Kevin C. Carter v. Tennant Company

383 F.3d 673, 21 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 1313, 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 19168, 2004 WL 2029316
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedSeptember 13, 2004
Docket03-2791
StatusPublished
Cited by57 cases

This text of 383 F.3d 673 (Kevin C. Carter v. Tennant Company) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kevin C. Carter v. Tennant Company, 383 F.3d 673, 21 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 1313, 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 19168, 2004 WL 2029316 (7th Cir. 2004).

Opinion

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge.

As Kevin Carter discovered in this case, it rarely pays to lie. In applying for a position with Tennant Company, Carter completed a “Health History Questionnaire” that inquired about his prior work-related injuries and medical care. Carter failed to report a back injury from an earlier job, an omission that Tennant discovered when Carter filed for workers’ compensation benefits after “re-aggravating” the injury while working for Ten-nant. Shortly thereafter, Tennant dismissed Carter. Carter sued, alleging both that Tennant had discharged him in retaliation for making his workers’ compensation claims and that Tennant’s health history questionnaire violated Illinois’s Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act (Privacy Act), 820 ILCS 55/1 et seq. The district court granted summary judgment for Ten-nant with respect to both of Carter’s claims. We affirm.

I

From August 1998 until April 1999, Carter served as a part-time custodian for Gurnee School District 56. On November 30, 1998, Carter injured his back while at work and filed a workers’ compensation claim. Carter’s workers’ compensation benefits paid for frequent chiropractic treatments for his injury. In April 1999, Carter resigned from his position with Gurnee to accept a full-time position with Tennant. As part of the application process for the Tennant position, Carter was required to complete and sign a health history questionnaire. The questionnaire first asked Carter to identify and explain any health conditions that he had suffered. *676 Carter answered: “Back/neck trouble— slight misalignment of vertebrae; corrected by chiropractic adjustment.” Carter then answered in the affirmative the following three questions: “Have you ever had any occupational injuries, accidents or illnesses?”; “Did you lose time from work for a work-related injury or illness? List injuries/illnesses, date occurred and company worked for at the time and “Did you see a medical doctor for any work-related injury/illness?” In answering the second question, Carter wrote only: “Hair caught on motor shaft, resulting in swelling of scalp and face.” In response to the third question, he answered, “Saw doctor for above incident.” At the conclusion of the questionnaire, Carter signed below the following statement: “I hereby certify that I have answered the above questions to the best of my knowledge and that the answers are complete and true. Any misrepresentation or omission may be justification for refusal of employment, or if employed, termination of employment.” As Carter acknowledges on appeal, he “did not tell Tennant about his Gurnee injury or ongoing medical care and benefits when he completed the questionnaire.”

Tennant hired Carter on April 26, 1999. Carter continued to receive workers’ compensation benefits for his Gurnee injury until September 15, 1999, when he failed to attend a mandatory medical examination. Two weeks later, on September 28, 1999, Carter informed his Tennant supervisor that he had injured his back while working at a customer site. He immediately sought treatment from his regular chiropractor, Dr. Jeffrey Watkin. The next day, Dr. Watkin submitted a Workers’ Compensation Attending Physician’s Supplement Report to Tennant, in which he described the injury as lower back pain “reaggravated at work” and listed the date of the injury as November 30, 1998, the date on which Carter injured his back while at Gurnee. On November 9, 1999, Tennant’s workers’ compensation carrier informed the company that it was denying Carter’s workers’ compensation claim because he had filed a prior claim with Gur-nee for his back injury and was receiving treatment for this injury. Carter continued to work for Tennant following his injury and the denial of his workers’ compensation claim, during which time he received positive evaluations, as well as a retroactive merit salary increase.

Some time after November 10, 1999, Tennant’s Disability Council met to consider Carter’s case. According to Tennant, “[t]he purposes of the Disability Council were to analyze the types of workplace injuries which occurred, in an effort to reduce the occurrence of workplace injuries by developing training; to develop back-to-work plans for injured employees; to assist employees in resuming their regular duties; and to formulate specific action plans for individual employees.” The testimony of the Tennant employees who sat on the Disability Council is inconsistent as to whether the Council had final authority to terminate an employee, but there seems to be some consensus that the Council made the decision to discharge Carter. On November 30, Carter’s supervisors informed him that he was being terminated effective December 1,1999.

On January 29, 2001, Carter filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Labor alleging that Tennant’s health history questionnaire violated Section 10 of the Privacy Act. After a hearing, the Administrative Law Judge issued a notice stating: “Please take notice that the Department of Labor has concluded its administration and enforcement of the [Privacy] Act in the above captioned case. The Department will take no further action in this matter. Therefore, pursuant to 820 ILCS *677 55/15(c), the Complainant has leave to pursue other civil remedies.” On February 7, 2002, Carter filed this action in the Circuit Court of Cook County. Carter first raised a retaliatory discharge claim, alleging that Tennant “terminated Plaintiff as a direct consequence of learning of his exercise of his rights as guaranteed under the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act before he became an employee.” In addition, he charged that Tennant had violated the Privacy Act by “wilfully and knowingly termi-nat[ing] Plaintiffs employment based upon its allegations that Plaintiffs failure to provide it with answers to prohibited inquiries constituted falsification of his Health History.” Tennant removed the case to the Northern District of Illinois based on federal diversity jurisdiction. On June 16, 2003, the district court granted summary judgment for Tennant on both counts of Carter’s complaint. This appeal followed.

II

A

We first consider Carter’s claim that Tennant illegally discharged him in retaliation for his filing a workers’ compensation claim for his back injury. The district court granted Tennant’s motion for summary judgment on this claim, a decision that we review de novo. McDonald v. Vill. of Winnetka, 371 F.3d 992, 1001 (7th Cir.2004). Under Illinois law, “[a] valid claim for retaliatory discharge requires a showing that (1) an employee has been discharged; (2) in retaliation for the employee’s activities; and (3) that the discharge violates a clear mandate of public policy.” Bourbon v. Kmart Corp., 223 F.3d 469, 472 (7th Cir.2000) (citing Hartlein v. Ill. Power Co., 151 Ill.2d 142, 176 Ill.Dec. 22, 601 N.E.2d 720, 728 (1992)). “In the workers’ compensation context, a plaintiff must show (1) that he was the defendant’s employee before his injury; (2) that he exercised a right granted by the Workers’ Compensation Act; (3) and that he was discharged from his employment with a causal connection to his filing a workers’ compensation claim.”

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383 F.3d 673, 21 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 1313, 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 19168, 2004 WL 2029316, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kevin-c-carter-v-tennant-company-ca7-2004.