McCormick v. City of Chicago, et al

• Decision Date: 16 October 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-2365,99-2365
• Citation: 230 F.3d 319
• Parties: (7th Cir. 2000) Donald McCormick, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. City of Chicago, et al., Defendants-Appellees
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 319

230 F.3d 319 (7th Cir. 2000)

Donald McCormick, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. City of Chicago, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 99-2365

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Argued June 6, 2000

Decided October 16, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 95 C 2028--Charles R. Norgle, Sr., Judge.

Before Bauer, Manion, and Williams, Circuit Judges.

Williams, Circuit Judge.

Donald McCormick sued the City of Chicago, and two individual defendants, Sergeant Richard Banaszkiewicz and Dr. Jack Leong ("Individual Defendants") for discrimination under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 and 42 U.S.C. sec. 1981. After allowing McCormick to amend his complaint twice in order to allege facts sufficient to show municipal liability, the district court held a hearing and denied McCormick the opportunity to amend his complaint for a third time. Ultimately, the district court dismissed McCormick's municipal liability claim.

Following the dismissal of the claims against the City, McCormick and the defendants attempted to reach a settlement agreement as to the remaining claims. In light of the settlement negotiations, on June 30, 1998, the district court dismissed the case with leave to reinstate within 60 days. Although the parties reached an agreement in principle, the Fraternal Order of Police ("FOP"), whose consent was a condition of the agreement, refused to agree to the settlement. McCormick abandoned efforts to renegotiate the settlement on November 18, 1998 and filed a motion to reinstate claims against the Individual Defendants on December 11, 1998. The court denied the motion to reinstate and McCormick now appeals both the dismissal of his municipal liability claim and the denial of his motion to reinstate his claims against the Individual Defendants. For the reasons set forth below, we reverse in part and affirm in part.

I

Donald McCormick was injured while on duty as a Chicago police officer when he slipped on the icy pavement and fell. At that time, Banaszkiewicz was McCormick's immediate supervisor. Despite the fact that McCormick filed an "injured on duty form," Banaszkiewicz, who is white, refused to authorize injured on duty status ("IOD status") for McCormick. McCormick asserts that the motivation for this refusal was Banaszkiewicz' racial hostility toward plaintiff, who is African-American. McCormick claims that at the time he was injured, Banaszkiewicz made it very clear that because McCormick was African- American, Banaszkiewicz did not believe McCormick's story about being injured on the job and that as McCormick's supervisor, he would do everything in his power to ensure that McCormick did not receive IOD status. In fact, McCormick reported that Banaszkiewicz even said to him, "I'll get your black ass off this job yet."

McCormick remained off work for one month and returned briefly in June 1993, until he was informed by his physician that he was physically unable to work. He submitted his doctor's written recommendation to Dr. Leong, a police department physician, who rejected the recommendation and without performing any medical examination, refused to rate McCormick as unfit for duty. McCormick charges that Leong's refusal was also motivated by racial animus. Leong ordered McCormick back to work and "made assertions indicative of his general belief that African- American patrolmen were more likely to feign or exaggerate work related injuries." Specifically, Leong told McCormick, "You blacks are all the same. Listen, I'm going to have the department fire you for insubordination." When McCormick protested and reported his intent to file a grievance, Leong added, "You'll be fired first." According to McCormick, Leong never asserted a medical reason to support his refusal to rate McCormick unable to perform his duties.

As a result of Banaszkiewicz' and Leong's actions,¹ McCormick ultimately resigned from the police force. Later that year, on October 29, 1993, McCormick requested reinstatement to the Chicago Police Department. The City granted his request, however McCormick was not reinstated to his former position. Consequently, McCormick lost all seniority and benefits which would have inured to him under the terms of his original contract with the department.

In his Second Amended Complaint, McCormick alleged that by maintaining an express policy against racial discrimination and not vigorously enforcing it, the City encouraged and condoned acts and omissions of its highest policy-making officers who have allowed "a widespread custom of allowing white police officers, in predominately white districts, to engage in individual acts of discrimination against African-Americans, without fear of vigorous and effective enforcement of City anti-discrimination policies." In particular, McCormick alleged that Banaszkiewicz engaged in a pattern of treating African-American officers worse than white officers and "denigrating, belittling, and mistreating African-American officers under his supervision while at the same time, not treating white police officers" similarly. He reported that on one occasion, Banaszkiewicz was caught by the watch commander engaging in acts of sabotage against equipment used by African-Americans and that despite repeated and well-publicized reports of racially motivated acts by Banaszkiewicz, the City allowed him to retain a supervisory postion and to harass and harm African-American officers, including McCormick. McCormick also claims that Banaszkiewicz' supervisors, the City Clerk, and other City officials knew about his conduct and that their failure to act served as further encouragement.

The procedural history of this litigation is complicated, but in no way unusual in a case of this nature. After permitting McCormick to amend his complaint for the third time, on October 29, 1997, the district judge concluded that McCormick had not alleged facts showing a municipal custom or practice of discrimination against African- American officers who were injured on duty and therefore dismissed McCormick's claims against the City. The court found that "McCormick [did] not plead facts demonstrating that the City was the moving force behind the alleged discrimination" and he "failed to come forward with facts establishing an 'affirmative link' between a discriminatory municipal policy and [one of Individual Defendants'] behavior." However, the district judge did offer McCormick, who was pro se at the time, the chance to file a third amended complaint, as long as he did so prior to November 21, 1997. The court informed McCormick that if he failed to submit his third amended complaint by that date, his claims against the City would be dismissed with prejudice and the court would enter judgment in the City's favor.

On January 5, 1998, McCormick, represented by legal counsel, filed a motion for leave to file another amended complaint. He sought to add a paragraph which stated:

At all times the City of Chicago has afforded disparate treatment on account of race to its police officers claiming to have been injured on duty. The City has disapproved claims of African- American police officers for injury-on-duty status at a greater rate than the claims of similarly situated white officers. The difference in the approval rates for African-American and white police officers is so great as to give rise to an inference of intentional discrimination.

The district judge denied this motion.² In ruling, the judge noted that "from the Court's perspective this is a tired, old case. And when it originally came before the Court, it appeared to be a relatively simple case for the Court to deal with. . . . This amendment would totally change the nature of the case, if the Court were to allow this amendment."

In the meantime, the Individual Defendants filed answers to McCormick's Second Amended Complaint, and the litigation proceeded as to the claims against them. By January, after some discovery, McCormick and the Individual Defendants were actively engaged in settlement discussions. The Individual Defendants initially reached a settlement agreement with McCormick, and on June 30, 1998, the district judge issued an order dismissing McCormick's case with leave to reinstate within sixty days. Under the terms of the agreement, McCormick was supposed to submit a letter noting the Fraternal Order of Police's ("FOP") consent to the settlement by July 30, 1998. McCormick missed this deadline and later informed the court that the FOP refused to approve the settlement. Therefore, the agreement was never finalized.³ However, instead of seeking reinstatement immediately, McCormick did not file a motion to reinstate until December 11, 1998; months after the deadline imposed by the court in June. After several filings on the subject, the district judge denied McCormick's motion to reinstate as both untimely and without merit.

II

A. Motion to Dismiss

McCormick maintains that in dismissing his claims against the City, the district judge improperly applied a heightened pleading standard to his municipal liability claim. As an initial matter, the City contends that we need not even reach this issue. The City argues that because it entered into settlement negotiations concerning claims against both the City and Individual Defendants, dismissal of the complaint in light of those negotiations covers both the municipal liability and individual liability claims. This argument misses the mark. The fact that the City was still a party to settlement negotiations does not necessarily mean that the court's June 30, 1998 order (dismissing with leave to reinstate), somehow included the municipal liability claim. That claim was dismissed by the court on October 29, 1997 and again on January 12, 1998 when the court denied plaintiff's motion to modify the October 29 order. Since the court entered a final judgment for defendants on March 5, 1999 and...