Miko Thomas v. JBS Green Bay, Inc.

                              In the
    United States Court of Appeals
                 For the Seventh Circuit
                    ____________________

No. 24-1404
MIKO THOMAS,
                                                Plaintiff-Appellant,
                                v.

JBS GREEN BAY, INC.,
                                               Defendant-Appellee.
                    ____________________

            Appeal from the United States District Court
                for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
            No. 23-C-861 — William C. Griesbach, Judge.
                    ____________________

  ARGUED OCTOBER 29, 2024 — DECIDED NOVEMBER 8, 2024
               ____________________

   Before  EASTERBROOK,                JACKSON-AKIWUMI,        and
MALDONADO, Circuit Judges.
    EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. In this suit under Title VII of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §2000e to §2000e–17,
Miko Thomas contends that his employer, JBS Green Bay, dis-
criminated against him on account of his color. His complaint
alleges seven discriminatory acts or related sets of acts, of
which we discuss three: (1) the employer delayed for three
years his training on a particular machine; (2) the employer
2                                                   No. 24-1404

denied his request for vacation time while granting equiva-
lent requests by other workers; and (3) the employer trans-
ferred him to a different shift even though it knew that this
caused him problems in raising a young child.
    The district court dismissed the complaint under Fed. R.
Civ. P. 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim on which relief may
be granted. 

 (E.D. Wis. Dec. 11,
2023). After Thomas amended the complaint, the district court
dismissed the suit outright. 

 (E.D.
Wis. Feb. 15, 2024). The judge saw two problems that ran
through both complaints: first, the events of which Thomas
complains are not sufficiently serious to be cognizable under
Title VII; second, the complaints did not lay out every element
or ingredient that Thomas eventually would need to prove. In
other words, the judge demanded that the complaint include
allegations corresponding to each component of the proof
that Thomas would need to defeat a motion for summary
judgment. Both aspects of the judge’s decisions are mistaken.
    Whether or not the first aspect (insufficient injury) re-
flected circuit law at the time, it has been overtaken by Mul-
drow v. St. Louis, 

 (2024), which says that a
Title VII plaintiff “must show some harm respecting an iden-
tifiable term or condition of employment. What the [plaintiff]
does not have to show, according to the relevant text, is that
the harm incurred was ‘significant.’ Or serious, or substantial,
or any similar adjective suggesting that the disadvantage to
the employee must exceed a heightened bar” (cleaned up).
Decisions requiring allegations of “significant” or “material”
injury did not survive Muldrow.
   Each of the three things we have mentioned entails “some
harm”. Deferred training can mean deferred promotions or
No. 24-1404                                                             3

deferred raises. Denial of one’s preferred vacation schedule
can make the vacation less pleasant—not just because it may
end up off-season at the destination but also because the goal
of a vacation may be to see family members who will not be
available at a different time. Title VII does not permit employ-
ers to confine that pleasure to workers of particular colors; it
must distribute fringe benefits equally. Likewise with the
third allegation: if the employer considers family circum-
stances when assigning shifts, it must do so without regard to
color, because inability to care for a child is a deeply felt loss
for all parents.
   Demanding details about loss in the complaint—as op-
posed to the summary-judgment stage—also is a problem be-
cause complaints need not plead damages. Special damages
yes, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(g), but ordinary injuries no. Prevail-
ing parties receive the relief to which they are entitled, no
matter what was in (or missing from) the complaint. Fed. R.
Civ. P. 54(c). Complaints must allege some injury (otherwise
the plaintiff lacks standing), but they need not narrate the
quantum of injury. That’s for a later stage.
    The second aspect of the district court’s decision—a de-
mand that the complaint allege each element that the plaintiff
eventually will need to prove—was contrary to law long be-
fore Muldrow. Matching facts to legal elements is the distinc-
tive feature of code pleading, which was abrogated when the
Rules of Civil Procedure introduced notice pleading. See, e.g.,
Bartholet v. Reishauer A.G. (Zürich), 

 (7th Cir.
1992); Chapman v. Yellow Cab Cooperative, 

 (7th Cir.
2017). We explained in Chapman:
   Ever since their adoption in 1938, the Federal Rules of Civil Pro-
   cedure have required plaintiffs to plead claims rather than facts
4                                                             No. 24-1404

    corresponding to the elements of a legal theory. See Fed. R. Civ.
    P. 8. Old code-pleading and fact-pleading systems were aban-
    doned. Because complaints need not identify the applicable law,
    it is manifestly inappropriate for a district court to demand that
    complaints contain all legal elements (or factors) plus facts corre-
    sponding to each.
    It is enough to plead a plausible claim, after which “a plaintiff ‘re-
    ceives the benefit of imagination, so long as the hypotheses are
    consistent with the complaint’”. A full description of the facts that
    will prove the plaintiff’s claim comes later, at the summary-judg-
    ment stage or in the pretrial order.

 (citations omitted). “Because racial discrimina-
tion in employment is ‘a claim upon which relief can be
granted’, [such a] complaint [may] not be dismissed under
Rule 12(b)(6). ‘I was turned down for a job because of my race’
is all a complaint has to say.” Bennett v. Schmidt, 

 (7th Cir. 1998).
    Any doubt about this was dispelled by Swierkiewicz v.
Sorema N.A., 

 (2002). A court of appeals held that
Title VII complaints must allege facts establishing a prima fa-
cie case of discrimination: “(1) membership in a protected
group; (2) qualification for the job in question; (3) an adverse
employment action; and (4) circumstances that support an in-
ference of discrimination”, 534 U.S. at 510—in other words,
must narrate all elements of a winning claim. The Justices re-
plied that these elements set out an evidentiary standard, not
a pleading rule. 

 They added: “This Court has never indi-
cated that the requirements for establishing a prima facie case
… also apply to the pleading standard that plaintiffs must sat-
isfy in order to survive a motion to dismiss.” 

. The
Court wrapped up: “we hold that an employment discrimi-
nation plaintiff need not plead a prima facie case of discrimi-
nation”. 

. Later cases about Rule 8 do not cast any
No. 24-1404                                                    5

doubt on Swierkiewicz. See, e.g., Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly,

, 569–70 (2007); Luevano v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.,

 (7th Cir. 2013); Swanson v. Citibank, N.A.,

, 404–05 (7th Cir. 2010).
     Despite Swierkiewicz, the district court demanded that
Thomas’s complaint narrate facts corresponding to elements.
For example, Thomas maintains that the conditions he en-
countered add up to a hostile work environment. The judge
wrote that “[t]o state a hostile work environment claim, a
plaintiff must allege that (1) he was subject to unwelcome har-
assment, (2) the harassment was based on his color, (3) the
harassment was severe or pervasive so as to alter the condi-
tions of employment and create a hostile or abusive working
environment, and (4) a basis exists for employer liability.”

 at *8–9. The district court’s opin-
ions contain similar lists addressing some of Thomas’s other
grievances. This is the exact requirement rejected by the Su-
preme Court in Swierkiewicz. That something must be proved
(if plaintiff is to win) does not imply that it must be alleged in
the complaint. Thomas’s appellate brief relies on Swierkiewicz;
the employer’s brief does not so much as cite the case. The
omission is telling.
    To repeat what the Justices said: Lists of things that plain-
tiffs need to prove concern evidence (at summary judgment
and trial); they must not be treated as demands for longer and
more detailed pleadings. We appreciate that district judges
may be impatient with suits that do not seem promising, be-
cause the judges doubt that plaintiffs will be able to marshal
enough evidence to get to trial. But the time to demand evi-
dence is the summary-judgment stage. All the complaint need
do is state a grievance. Details and proofs come later.
6                                                 No. 24-1404

    This case must move to the summary-judgment stage and,
if necessary, to trial. We have mentioned only some of
Thomas’s seven principal allegations; the others do not affect
the sufficiency of the complaint. If they are deficient, they can
be pared off on summary judgment. All we hold today is that
this complaint states a claim for relief that survives a motion
under Rule 12(b)(6).
                                    REVERSED AND REMANDED