Rao v. Gondi

JASTI RAO, Plaintiff, v. CHRISTOPHER GONDI et al., Defendants.

14 C 66

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS EASTERN DIVISION

June 5, 2017

Judge Virginia M. Kendall

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Before his resignation in March of 2013, Plaintiff Dr. Jasti Rao was a high-profile cancer researcher at the University of Illinois's College of Medicine at Peoria, a tenured professor at the University, and one of its highest paid employees. On March 21, 2013, that all changed when Dr. Rao resigned his positions after being presented with evidence of misconduct by the University's outside counsel, including allegations that he demanded and accepted cash payments from at least one subordinate to pay off alleged gambling debts and concealed the extent of errors in papers published by his lab and then directed subordinates to delete documents evidencing the scope of the errors. Following his resignation, Dr. Rao sued the University, along with his former supervisors, Dr. Sara Rusch and Dr. Dimitri Azar. In his surviving claims,¹ Dr. Rao alleges that he was discriminated against on the basis of his national origin in violation of Title VII and the Illinois Civil Rights Act of 2003 ("ICRA") (Counts I, II, and VII), retaliatedagainst for raising allegations of research improprieties against other professors (Count VII), and denied due process and equal protection (Counts IX and X).

After a long and contentious discovery process, both parties filed summary judgment motions. Defendants moved for summary judgment on all counts; while Dr. Rao moved for summary judgment only on his Due Process Section 1983 claim against Dr. Rusch and Dr. Azar (Count IX). For the reasons stated herein, Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment is granted in part and denied in part, and Dr. Rao's Motion for Summary Judgment is denied.

BACKGROUND

In this district, Local Rule 56.1 governs the procedures for parties moving for and responding to summary judgment. Along with a memorandum in support and relevant evidence required by Rule 56(e), Local Rule 56.1 requires the moving party to include a statement of material facts as to which they contend there is no genuine issue and that entitle them to judgment as a matter of law. L.R. 56.1(a)(3) The party opposing the motion must respond to the movant's Local Rule 56.1 statement with a concise response to the movant's statement, containing a response to each numbered paragraph in the moving party's statements and separately, a concise statement of additional facts that require denial of summary judgment. L.R. 56.1(b)(3).

Rule 56.1 "serves an important function by ensuring that the proposed findings of fact are in a form that permits the district court to analyze the admissible evidence supporting particular factual propositions and determine precisely what facts, if any, are material and disputed." Schmidt v. Eagle Waste & Recycling, Inc., 599 F.3d 626, 630 (7th Cir.2010). When reviewing Rule 56.1 statements, the court is not required to "wade through improper denials and legal argument in search of a genuinely disputed fact." Bordelon v. Chic. Sch. Reform Bd. of Trs., 233F.3d 524, 529 (7th Cir. 2000). District courts are entitled to require strict compliance with Local Rule 56.1. See Boss v. Castro, 816 F.3d 910, 914 (7th Cir. 2016) (collecting cases). "[A] court does not abuse its discretion when it opts to disregard facts presented in a manner that does follow the Rule's instructions." Ciomber v. Coop. Plus, Inc., 527 F.3d 635, 643 (7th Cir. 2008).

Defendants moved to strike Dr. Rao's Rule 56.1 Statement of Additional Facts and his Responses to Defendants' Rule 56.1 Statement of Material Facts because they included: (1) legal conclusions or argument;² (2) were predicated on hearsay or lacked foundation;³ (3) relied on unauthenticated documents or inadmissible evidence;⁴ or (4) were not support by the cited evidence.⁵ The Court routinely takes these motions to strike under advisement with the motions for summary judgment as they are disfavored in this district and rarely say more than the equivalent of "follow the rule." This time, however, the Court agreed with Defendants because of the wide variety of flagrant violations of Local Rule 56.1. Rather than merely striking the statement, as the Court could have done, however, the Court permitted the Plaintiff an opportunity to revise his Statement of Additional Facts.⁶ (See Dkt. 285.) Dr. Rao did so on April 28, 2017, but this statement failed to cure many of the defects that plagued his original Local Rule 56.1 Statement of Additional Facts. As a result, as set forth below, the Court disregarded many of his statements and responses that failed to comply with Local Rule 56.1.

Without leave of court, Local Rule 56.1 limits parties responding to summary judgment to the use of 40 statements of additional fact. L.R. 56.1(b)(3)(C). Dr. Rao originally sought and was granted leave to submit five additional facts. (See Dkt. 256.) Even with permission to file additional facts, the majority of his statements of additional fact included multiple assertions of fact, with some statements comprising more than 10 assertions of fact. Although his revised statement includes less facts than his original stricken statement, Plaintiff's revised statement of additional facts includes over 150 facts in 45 paragraphs--almost quadruple the amount of facts permitted by rule. L.R. 56.1(b)(3). Indeed, each statement should be limited to only one or two factual propositions. See Cracco v. Vitran Express, Inc., 559 F.3d 625, 632 (7th Cir. 2009) ("The numbered paragraphs should be short; they should contain only one or two individual allegations, thereby allowing easy response.") (quoting Malec v. Sanford, 191 F.R.D. 581, 583 (N.D. Ill. 2000)). All but two of Plaintiff's revised statements include more than one factual proposition and a significant number contain four or more factual assertions. (See, e.g., Dkt. 286 ¶¶ 12, 15, 17-18, 22, 24, 27, 30-32, 34-35, 37-38, 40-42, 44-45.) In spite of being given an opportunity to correct the previous filing and in spite of this Court's warning, Plaintiff continued to file multiple fact statements within each individual statement. The Court, therefore, disregarded any fact after the fourth statement - more leniency than Plaintiff deserved under the circumstances.

Several of Dr. Rao's statement of additional facts and responses to Defendants' Local Rule 56.1 statement also include legal and factual argument that must be disregarded. See Patterson v. Ind. Newspapers, Inc., 589 F.3d 357, 359 (7th Cir.2009) (holding that where "much of [the party's] factual submission was argumentative" it was appropriate to strike it); Judson Atkinson Candies v. Latini-Hohberger Dhimantec, 529 F.3d 371, 381 n. 2 (7th Cir.2008) ("It isinappropriate to make legal arguments in a Rule 56.1 statement of facts."). Legal arguments are the province of the supporting memorandum of law provided for by Rule 56.1(b)(2).

Defendants also object to a number of Dr. Rao's Statement of Additional Facts because the evidence cited in support includes unauthenticated documents. Rule 56(c)(2) permits a party to object "that the material cited to support or dispute a fact cannot be presented in a form that would be admissible in evidence," but Defendants do not assert that these exhibits cannot be authenticated, only that they were not authenticated. Many of the challenged documents were produced by Defendants or their agents during discovery and are likely to be authenticated at trial. As a result, for the purposes of summary judgment, Defendants' objections relating to unauthenticated documents are overruled because "federal courts routinely consider unauthenticated documents on motions for summary judgment, for example, when it is apparent [ ] that such documents are capable of reduction to admissible, authenticated form." Boyce v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., No. 15 C 7580, 2017 WL 1436963, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 24, 2017); see also Olson v. Morgan, 750 F.3d 708, 714 (7th Cir. 2014) (noting that summary judgment materials may "be inadmissible at trial so long as facts therein could later be presented in an admissible form.") (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(2)-(4)).

The Court, however, disregarded all factual assertions that lack proper foundation or where the cited material failed to support the purported assertion of fact. See Jordan v. Summers, 205 F.3d 337, 344 (7th Cir.2000) ("[C]onclusory statements, indications of opinion, or speculation [ ] do not produce a genuine issue for trial under Rule 56(c)."); Curry v. City of Chic. No. 10 CV 8241, 2013 WL 1283477, at *8 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 25, 2013) (striking supplemental exhibits for failure to comply with Local Rule 56.1, lack of foundation, and hearsay); see alsoSmith v. Allstate Ins. Corp., No. 99 C 0906, 2002 WL 485374, at *4 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 29, 2002) (striking portions of plaintiff's affidavit that provide no foundation for her statements).

A number of Dr. Rao's responses to Defendants' Statement of Facts and Statement of Additional Facts and responses to Defendants' Additional Statement of Fact assert facts that do not respond to Defendants' various factual assertions. To the extent that the non-movant wishes to assert facts that go beyond the scope of responding to the movant's facts, he must do so in his statement of additional facts and it is appropriate to disregard such extraneous material. See L.R. 56.1(b)(3)(C). See Ammons v. Aramark Unif. Servs., Inc., 368 F.3d 809, 817 (7th Cir. 2004) (finding that district court did not abuse its discretion in striking responses that added "other additional facts"); Johnson v. Cnty. of Cook, 2012 WL 2905485, at *12 (N.D. Ill. July 16, 2012) ("It is inappropriate for a non-movant to include additional facts, meaning facts extraneous to the substance of the paragraph to which the non-movant is responding, in a Local Rule 56.1(b)(3)(B) response. Rather, Local Rule...