Ernest Collins, Jr. v. Barnes and Thornburg Law Firm

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
• Decided: April 24, 2019
• Docket: 18-3362
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION To be cited only in accordance with Fed.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

Submitted April 23, 2019 * Decided April 24, 2019

Before

WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

AMY C. BARRETT, Circuit Judge

No. 18-3362

ERNEST COLLINS, Appeal from the United States District Plaintiff-Appellant, Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division.

v. No. 1:17-CV-3697 RLM-DLP

BARNES & THORNBURG LLP, et al., Robert L. Miller, Jr., Defendants-Appellees. Judge.

ORDER

Ernest Collins filed a complaint challenging events that happened forty years ago—his discharge from Western Electric in 1978 and an unfavorable disposition in an employment-discrimination lawsuit that he brought in 1980. In this new suit, he alleges that Western Electric fired him because of his race and that its lawyers stole documents

* Defendants were not served in the district court and are not participating in this appeal. We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the appeal is frivolous. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(A). No. 18-3362 Page 2

and money from him. The district court dismissed the complaint as time-barred and frivolous.

On appeal, Collins does not engage the district court’s reasoning but remains dissatisfied with its decision. The court, however, was correct that Collins’s claims are time-barred. Because Collins waited forty years to bring this discrimination action, it is untimely under both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, see 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1), (f)(1) (deadline for filing EEOC charge is within 300 days of discriminatory act; deadline for bringing civil suit is within 90 days of receiving notice of right to sue), and 42 U.S.C. § 1981, see 28 U.S.C. § 1658(a); Campbell v. Forest Pres. Dist. of Cook Cty., 752 F.3d 665, 668 (7th Cir. 2014) (four-year statute of limitations for wrongful-termination claims under § 1981).

We caution Collins to refrain from pursuing further frivolous actions, or he may be sanctioned and prohibited from future filings in this court and in the district courts within the judicial boundaries of the Seventh Circuit. See Support Sys. Int’l, Inc. v. Mack, 45 F.3d 185, 186–87 (7th Cir. 1995).

AFFIRMED