Schandelmeier-Bartels v. Chicago Park District

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that plaintiff must show that a decisionmaker acted for a prohibited reason to prevail on a Title VII claim
• finding that a jury could conclude that the employer’s investigation was irrelevant because biased employee was the sole source of nearly all pertinent information relied upon in the decision to terminate the plaintiff
• explaining that to prevail on employment discrimination claim, the plaintiff must provide evidence that the decisionmaker, i.e., the person responsible for the contested decision, acted for a prohibited reason
• noting that “[w]ith sufficient evidence, [courts] permit juries to draw an inference that another employee’s impermissible bias infected a decision when a plaintiff is able to show that the biased employee had some degree of influence over the ultimate decision”
• reducing compensatory damages award from $200,000 to $30,000 in race-based discrimination and termination case because plaintiff lacked “stronger evidence of long-lasting emotional harm;” collecting cases
• noting we have sustained substantial compensatory-damage awards when they are supported by “first- and third-person testimony regarding ongoing emotional and physical effects of the discrimination suffered by the plaintiffs”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).