Wrongful Termination – Whistleblower-protection

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Kevin R. Carmody v. Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, et al.

Case No.: 16-1335

Officials: BAUER, MANION, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Wrongful Termination – Whistleblower-protection

The University of Illinois fired plaintiff Kevin Carmody from his job as an information technology manager after printed copies of a professor’s privileged emails suspiciously ended up in Carmody’s home newspaper box. The emails allegedly exposed inconsistencies in the professor’s testimony in a separate lawsuit that Carmody was pursuing against a different professor. The university learned about the mysterious delivery because Carmody’s lawyer in the lawsuit filed the emails with the court. After finding that it was “more probable than not” that Carmody improperly obtained the emails himself, the university fired him. Carmody sued the university’s board of trustees and several university officials alleging that he was fired without due process of law both before and after his firing, and that his firing violated an Illinois whistle-blower statute. The district court dismissed the case at the motion to dismiss stage.

In an earlier appeal, we held that Carmody had pleaded a plausible claim that he was fired without pre-termination due process of law, but that his decision to withdraw from the post-termination hearing foreclosed his due process claim based on the post-termination procedures. Carmody v. Board of Trustees of University of Illinois (Carmody I), 747 F.3d 470 (7th Cir. 2014). We also affirmed dismissal of the state-law claim. On remand, the district court granted summary judgment for some defendants, Carmody v. Board of Trustees of University of Illinois (Carmody II), No. 12-CV-2249, 2015 WL 13675382 (C.D. Ill. Nov. 17, 2015), and Carmody lost at trial on his claim against three remaining defendants for denial of due process of law before he was fired. In this new appeal, Carmody raises seven issues—four regarding summary judgment and three pre-trial evidentiary issues. He does not challenge the conduct of the trial or the verdict on the pre-termination due process claim. We find no error and affirm the judgment of the district court.

Affirmed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.