00-4261 Simmons v. Chicago Board of Education

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“Despite Simmons’s continued insistence that he had to approve trades as a fiscal duty to the Board, the Investment Policy is clear that it is Gotsch as chief fiscal officer, and not Simmons, who has ultimate investment authority. Gotsch was perfectly within his rights to determine that Simmons’s approval of individual trades was both unnecessary and wasteful, delaying the timely execution of trades and distracting Simmons from the broader policy and strategic goals the Board wanted its treasurer to implement.”

“Simmons’s admitted prior policy of micromanagement, which slowed down Board trades and risked significant monetary loss, combined with the tone of the memorandum itself and Simmons’s later deposition testimony that he felt he was ultimately responsible to the Board (as opposed to Gotsch) for his trading and investment decisions amount to strong evidence on the Board’s side of a nondiscriminatory reason why Gotsch might have removed him from the treasurer position. On the other hand, Simmons has produced no written documentation or testimony from other Treasury employees to cast any doubt on the Board’s charges, and the tone of his reply memo, which argued among other things that his controls were necessary to prevent bankruptcy, causes us to question exactly what Simmons means by a ‘hands off approach.’ Under these circumstances, he has shown no evidence of pretext, and the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the Board was proper.”

Affirmed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Darrah, J., Diane P. Wood, J.