Americans with Disabilities Act-Equitable Tolling-Retaliation

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Kimberly Ballard v. Ameren Illinois Company

Case No.: 25-1562

Officials: Brennan, Chief Judge, and Ripple and Taibleson, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Americans with Disabilities Act-Equitable Tolling-Retaliation

Ballard, a former employee of Ameren Illinois Company, was terminated in February 2018 and claimed that her discharge and other workplace actions were the result of disability discrimination and retaliation. Within the required 300-day period, she submitted a Complainant Information Sheet (CIS) to the Illinois Department of Human Rights (IDHR) and later continued communicating with the agency. However, the IDHR did not formalize her discrimination charge until after the 300-day deadline, after which she received a right-to-sue letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

The Central District of Illinois dismissed her lawsuit, ruling that the CIS did not qualify as a formal “charge” under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) because it lacked a request for agency action. As a result, the court found that Ballard failed to meet the statutory filing deadline. It also denied her motion for reconsideration, which argued both that the CIS should count as a charge under Supreme Court precedent and that equitable tolling should apply due to confusing communications from the IDHR. The district court did not address the tolling argument.

The Seventh Circuit agreed that, under its precedent, a CIS is not a valid ADA charge but it concluded that Ballard’s equitable tolling argument, based on potentially misleading conduct by the IDHR and an incomplete record deserved further consideration.

Vacated and Remanded.

Decided 04/28/26

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