Pisterzi Candell v. Shiftgig Bullpen Temp. Emp. Agcy et al

Filing 6

MEMORANDUM Order: For the reasons stated in this memorandum order, plaintiff is to file a supplement to her complaint on or before 6/5/2017. This Court will then determine whether anything further needs to be done before the initial status hearing date. Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 5/18/2017:Mailed notice(clw, )

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

PAULINE P. PISTERZI CANDELL,
Plaintiff,
v.
SHIFTGIG BULLPEN TEMP. EMP. AGCY.,
et al.,
Defendants.

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Case No. 17 C 3620

MEMORANDUM ORDER
Pro se plaintiff Pauline Pisterzi Candell ("Candell") used the Clerk's-Office-supplied
form of "Complaint of Employment Discrimination" to sue her former employers Shiftgig
Bullpen Temp. Emp. Agcy. ("Shiftgig") and Ackland Financial Group ("Ackland"), with Candell
having checked Complaint ¶ 9 boxes for asserted discrimination on the basis of age, color,
religion, sex and a hand-printed addition of "equal pay." Because Candell has paid the $400
filing fee, this Court is contemporaneously issuing its typical initial scheduling order for cases
newly assigned to its calendar -- but preceding the first designated status hearing date Candell
must (in addition, of course, to serving the two co-defendants with process) fill in a critical gap
in what she has advanced in the Complaint.
Unfortunately no change has been made in the printed form of Complaint since the
anything-goes approach taught in Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41 (1957) was supplanted by the
addition of a "plausibility" requirement by what this Court regularly refers to as the
"Twombly-Iqbal canon." And what that means is that the check-the-box approach prescribed in
Complaint ¶ 9 provides no clue as to the grounds for a plaintiff's discrimination claim or

claims -- it simply requests a conclusory ipse dixit on Candell's part. And that gap is not filled
by her Complaint ¶ 13 recitals of some job-related grievances against defendants, for there too
Candell provides no causal connection between any prohibited discriminatory mindset and those
grievances.
In addition, Candell must (as she has not) fill in whatever entries are appropriate in
Complaint ¶ 12 and must also comply with her representation in Complaint ¶ 7.1(b) that she has
attached to the Complaint a copy of the charge or charges of discrimination that she filed with
EEOC, for she has not in fact done so. In the latter regard she did attach not just one but two
EEOC right-to-sue letters as exhibits to the Complaint (one as to Shiftgig and the other as to
Ackland), so that copies of both EEOC charges -- Nos. 440-2017-01959 and 440-2017-01961 -must be filed as added exhibits to the Complaint on or before June 5, 2017. This Court will then
determine whether anything further needs to be done before the initial status hearing date.

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Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date: May 18, 2017

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