Dorette Brownlee v. Hospira, Inc.

Filing

Filed opinion of the court by Judge Posner. The decision of the district court is VACATED and REMANDED for further proceedings in that court; since we have determined that there has been no settlement, the case remains open in the district court.. Richard A. Posner, Circuit Judge; Michael S. Kanne, Circuit Judge and Diane S. Sykes, Circuit Judge. [6856865-1] [6856865] [16-2005]

Case: 16-2005

Document: 24

Filed: 07/26/2017

Pages: 2

In the

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 16-2005
DORETTE BROWNLEE,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
HOSPIRA, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 15 C 5358— Sharon Johnson Coleman, Judge.

____________________
SUBMITTED JULY 5, 2017 — DECIDED JULY 26, 2017
____________________
Before POSNER, KANNE, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.
POSNER, Circuit Judge. The plaintiff sued the defendant,
her former employer, charging that discharging her had violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The parties
agreed in writing to settle the litigation rather than litigate to
judgment, but their agreement provided that there would be

Case: 16-2005

2

Document: 24

Filed: 07/26/2017

Pages: 2

No. 16-2005

“[n]o binding agreement until the typed settlement agreement is signed”—which it never was. The plaintiff’s lawyer
did negotiate a proposed settlement agreement with the defendant’s lawyer, but the written terms made clear that this
was not the “binding agreement” to which the parties had
referred. Nevertheless the district judge treated it as such,
ruling that the litigation had been ended by a settlement and
by so ruling precipitating this appeal by the plaintiff.
The parties had agreed in writing however that there
would be no binding agreement until the typed settlement
agreement was signed, and it never was by either the plaintiff or her lawyer. There was therefore no agreement that
bound the plaintiff, whose appeal asks us to vacate the district court’s decision on the ground that there was no settlement terminating the litigation. We therefore vacate the decision of the district court and remand for further proceedings in that court; since we have determined that there has
been no settlement, the case remains open in the district
court.