Procedure § 2001 (3d ed.2014). Chaparro did not provide the defendants with the opportunity to discover the additional incidents she now recalls before summary judgment, and because of this unexplained discrepancy, the affidavit and the statements of fact that rely on the affidavit will be disregarded.

Finally, any additional facts submitted without leave of court in excess of the 40 allowed by Local Rule 56.1 (which was not requested) are stricken and have also been disregarded.

B. Undisputed Material Facts2

Eloísa Chaparro has been employed by the Chicago Police Department (“CPD”) since 1988. PL’s Resp. to City’s 56.1 Stmt. (Dkt. 140-3) ¶ 2.

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Chaparro v. City of Chicago, 47 F. Supp. 3d 767, 2014 WL 2619468, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 79910, 123 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 724 (N.D. Ill. 2014).

47 F. Supp. 3d 767 (Chaparro v. City of Chicago) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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