Kelly v. Donahoe

Filing 9

MEMORANDUM Opinion and Order. Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 5/5/2015. Mailed notice (sxw)

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

ELSIE KELLY,
Plaintiff,
v.
PATRICK R. DONAHOE,
Postmaster General United States Postal
Service (Great Lakes Area) Agency,
Defendant.

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Case No. 15 C 2958

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
In accordance with its invariable practice in connection with every case newly assigned
to its calendar, this Court promptly reviewed the self-prepared Complaint of Employment
Discrimination that had been filed on April 3 by Elsie Kelly ("Kelly") against Postmaster
General Patrick Donahoe. It then issued a brief April 17 memorandum order ("Order") that
directed Kelly's attention to some added documentation that was needed to evaluate her
Complaint on an informed basis:
Although her Complaint was timely filed in relation to the February 5, 2015
denial of reconsideration by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission ("Commission") attached to Kelly's Complaint, the sprawling nature
of her hodgepodge narrative makes it impossible for this Court to address her
claims without further input from her.
Accordingly the Order directed Kelly to provide specified materials needed for such an
evaluation, and she has now complied with that directive.
At the threshold it should be said that although Kelly's EEO Complaint had not included
part of the entire laundry list that she had checked off in Complaint ¶ 9 (which asserted in part

that she had suffered discrimination based on color, disability and national origin, none of which
had been specified in the EEO Complaint), those deviations are truly minor in relation to a far
more fundamental flaw: her failure to connect the purported adverse decision reached by her
employer in April 2011 and assertedly repeated on unspecified dates thereafter to any of the
categories of purported employment discrimination to which she claims she was subjected. No
better demonstration of that fatal defect can be made than to attach to this opinion the July 25,
2014 decision by the Commission and to refer to critical aspects of that decision.
Although the Commission's decision should be read in full to capture its entire flavor,
particular note should be taken of the entire discussion that occupies page 2 of that decision.
Those findings understandably resulted in a post-hearing summary judgment in favor of the
Agency, which in turn led to a final order adopting those findings by the Agency and ultimately
to an affirmance of that final order by the Commission. After analysis the Commission found at
page 5 of its decision "that the Agency provided legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for its
actions," a finding that was further bolstered by facts demonstrating that Kelly was a poorly
performing employee who "engag[ed] in time-wasting practices such as reading magazines,
sitting unproductively at her case [sic], backtracking on her route, sitting in her vehicle, and
otherwise not performing work" (id.). Then, when Kelly thereafter sought reconsideration of
that adverse judgment, the Commission denied that request in a February 5, 2015 formal denial
attached as an exhibit to Kelly's Complaint.
In sum, this is clearly a case for which the requirement of "plausibility," added by the
Twombly-Iqbal canon to replace the overly generous Conley v. Gibson standard that had been in
place for many years, might well have been specifically designed. Indeed, although the
Commission's original decision had "without so finding, . . . assume[d] that the Complaint had
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established a prima facie case of discrimination on all alleged bases," that assumption was itself
overgenerous because Kelly had not done so at all. In short, because of Kelly's failure to have
advanced any plausible basis for her complaint of employment discrimination on any ground,
both the Complaint and this action are dismissed. 1

__________________________________________
Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date: May 5, 2015

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1
This dismissal causes Kelly's In Forma Pauperis Application [Dkt. 4] and her Motion
for Attorney Representation [Dkt. 5] to be denied as moot, and this Court so orders.
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ATTACHMENT