McQueen v. City of Chicago

803 F. Supp. 2d 892, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30697, 2011 WL 1113192
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedMarch 23, 2011
DocketNo. 09 C 2048
StatusPublished
Cited by44 cases

This text of 803 F. Supp. 2d 892 (McQueen v. City of Chicago) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McQueen v. City of Chicago, 803 F. Supp. 2d 892, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30697, 2011 WL 1113192 (N.D. Ill. 2011).

Opinion

Memorandum Opinion and Order

GARY FEINERMAN, District Judge.

Plaintiffs Patrick McQueen, Gail Russell, Michelle Shumaker, and Sharon Dancy, aviation police officers employed by the City of Chicago’s Department of Aviation (“DOA”), brought suit against several current and former DOA supervisors and the City of Chicago. Plaintiffs’ second amended complaint (Doc. 71) alleges the denial of equal employment opportunities under 42 U.S.C. § 1981; violations of their Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection and due process; and violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act, 29 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq. (“FMLA”), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12111 et seq. (“ADA”), the Illinois Human Rights Act, 775 ILCS 5/1 et seq. (“IHRA”), and the Illinois Civil Rights Act, 740 ILCS 23/1 et seq. (“ICRA”). The individual Defendants are James Maurer, former Managing Deputy Commissioner of Security and Public Safety for the DOA; Joseph O’Conner and Bill Lonergran, both Assistants to the Deputy Commissioner for Security and Public Safety; and Michael Fitzgerald, Raymond Jubera, and Louis Mills, all Lieutenants with the DOA. All Defendants have moved under Rule 12(b)(6) for partial dismissal of the second amended complaint. Defendant Maurer’s motion (Doc. Ill), which is directed only against Counts I-V, is denied. The motion filed by the remaining Defendants (Doc. 96) is granted in part and denied in part.

Background

The facts alleged in a complaint are assumed true on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion. See Reger Dev., LLC v. Nat’l City Bank, 592 F.3d 759, 763 (7th Cir.2010). According to the second amended complaint, the DOA is a “lawless” organization that allows non-African — American aviation police officers to breach airport security, to show up to work drunk, and to run personal errands while on duty. By contrast, Plaintiffs, who are African-American, have been disciplined for a series of fabricated or protected activities, assigned to undesirable job assignments, subjected to petty harassment, and denied promotional opportunities. To summarize:

Plaintiff Dancy alleges race and sex discrimination. She was suspended for five days in retaliation for filing discrimination and retaliation charges with the Illinois Department of Human Rights (“IDHR”) in December 2007; was reprimanded for apprehending a City of Chicago employee who was stealing luggage from O’Hare Airport; was passed over for promotion and denied training opportunities for discriminatory and ’retaliatory reasons; and was reassigned from a permanent post to a less desirable assignment because of her race and because she had filed a second charge of discrimination with the IDHR.

Plaintiff Russell, too, alleges race and sex discrimination. She was denied lunch breaks, was suspended for three days for being disrespectful to her supervisors, and was banned from using DOA vehicles. In addition, after she refused to write a memorandum to Fitzgerald explaining why she and a non-African-American employee had lunch together, Maurer “angrily exclaimed that if [the memorandum] was not provided, ‘I’m gonna come after them — I’m gonna show them what harassment and retali[898]*898ation is.’ ” Doc. 71, ¶ 101. When given favorable job assignments, Russell was harassed and required to respond to every security incident. On October 2, 2009, for example, Russell radioed for assistance but an African-American Sergeant refused to send officers to her aid.

Plaintiff McQueen alleges race and disability discrimination. McQueen, who suffers from a respiratory condition and who has been approved for intermittent FMLA leave since 2007, was disciplined for taking FMLA leave in August 2008 and February 2009, and was penalized in April 2009 for leaving work after the airport’s air quality began to affect his health. A July 2008 request to accommodate McQueen was not granted until November 2009, and only occasionally complied with thereafter. When McQueen again requested accommodations in 2009, Mills told him that he would never be assigned to job assignments with better air quality; Fitzgerald had told him that “the FMLA doesn’t apply” to the DOA. Id. ¶ 156. In March 2010, Defendants initiated disciplinary proceedings against McQueen for “loafing” and “incompetence” after he failed to respond to DOA radio calls. McQueen failed to respond to the calls because he was in a “radio dead zone,” and McQueen alleges that the disciplinary proceedings were instituted because of his race.

Plaintiff Shumaker alleges race, sex, and disability discrimination. Defendants failed to investigate an incident in which Shumaker was subjected to racial epithets by a non-DOA employee. Maurer and Fitzgerald did not allow Shumaker to return to work between November 2007 and January 2008 because she had taken FMLA leave. On November 13, 2008, Shumaker was suspended by her supervisor — who was acting at the direction of Maurer and Fitzgerald — for leaving her work area. Shumaker actually was not outside the perimeter and, even if she were, non-African Americans were allowed to engage in similar actions without penalty; in fact, Shumaker was retaliated against for reporting non-African Americans who left their patrol areas.

Fitzgerald subsequently banned Shumaker from using DOA vehicles until she “admit[ted] guilt” for her transgressions. Doc. 71, ¶ 98. Shumaker then was denied transportation to her security assignment by DOA employees acting at Fitzgerald’s direction. When Shumaker complained to Jubera, he refused to let her file a report with the DOA’s Human Resources department. On January 5, 2009, Shumaker reported these incidents to Maurer, attributing them to sex discrimination. On January 15, 2009, Shumaker was accused of permitting a breach of airport security. The accusation, which resulted in disciplinary proceedings that later were dropped, was false and may have been a result of her complaints to Maurer. Although the accusation’s sole basis was video surveillance, Shumaker never was permitted to view the videos in order to contest the charges.

The non-disclosure of the video came on the heels of other efforts to conceal and alter evidence of discrimination. On May 1, 2008, Fitzgerald ordered that all personnel records be concealed and withheld from employees who filed charges against the DOA. In an email to DOA supervisors, Fitzgerald stated that “if an officer requests this information he/she is to be told they need a subpoena or a formal request from their Union. I have gone to several EEOC complaints and the officers are producing these items and they are working against the department.” Doc. 71, ¶ 72. To this end, on March 16, 2009, Maurer and the other Defendants interfered with an investigation of the DOA conducted by the City’s Inspector General. Maurer did so by issuing a memorandum that required [899]*899all employees to speak with their supervisors if contacted by the Inspector General’s office. Supervisors then were required to notify O’Connor or Lonergran about the contacts.

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803 F. Supp. 2d 892, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30697, 2011 WL 1113192, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcqueen-v-city-of-chicago-ilnd-2011.