Kuttner v. Zaruba

• Decision Date: 14 April 2016
• Docket Number: No. 14–3812.,14–3812.
• Citation: 819 F.3d 970
• Parties: Susan A. KUTTNER, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. John ZARUBA, et al., Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

819 F.3d 970

Susan A. KUTTNER, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.John ZARUBA, et al., Defendants–Appellees.

No. 14–3812.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued May 29, 2015.

Decided April 14, 2016.

Maurice J. Salem, Law Offices of Salem & Associates, P.C., Palos Heights, IL, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Gregory Vaci, Paul Francis Bruckner, Attorneys, DuPage County State's Attorney's Office, Wheaton, IL, for Defendant–Appellee.

Before POSNER, EASTERBROOK, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

SYKES

, Circuit Judge.

Susan Kuttner was fired from her job as a DuPage County deputy sheriff after she wore her uniform and badge while trying to collect on a loan for a friend. She sued the sheriff alleging that she was fired because of her sex. There's no direct evidence of sex discrimination, so Kuttner's lawyer embarked on a protracted fishing expedition in search of possible comparators to try to mount a case under the rubric of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973)

. Using an overbroad understanding of "similarly situated" employees, the lawyer sought the personnel files of more than 30 employees of the DuPage County Sheriff's Office. In response to these and other inappropriate discovery requests, the district judge stepped in and imposed some limits. In the end Kuttner failed to adduce evidence of sex discrimination, so the judge entered summary judgment for the sheriff.

On appeal Kuttner argues that the judge unduly restricted discovery and improperly granted summary judgment. We reject these arguments and affirm.

I. Background

Kuttner began working as a DuPage County deputy sheriff in 1998. In February 2010 she was fired by the Merit Commission, a unit of the sheriff's department that handles hiring, promotions, and disciplinary matters. The Commission was acting on an October 2009 complaint by Sheriff John Zaruba regarding an incident that occurred several months earlier when Kuttner, while in uniform, paid a visit to the home of a person who owed money to her boyfriend. More specifically, Kuttner's boyfriend Steve Cooper had loaned a sum of money to one Reginald Benjamin. Benjamin did not repay the loan. One afternoon in April or May 2009, Kuttner—wearing her official sheriff's uniform and badge—visited Benjamin's home in Hinsdale, Illinois, where he lived with his parents. Benjamin's father came to the door and told Kuttner that his son was not home. Kuttner then left a business card listing her name and a company called "Team in Focus, DC International."

Sheriff Zaruba alleged in his disciplinary complaint that Kuttner's conduct—attempting to collect on a personal loan for a friend while in uniform—violated multiple departmental regulations. In what amounted to a plea deal, Kuttner stipulated to the facts we've just recounted and admitted to violating two rules: one prohibiting "conduct unbecoming" an officer and another prohibiting the improper wearing of the uniform. In exchange the other disciplinary charges were dropped. The Merit Commission determined that Kuttner's conduct was serious enough to warrant discharge. She was fired on February 24, 2010.

Two weeks later Kuttner filed a complaint with the EEOC alleging that the sheriff had discriminated against her on the basis of her sex. After the agency declined action and gave her permission to sue, she brought this lawsuit against Sheriff Zaruba claiming sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e–2 et seq.¹

The complaint alleged that Kuttner was fired and denied a promotion because of her sex and that the sheriff's policies regarding jail staffing discriminated against female employees.²

Discovery did not go smoothly. Lacking any direct evidence of discrimination, Kuttner's attorney cast a very wide discovery net in an effort to turn up male deputies who faced similar misconduct charges but suffered less drastic employment consequences. Among other things, Kuttner's lawyer sought the entire personnel files of more than 30 employees of the Sheriff's Office—including, baselessly, documents relating to Sheriff Zaruba's wife. The sheriff objected, and when the parties couldn't resolve the dispute, they sought the court's assistance. Prompted by the judge, Kuttner's lawyer admitted that his request for documents about the sheriff's wife's file was just "a fishing expedition." Following a hearing, the judge concluded that Kuttner's discovery requests were overly broad and unduly burdensome because they lacked any time limitation and were based on "an overbroad definition of ‘similarity’ of misconduct." The judge curtailed the scope of discoverable personnel documents to those arising after January 1, 2006, and pertaining to employees who were alleged to have engaged in "similar misconduct as [Kuttner] (abuse of authority) or sufficiently serious misconduct." In addition to issuing these general limitations, the judge resolved some specific disputes about the disclosure of personnel files of particular employees.

Discovery proceeded for several months under these restrictions. More than three months later, however, Kuttner moved for reconsideration. The judge was not impressed with the belated motion, which came just a few weeks before the deadline to complete discovery (already twice extended). The judge reiterated his view that "[f]rom the start of discovery, Plaintiff (actually, her counsel) has made overly broad and unduly burdensome discovery requests, some of which were unwarranted fishing expeditions bordering on harassment." As the judge saw it, Kuttner's counsel was again "over-reaching" and had shown "no solid factual basis for believing" that relevant evidence would be uncovered if the discovery restrictions were lifted. The judge declined to revisit his earlier order.

It was not long before Kuttner's lawyer again butted heads with the judge—this time during the next-to-last round of depositions. Deposing Deputy Tara Campbell, Kuttner's counsel asked the witness whether she had ever heard or seen any deputy violate any Sheriff's Office policy or procedure. Predictably, this expansive inquiry drew an objection, and a call to the judge's chambers followed. The judge had twice sustained objections to similarly overbroad inquiries by Kuttner's counsel earlier in this contentious discovery process. The judge did so again and restricted the inquiry to questions about the witness's "personal knowledge of abuse of authority committed by other deputies (i.e., no more hearsay in the hope of leading to admissible evidence concerning abuse of authority)."

After discovery closed Sheriff Zaruba moved for summary judgment. Kuttner responded by proffering four male comparators that she claimed had also abused their positions but were not fired. The judge rejected all four because their misconduct was too dissimilar to make them suitable for comparison under the McDonnell Douglas indirect method of proof. Kuttner offered no other evidence that she was fired because of her sex, so the judge entered summary judgment for the sheriff on this claim. The judge also rejected Kuttner's failure-to-promote claim because she had never sought a promotion, nor had she alleged that a less qualified male employee was promoted over her within the 300–day limitations period. Finally, the judge concluded that material factual disputes necessitated a trial on Kuttner's claim about the sheriff's jail-staffing policies.

A different judge presided at trial. Sheriff Zaruba prevailed.

II. Discussion

Kuttner apparently accepts the outcome of the trial; on appeal she does not seek to revive her jail-staffing claim. Rather, she challenges only the judge's discovery limitations and his summary-judgment rulings rejecting her claims that she was fired and denied a promotion because of her sex.

A. Discovery Limitations

District judges have broad discretion over discovery matters, so we review discovery rulings deferentially, only for abuse of discretion. Spitz v. Proven Winners N. Am., LLC, 759 F.3d 724, 733 (7th Cir.2014)

. This standard requires us to affirm unless the judge's ruling lacks a basis in law or fact or clearly appears to be arbitrary. e360 Insight, Inc. v. Spamhaus Project, 658 F.3d 637, 644 (7th Cir.2011). If we do find an abuse of discretion, "we will not grant any relief ‘absent a clear showing that the denial of discovery resulted in actual and substantial prejudice.’ " Id. (quoting Searls v. Glasser, 64 F.3d 1061, 1068 (7th Cir.1995) ).

Kuttner argues that the judge's temporal limitation on discovery—the January 1, 2006 outer boundary for personnel records—was arbitrary. Any temporal limit on discovery is in some sense artificial, and it's true that the January 1, 2006 date isn't keyed to any specific facts in the case. But our abuse-of-discretion standard of review requires a deferential and contextualized approach. To that end, the proper inquiry in this case is two-fold: (1) was some time limit warranted here, and (2) was this time limit reasonable, i.e., did it allow Kuttner a meaningful opportunity for discovery? The answer to both questions is "yes."

To the first question, the judge's reason for imposing the time limit was to rein in Kuttner's "overly broad and unduly burdensome" discovery expedition, perhaps exemplified most starkly by the request for the personnel records of Sheriff Zaruba's wife, who could not possibly have served as a legitimate comparator and was presumably targeted solely for harassment and humiliation. The judge reasonably concluded that this litigation conduct by Kuttner's counsel justified placing some limits on discovery so that it would focus only on capturing information reasonably calculated to lead to relevant evidence.

Recency is one component of relevance. Valid comparators for a plaintiff proceeding under the McDonnell Douglas indirect method of proof are "employees [who] dealt with the same supervisor, were subject to the same standards, and had engaged in similar...