MARIA DIFRANCO ESTATE OF MARCO DIFRANCO v. CITY OF CHICAGO (2026)

Marco DiFranco was the first Chicago police officer to die of Covid-19 contracted in the line of duty. His widow, Maria, as the administrator of his estate (the “Estate”), seeks to hold the City of Chicago (the “City”) liable for violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq., the Illinois Human Rights Act, 775 ILCS 5/1-101 et seq., and the Illinois Wrongful Death Act, 740 ILCS 180/1, for allegedly failing to timely accommodate his disability and reassign him to an isolated position in order to prevent his exposure to the virus. So far as the record reveals, however, the CPD did accommodate DiFranco, and his illness and death did not result from an exposure to Covid-19 that occurred after he requested reassignment. Although the Estate questions the credibility of the City's witnesses, it has presented no evidence calling into dispute the City's version of the material facts. We therefore affirm the district court's decision to enter summary judgment in favor of the City.

I.

DiFranco worked for the Chicago Police Department (“CPD”) for 22 years. As of 2020, he was assigned to the Narcotics Division, conducting surveillance and undercover drug and gun buys, using the internet and social media to identify prospective sellers. The Narcotics Division comprised some 300 police lieutenants, sergeants, and patrol-level officers like DiFranco, all working out of the CPD's Homan Square office on Chicago's West Side. DiFranco was known as one of the division's top officers.

DiFranco had cystic fibrosis as well as cystic-fibrosis-related diabetes. (Cystic fibrosis is a progressive genetic disorder characterized by the accumulation of mucus which interferes with the functioning of the respiratory, digestive, and other systems of the body.) Prior to the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, DiFranco had not needed or requested a workplace accommodation.

On March 19, 2020, the Department sent an email (“COVID-19: Guidance for Vulnerable Populations”) to all employees advising anyone who believed that their age or medical condition placed them at higher risk of serious illness from Covid-19 to contact the Department's Medical Section to discuss next steps. R. 130-2 at 35. Sworn officers seeking a Covid-related accommodation were to have their medical provider submit supporting documentation by email. At that point, the Department's Medical Director would review the documentation and someone from Medical Services would follow up with the officer. According to the CPD's Director of Human Resources, Robert Landowski, the March 19 email “superseded” the Department's existing disability accommodations policy as it related to Covid-19. R. 134-5 at 87 (Landowski Dep. 85).¹

At 4:33 p.m. that same day, March 19, DiFranco's medical provider emailed a letter to the Medical Section confirming that DiFranco suffered from cystic fibrosis and cystic fibrosis-related diabetes and requesting that DiFranco be given the opportunity to work remotely or some other accommodation that would distance him from others. R. 130-2 at 49–50. Dr. Susan Arjmand, the CPD's Medical Director, in short order reviewed the letter and at 5:44 p.m. forwarded it by email to Landowski indicating that DiFranco was at “high risk” from Covid-19 due to his “lung disease and immunosuppression.” R. 130-2 at 5.²

However, so far as the record reveals, neither the Medical Section nor the CPD team handling Covid-related reassignments took formal follow-up steps to identify and/or document a potential accommodation for DiFranco: the paper-work in his medical file ends with the email from Dr. Arjmand to Landowski. There is no dispute that DiFranco worked as usual on the following day, Friday March 20, or that he was off-duty on the following weekend, March 21 and 22.

The City and the Estate part ways as to what occurred next. It is the Estate's theory of the case that DiFranco reported for work on Monday March 23 and continued his usual work as a narcotics officer (reporting to the Homan Square facility daily) with no accommodation or alteration to his work duties before he went home ill on Thursday March 26. The City, on the other hand, represents that subsequent events made it unnecessary for the Narcotics Division to identify an individualized accommodation for DiFranco, given that all narcotics officers, including DiFranco, were reassigned to a new set of duties that isolated them from contact with one another and the public.

The account from here forward is based on the evidence that the City has submitted. As we shall discuss later in this opinion, the Estate does not accept as true the City's account that DiFranco was given a timely accommodation to protect him from exposure to the Covid-19 virus and, in any event, that DiFranco had already been exposed to the virus before he requested the accommodation. But the Estate has not submitted evidence calling into dispute the City's account. Instead, the Estate relies on certain discrepancies and anomalies in the evidence, coupled with DiFranco's unavailability as a witness, to suggest that a jury might conclude that the City's account of events is not worthy of belief, and that in fact, DiFranco was forced to keep working without any change in his duties as a narcotics officer, and it was the failure to reassign him that led him to contract Covid-19 and lose his life.

On Friday March 20, 2020, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker issued a stay-at-home order effective at 5:00 p.m. on the next day, Saturday March 21. Among other things, that order required Illinois residents to stay at home except as necessary to engage in essential activities (including, for example, obtaining necessary goods and services); required most businesses to cease in-person operations, while allowing essential businesses (including banks, grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, and hardware stores), healthcare operations (including hospitals), and essential public infrastructure (including airports and public transportation) to remain open; and prohibited people from congregating in groups of ten or more. Ill. Exec. Order No. 2020-10 (Covid Exec. Order No. 8) (Mar. 20, 2020), https://www.illinois.gov/government/executive-orders/executive-order.executive-order-number-10.2020.html (last visited Aug. 6, 2026) (archived at https://perma.cc/HJW5-MR6K)

According to Ronald Kimble, then the Commander in charge of the Narcotics Division, after March 21, narcotics teams were assigned to monitor critical city infrastructure and observe compliance with the Governor's stay-at-home order. Narcotics officers would conduct this surveillance individually from their assigned CPD vehicles and were only to observe and report; if need be, uniformed officers would be summoned to deal with any violations of the stay-at-home order. Additionally, narcotics officers would no longer be required to report to the Homan Square facility on a daily basis. R. 130-2 at 99–100 (Kimble Decl. ¶¶ 11–12).

In a like vein, CPD Sergeant Marc Vanek, who headed DiFranco's narcotics team, would later testify that once “COVID officially hit,” everything in the Narcotics Division was “shut down,” and narcotics officers were reassigned to watch public infrastructure, including airports and CTA stations. R. 134-11 at 18, 122–24 (Vanek Dep. 16, 120–22). All officers in the division were assigned to conduct that surveillance from the CPD cars already assigned to each of them as narcotics officers. R. 134-11 at 33 (Vanek Dep. 31).

On Monday March 23, DiFranco met with Kimble to express concern about the Covid-19 epidemic and his need for an accommodation that would minimize the risk of his exposure to the virus. (It is unclear whether the wholesale reassignment of narcotics officers to monitor public spaces and infrastructure that Kimble described in his testimony was still in a nascent stage as of March 23 or whether DiFranco was unaware of the plan.) According to Kimble, he assured DiFranco that they would find an accommodation for him, including working in the office, if need be. He advised DiFranco to talk things over with Sergeant Vanek. R. 134-6 at 51, 53 (Kimble Dep. 49, 51).

Later that same day, DiFranco met with Noel Sanchez, who was a Captain in the Medical Section. Sanchez and DiFranco knew one another from Sanchez's prior stints in the Narcotics Division. As of late March 2020, Sanchez was working to identify officers who were qualified for Covid-related reassignments and forwarding their names to his CPD superiors for purposes of arranging appropriate accommodations for these officers. DiFranco entered Sanchez's office wearing a mask and gloves. DiFranco expressed his frustration with the prior two workdays, during which he and his fellow narcotics officers had been sitting in an office together while the Department figured out how to respond to the pandemic. When DiFranco advised Sanchez of his medical condition, Sanchez told him that alternative work assignments were available. DiFranco asked what those assignments might be, and Sanchez told him that although an alternative placement decision would be made by officials “upstairs” and not by Sanchez, “we can put you anywhere,” including, for example, police headquarters or the training academy. But DiFranco told Sanchez that his sergeant, Vanek, was going to take care of him, that he would be driving in a car by himself on Lake Shore Drive to keep people off the beaches, and that he was content with that assignment. According to Sanchez, DiFranco was just “venting” his frustrations with the Department. Sanchez told DiFranco to let him know if Vanek's plan did not work out, and in that event, Sanchez would send his name to his superiors for another assignment. R. 134-9 at 129– 32 (Sanchez Dep. 127–30).

James O'Donnell was the Chief of the Bureau of Constitutional Policing and Reform; in that capacity, he had some oversight of the Medical Section, and he worked with Human Resources Director Landowski and Michelle Morris, Deputy Director of Risk Management, to develop guidelines related to the Covid-19 pandemic. O'Donnell testified that in March of 2020, there was no official procedure in place for making Covid-related work reassignments, as matters were evolving on a daily basis in response to the pandemic. In practice, if the Medical Section determined that an employee was qualified for a temporary assignment during the pandemic, the Medical Section would notify O'Donnell's team (O'Donnell worked with a sergeant and another officer). A team member would then contact the employee in question to confirm that the employee wanted an alternative work assignment; if so, the team would identify a proposed assignment and then follow up with the employee to ask whether he wanted the alternative assignment. (This was not always the case: Some officers declined reassignment to avoid jeopardizing their ability to return to their original positions.) If the employee accepted the new assignment, the team would contact both the employee's current commanding officer and his prospective commanding officer to notify them of the reassignment. O'Donnell testified that Sanchez did not have the authority to make such reassignments; but O'Donnell allowed that Sanchez, as an officer working in the Medical Section under his supervision, might have given someone a temporary work assignment without his knowledge (although, in that case, he should have notified O'Donnell). Other high-level commanding officers might unofficially do the same with sworn officers under their command.

Vanek testified that following DiFranco's meetings with Kimble and Sanchez, DiFranco and Vanek met on two occasions at the Chicago Transit Authority's Rosemont Station, where they spoke to one another from their respective vehicles. According to Vanek, DiFranco reported that he had told Sanchez that Vanek would take care of him and keep him in his assigned covert surveillance vehicle. Vanek indicated that these sorts of patrol assignments were what narcotics officers were being tasked with anyway, such that every officer was alone in a CPD car. R. 134-11 at 24–25, 84, 127–30 (Vanek Dep. 22–23, 82, 125–28). Vanek never spoke with Sanchez about DiFranco's reassignment. R. 134-11 at 23–26 (Vanek Dep. 21– 24).

DiFranco worked March 24, 25, and 26. On the 26th, he told Vanek that he wasn't feeling well and thought he was coming down with Covid or the flu. R. 134-11 at 108–09 (Vanek Dep. 106–07). DiFranco was out sick on March 27. He was hospitalized on March 28 and tested positive for Covid the following day. He died on April 2.

At some point, Vanek completed a communicable disease exposure report bearing the date March 19, indicating that DiFranco had been notified on that day that he had been exposed to Covid-19 at the Homan Square building on or before March 19, and that he had been notified of the exposure on the 19th. The report's narrative section stated:

On 19 MAR 2020, P.O. DiFranco was notified that a Detective had tested positive for COVID-19 that was actively working and reporting every[ ]day to Homan Square 3340 W. Fillmore, prior to testing positive. P.O. DiFranco utilized the same entrance and exit points as the infected Detective at 3340 W. Fil[l]more (Homan Square). P.O. DiFranco also utilized the same elevator system as the infected Detective. P.O. DiFranco was touching all handles, doorways, buttons, doors as the infected Detective, prior to notification [on] 19 MAR 2020. During the exposure time P.O. DiFranco was in the performance of regular narcotics INET [Internet Narcotics Enforcement Team] duties.

R. 130-2 at 56.³ The report indicated that the exposure had been reported to Vanek at 9:53 a.m. on March 19; it estimated that DiFranco had been exposed for a period of 10 days; indicated that DiFranco had not been using personal protective equipment during that period (the report stated “none given”); and noted that DiFranco had been engaged in daily covert narcotics activities during the exposure period. The report identified five officers, in addition to Vanek himself, who were witnesses to the exposure. Vanek signed the report as DiFranco's supervisor and recorded the date of his signature as March 19. A certification line for DiFranco as the exposed individual to sign, confirming the facts set out in the report, lacked DiFranco's signature. Instead, that line of the report indicated that DiFranco was “Unable to Sign”; Vanek filled in the date next to that notation as “19 MAR [20]20,” as he did on the line above, next to his own signature as the supervisor who prepared the report. R. 130-2 at 56. DiFranco, of course, was working as usual on March 19; he was also working the following day.

As we discuss in greater detail below, there are multiple indications that this report was prepared not on March 19 but rather after DiFranco died and was backdated. The City all but concedes as much. The Estate repeatedly describes the report as “fraudulent,” Estate Reply Br. 14–16. Yet, in its memorandum opposing the City's motion for summary judgment below, the Estate conceded the truth of the report's narrative. R. 147 at 20.⁴

At the direction of the CPD's general counsel, Sanchez completed a memorandum on April 2 (the date that DiFranco died) documenting his March 23 meeting with DiFranco. The memorandum noted that DiFranco had expressed concern regarding his health due to the fact that another officer working at Homan Square had tested positive for Covid-19 and DiFranco believed he may have used or been in some of the same areas as the infected officer. The memorandum also reflected DiFranco's purported statement to Sanchez that his sergeant was taking care of him and that he would be assigned to a car by himself monitoring the lakefront for unauthorized gatherings or crowds. R. 134-9 at 301.

Also on April 2, the CPD's Awards Committee met to determine whether DiFranco's death had occurred in the line of duty. Human Resources Director Landowski recalled that there was no Covid exposure report available when he initially looked for it, but the report completed by Vanek was subsequently made available to the Committee. R. 134-5 at 51 (Landowski Dep. 49). The Committee concluded that DiFranco's death had occurred in the line of duty (resulting in enhanced benefits for his survivors). R. 130-2 at 59. Landowski testified that the Committee relied on a statutory rebuttable presumption that DiFranco had contracted his illness in the course of his work as a police officer and the absence of any evidence rebutting that presumption. R. 134-5 at 122 (Landowski Dep. 120).

CPD Deputy Risk Manager Morris later completed a report for the Illinois Occupational Safety and Health Administration indicating DiFranco was involved in confidential undercover activities at the time of his exposure to Covid. R. 134-12 at 84–85 (Morris Dep. 82–83); R. 130-2 at 12–17. When questioned about the report, she indicated that DiFranco was working in his usual capacity as an undercover narcotics officer in March 2020; but the questioning left it unclear whether DiFranco's duties changed at any point after March 19 or 21. See R. 134-12 at 86–88 (Morris Dep. 84–86).

Based on the foregoing account of events, the City takes the position that it granted DiFranco's request for reassignment in a timely fashion (two business days after he made the request) to minimize DiFranco's risk of exposure to Covid, thereby satisfying its obligation to accommodate his disability in accord with the ADA and the Illinois Human Rights Act and its duty of care under the Illinois Wrongful Death Act. The City also contends that, for purposes of the Wrongful Death Act, any delay in assigning DiFranco to a more isolated position could not possibly have injured him, given the evidence that he was exposed to the Covid-19 virus no later than the morning of March 19, before DiFranco requested an accommodation.

As noted, the Estate rejects the City's central premise that the CPD took prompt action to grant DiFranco's accommodation request and to protect him from exposure to the Covid virus. As we will discuss in greater detail below, the Estate relies on gaps, ambiguities, and discrepancies in the City's case to posit that the CPD never, in fact, accommodated DiFranco in any manner, formal or informal. And although the Estate does not dispute the substance of the exposure report that Vanek completed—i.e., that he was exposed to the Covid-19 virus on or before March 19—it suggests that DiFranco was exposed to the Covid-19 virus a second time at some point after he submitted his request for an accommodation, and that it was the second exposure that caused him to become ill. But as we shall also explain below, the Estate does not cite evidence contradicting the City's account or supporting the notion that DiFranco was exposed to Covid while at work on some date after March 19. Ultimately, the Estate simply relies on the possibility that a jury might find the City's witnesses are lying in an effort to cover up the City's purported responsibility for DiFranco's death; and that prospect is not a legitimate basis on which to avoid summary judgment.

The Estate brought this suit against the City in the district court, relying on its ADA claims as the basis for federal jurisdiction. After the district court dismissed the estate's claims for disparate treatment under the ADA and the Illinois Human Rights Act, the court subsequently, following the completion of discovery, granted summary judgment in the City's favor on the Estate's failure-to-accommodate and wrongful death claims.

As relevant here, the district court found that the CPD had granted a reasonable accommodation to DiFranco on March 23 by having him, along with other narcotics officers, monitor public places and infrastructure from their individual police vehicles. The court was not convinced that there were any discrepancies in the evidence that raised a question of fact in this regard: although the CPD had not handled DiFranco's request for an accommodation in the usual way and through the usual channels, the record indicated that he had, in fact, been accommodated, and it was the end and not the means of accommodation that mattered. The City was therefore entitled to summary judgment on the failure-to-accommodate claim that the Estate asserted under both the ADA and the Illinois Human Rights Act. As for the Estate's wrongful death claim, the Covid exposure report that Vanek completed indicated that DiFranco had been exposed to the Covid virus at the Homan Square facility no later than the morning of March 19—before DiFranco had even asked for an accommodation. Thus, any error in the CPD's handling of the accommodation request could not have caused harm (including death) to DiFranco. Although the Estate argued that the exposure report should be treated with skepticism, it did not present evidence that DiFranco was exposed to Covid-19 at some later time, and without such evidence—even if the exposure report were treated as false—the Estate could not establish a causal link between any omission or fault on the City's part and DiFranco's illness and death. The City was thus entitled to summary judgment on the wrongful death claim. DiFranco v. City of Chicago, No. 21 CV 1600, 2024 WL 4723743, at *4–6 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 8, 2024).

II.

We review the district court's decision to grant summary judgment to the City de novo, granting the Estate the benefit of all reasonable inferences that may be drawn from the record. E.g., Rabenhorst v. Noem, 162 F.4th 856, 862 (7th Cir. 2025). In opposing the City's motion for summary judgment, it was the Estate's obligation to present evidence sufficient to support a jury finding in its favor on the essential elements of its claims, Myers v. Sunman-Dearborn Cmty. Schs., 142 F.4th 527, 532 (7th Cir. 2025); Waldridge v. Am. Hoechst Corp., 24 F.3d 918, 920–21 (7th Cir. 1994); mere speculation or conjecture will not do, Pam v. City of Evansville, 154 F.4th 523, 528 (7th Cir. 2025); Osborn v. JAB Mgmt. Servs., Inc., 126 F.4th 1250, 1258 (7th Cir. 2025). Moreover, the Estate cannot defeat summary judgment simply by invoking the possibility that a factfinder might not believe the City's witnesses. Beatty v. Olin Corp., 693 F.3d 750, 754 (7th Cir. 2012); see also Giannopolous v. Brach & Brock Confections, Inc., 109 F.3d 406, 411 (7th Cir. 1997) (collecting cases). Rather, it must identify evidence which actually calls the City's factual account on a particular point into dispute. Osborn, 126 F.4th at 1258; Johnson v. Advocate Health & Hosps. Corp., 892 F.3d 887, 893–94 (7th Cir. 2018); Payne v. Pauley, 337 F.3d 767, 771 (7th Cir. 2003); Waldridge, 24 F.3d at 920–21.

A.

We begin with the accommodation claim.⁵ An individual pursuing such a claim must show that (1) he is a qualified individual with a disability, (2) his employer was aware of his disability, and yet (3) the employer failed to reasonably accommodate his disability. E.g., E.E.O.C. v. AutoZone, Inc., 809 F.3d 916, 919 (7th Cir. 2016). This case does not involve the more typical scenario in which the employer has either refused its employee's accommodation request outright or has offered an alternative accommodation that the employee deems inadequate. The Estate's theory of the case is that between the submission of DiFranco's accommodation request on the afternoon of March 19 and his falling ill one week later on March 26, the CPD utterly failed to act on his request. Its failure-to-accommodate claim presumes that in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the CPD was required to act with some degree of alacrity, although it has not gone so far as to say just how quickly the CPD was required to act on DiFranco's accommodation request: immediately? one day? two days? Its position is that the CPD never accommodated him, and that he was still performing his usual undercover narcotics duties and reporting to Homan Square through the date that he became ill. The City, for its part, does not take issue with the notion that it had a duty to respond reasonably quickly to DiFranco's request for an accommodation. Its position is that it did so: within two business days after DiFranco submitted his request, he like other officers in the Narcotics Division, was assigned to monitor public infrastructure and gathering places from his assigned vehicle by himself, which was a sufficient means of isolating him from others and minimizing the risk of his exposure to the Covid-19 virus. And the Estate does not suggest that accommodating DiFranco within two business days of his request was too slow; again, its position is that this did not, in fact, occur.

On the question of whether DiFranco was, in fact, accommodated, the record indicates that he was. Vanek's testimony establishes that as of March 23, DiFranco was assigned to monitor Chicago's lakefront by himself using his usual un-marked CPD vehicle. Sanchez's testimony establishes that Vanek had told DiFranco this by the time DiFranco met with Sanchez on March 23 and that DiFranco was satisfied with this arrangement. The Estate has identified no evidence contradicting this testimony.

The Estate instead relies on two categories of evidence which, in its view, call into doubt the veracity of Vanek's and Sanchez's accounts.

First, the accommodation that the CPD purportedly gave to DiFranco was not properly documented and was not issued in accordance with the Covid reassignment procedure set out in O'Donnell's testimony:

• As noted above, the paper trail regarding DiFranco's request for an accommodation ends with Dr. Arjmand's email to Landowski on the evening of March 19 indicating that DiFranco was at risk from Covid-19 given his co-morbidities. No contemporaneous documentation reflects what steps, if any, the CPD took to address DiFranco's accommodation request or that DiFranco was accommodated.⁶

• Relatedly, accepting Sanchez's and Vanek's accounts as true, no one bothered to document the accommodation DiFranco was purportedly given until after DiFranco's death on April 2. Only then did Sanchez, acting on instructions from the CPD's general counsel, prepare his memo recounting his March 23 meeting with DiFranco, including DiFranco's purported statement that Vanek had given him an alternate assignment.

• The process by which DiFranco was accommodated, as described by Sanchez and Vanek, was inconsistent with the reassignment process that Chief O'Donnell described in his testimony. O'Donnell indicated that once the name of an officer requesting, and deemed medically eligible for, a Covid-related reassignment was forwarded to his office, he or someone from his team would confirm with the employee in question that he wanted a reassignment, determine what alternate position was available for the employee, follow up with the employee to confirm that the new assignment was acceptable to him, and then notify the appropriate commanding officers of the reassignment. By Sanchez's and Vanek's accounts, none of that occurred here: Vanek reassigned DiFranco, and DiFranco reported the reassignment to Sanchez, without either of them seeking O'Donnell's input or approval or even mentioning the reassignment to him. Per O'Donnell's testimony, neither Sanchez nor Vanek was authorized to reassign an officer, and even if Sanchez departed from procedure and reassigned an officer unilaterally, he would have been expected to inform O'Donnell, which he did not.⁷

• “Beach patrol,” as the Estate describes DiFranco's supposed new assignment, was not one of the categories of alternate assignments that the CPD was granting to those requesting Covid-related work reassignments.

Second, there are other anomalies in the record which, in the Estate's view, suggest that Vanek's and Sanchez's accounts amount to a false narrative that should not be credited:

• Most prominent among these anomalies is the Covid-19 exposure report that Vanek prepared, indicating that DiFranco had been exposed to Covid over the course of a 10-day period ending on March 19. The report was dated March 19, and Vanek testified that he prepared the report that day.⁸ DiFranco did not sign the report: the report indicates that he was “unable” to do so. Yet, DiFranco was working and reporting to Homan Square as usual on March 19, and for that matter on March 20 and March 23 as well. Two versions of the report were produced in discovery, one with Kimble's stamped signature and one without; using a stamp was inconsistent with Department protocol.⁹ And, contrary to Vanek's testimony as to when he prepared the report, Deputy Risk Manager Morris and Human Resources Director Landowski both testified that the report was created after DiFranco's death on April 2. R. 134-5 at 50–51 (Landowski Dep. 48–49); R. 134-12 at 59–60 (Morris Dep. 57–58). Finally, Department protocol called for anyone who was exposed to the virus to be tested. R. 134-5 at 114 (Landowski Dep. 112). Yet, so far as the record reveals, DiFranco was not tested, let alone quarantined, until after he became symptomatic and was admitted to the hospital a week later.

The other purported anomalies are more minor and mundane. To cite just a few of the more pertinent examples:

• Sanchez recalled DiFranco telling him on March 23 that Kimble had directed him (DiFranco) to meet with Sanchez to discuss his accommodation request (R. 134-9 at 144, Sanchez Dep. 142), but Kimble testified that he was unaware that DiFranco had submitted an accommodation request to the Medical Section and that he did not instruct DiFranco to see Sanchez. R. 134-6 at 52–53 (Kimble Dep. 50–51).

• Although, according to Sanchez and Vanek, DiFranco was reassigned to patrol Chicago's beaches on March 23, Kimble and Morris each gave testimony which the Estate reads to suggest that DiFranco was performing his usual duties as an undercover narcotics officer on and after March 23. R. 134-6 at 40–41 (Kimble Dep. 38–39); R. 134-12 at 86 (Morris Dep. 84).

• Although Landowski testified that the Awards Committee relied on a statutory presumption in finding that DiFranco died in the line of duty (R. 134-5 at 122, Landowski Dep. 120), that could not have been true, as the statutory change incorporating that presumption was not made until later. See Act effective June 5, 2020 § 5-153, 2020 Ill. Laws 35, 37 (Public Act 101-0633 § 10); 820 ILCS 310/1(g)(1) & (4).

Regarding the first anomaly, the departures from CPD's accommodation procedures and chain of command do not raise a question of fact as to whether DiFranco was reassigned from his regular narcotics duties to monitoring beach areas. The deviations from the CPD's accommodation protocols are not surprising given the urgency posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Governor's stay-at-home order, and the need to protect all narcotics officers, not just DiFranco, from exposure to the Covid-19 virus. In view of the decision to deploy large numbers of narcotics officers to monitor public areas in order to ensure compliance with the Governor's stay-at-home order, there was no need to consider an individualized accommodation for DiFranco: That reassignment met the criteria for the type of individual accommodation that DiFranco required. In the usual course of business, given DiFranco's request for a Covid-related reassignment, appropriate individuals in the CPD hierarchy likely would have been involved in the accommodation process and signed off on the new assignment, and the assignment would have been formally documented in DiFranco's file. But these were not ordinary times. The first global pandemic in more than 100 years posed challenges to every employer, no less so to the CPD. Landowski, O'Donnell, Kimble, and Vanek each testified that operations within the Narcotics Division were changing on a week-to-week, if not day-to-day, basis. R. 134-5 at 26 (Landowski Dep. 24) (“Things were moving fast. Things were changing daily.”); R. 134-8 at 95 (O'Donnell Dep. 93) (there was no official process for Covid-related reassignments in March 2020: “every day was evolving with the police department and its adaptation to COVID”); R. 134-6 at 25 (Kimble Dep. 23) (“every week it was different”); R. 134-11 at 135–36 (Vanek Dep. 133–34) (“There was mass confusion ․ because Covid was new and ․ nobody knew how to handle it[.]”); see also R. 134-9 at 181–82 (Sanchez Dep. 179-80) (noting “this was a situation that nobody really saw was coming,” that the Medical Section was “[s]everely understaffed” for a police force of 13,000 officers, and that “all of a sudden I'm supposed to keep track of [requests for Covid-related accommodations] in some kind of way”). The irregularities in the handling of DiFranco's request for an accommodation do not by themselves raise a factual question as to whether he was in fact accommodated. See Bunn v. Khoury Enters., Inc., 753 F.3d 676, 683 (7th Cir. 2014) (that employer may have unilaterally decided on accommodation for disabled employee, without engaging in interactive process and considering employee's preferred accommodation, was immaterial to employee's accommodation claim, where undisputed evidence revealed that employee was, in fact, accommodated: “In this area of the law, we are primarily concerned with the ends, not the means[.]”); see also Igasaki v. Ill. Dep't of Fin. & Prof. Reg., 988 F.3d 948, 961 (7th Cir. 2021); Ford v. Marion Cnty. Sheriff's Office, 942 F.3d 839, 855 (7th Cir. 2019); Rehling v. City of Chicago, 207 F.3d 1009, 1015–17 (7th Cir. 2000).¹⁰

Of the second category of anomalies, only the statements of Morris and Kimble regarding DiFranco's duties in March 2020 bear directly on whether DiFranco was accommodated; but neither undermines the City's position that as of March 23, DiFranco was assigned to monitoring public beaches from his police vehicle. The OSHA form that Morris completed indicated that DiFranco was performing his typical duties as an undercover narcotics officer as of the date of his exposure to Covid-19. Per the exposure report that Vanek prepared, the substance of which the Estate does not contest, DiFranco was exposed to the virus on and prior to March 19, 2020. There is no dispute that DiFranco was still working in an undercover capacity prior to and as of March 19, and that he did not request an accommodation until later that same day. Likewise, when Kimble was asked about DiFranco's duties during his deposition, he was asked about what DiFranco's duties would have been as of March 19. These statements have nothing to do with what duties DiFranco performed after March 19. Finally, insofar as Morris's testimony is concerned, she spoke to what DiFranco's duties were in March 2020 generally, without being specific as to whether they may have changed at any point later in the month; at best for the Estate, her testimony is ambiguous.

As for the other items in the second category of evidence, the Estate urges us to infer that they suggest the City has falsified a self-serving narrative that it responded promptly to DiFranco's request for an accommodation; but we do not believe the record supports that inference. The discrepancies that the Estate has cited (Was it Kimble who directed DiFranco to meet with Sanchez? Did the Awards Committee rely on a statutory presumption in finding that DiFranco died in the line of duty?) do not call into question the key events as the City has represented them: that DiFranco did meet with Sanchez; that DiFranco was given an alternative assignment by Vanek; that the Committee made a determination that DiFranco died in the line of duty.

There certainly is substantial evidence, we agree, that the Covid exposure report was backdated; and as the Estate points out, there are cases holding that the backdating of a document can give rise to a dispute of material fact. See Schaffer v. Am. Med. Ass'n, 662 F.3d 439, 444 (7th Cir. 2011) (plaintiff terminated after requesting leave time pursuant to Family and Medical Leave Act to undergo knee replacement); Brunker v. Schwann's Home Serv., Inc., 583 F.3d 1004, 1008–09 (7th Cir. 2009) (plaintiff terminated after undergoing treatment for multiple sclerosis at Mayo Clinic). But these are cases in which the employer's backdating of the relevant document could reasonably be interpreted as an effort to avoid the impression that the employee's statutorily-protected leave and/or perceived disability had anything to do with his subsequent termination. See also Lewis v. Sch. Dist. # 70, 523 F.3d 730, 743–44 (7th Cir. 2008) (audio recordings of meetings where plaintiff's employment was discussed were tampered with).

The same might be true here if there were a dispute as to whether DiFranco was exposed to Covid-19 on (or no later than) March 19, before he requested reassignment, or on a later date subsequent to his request. In that case, the backdating of the exposure report could be construed as an effort by the CPD to set forth a chronology of events that exonerated it from liability for not honoring DiFranco's request and his subsequent exposure to Covid. But in fact, the Estate conceded below that the exposure report's narrative was true (R. 147 at 20), and in so conceding, the Estate agreed that DiFranco was exposed to Covid-19 on or before March 19. Equally important is the Estate's failure to support with any evidence its conjecture that DiFranco was exposed to the virus while at work on some date after he requested reassignment on March 19.

On these facts, the backdating of the exposure report does no more than add to the smoke created by the other anomalies in the record. It does not give rise to a dispute of fact that is material to the resolution of DiFranco's ADA claim.

And the smoke otherwise emanating from the discrepancies in the record, because it does not suffice to call into dispute the factual propositions that the City has supported with evidence, cannot forestall summary judgment. Ultimately, the Estate's theory of the case on its accommodation claim boils down to an argument that if the case went to trial, a jury might not believe the City's witnesses. But we have long rejected that line of argument as a basis for avoiding summary judgment. See Corrugated Paper Prods., Inc. v. Longview Fibre Co., 868 F.2d 908, 914 (7th Cir. 1989) (“The opposing party may not merely recite the incantation, ‘Credibility,’ and have a trial on the hope that a jury may disbelieve factually uncontested proof.”) (citation modified); see also id. n.7 (collecting cases); Rand v. CF Indus., Inc., 42 F.3d 1139, 1146 (7th Cir. 1994) (the nonmovant “cannot avoid summary judgment merely by asserting that [the movant's witnesses] are lying”); U.S. v. Real Property located at 3234 W. Washington Ave. N., Minneapolis, Minn., 480 F.3d 841, 844 (8th Cir. 2007) (“Once the movant has supported his or her motion, the opponent may not simply rest on the hope of discrediting the movant's evidence at trial.”) (citation modified).

B.

We turn next to the Estate's wrongful death claim (Count V of the Estate's amended complaint). As a matter of Illinois law, the Estate must establish three elements in order to succeed on this claim: (1) that the City owed a duty of care to DiFranco; (2) that the City breached that duty; and (3) that the breach proximately caused DiFranco's death. Stanphill v. Ortberg, 2018 IL 122974 ¶ 33; Leavitt v. Farwell Tower Ltd. P'ship, 625 N.E.2d 48, 52 (Ill. App. Ct. 1993); Thompson v. City of Chicago, 472 F.3d 444, 457 (7th Cir. 2006) (applying Illinois law).¹¹ Our focus, like the district court's, is on the third of these elements.

As we have discussed, the Estate's theory of the case is that the CPD did not grant DiFranco an alternative assignment that would isolate him from other people in time to avoid his exposure to the Covid-19 virus, that he consequently contracted Covid while working, and that he died as a result. This theory, of course assumes that DiFranco was exposed to the virus at some time after he requested an alternative assignment—an exposure that would not have occurred but for the CPD's failure to timely respond to his request and assign him to new duties.

But there is no evidence that DiFranco was exposed to Covid-19 in the course of his work at some time after March 19, when he requested a new assignment. We have addressed the exposure report that Vanek completed, which indicated that DiFranco had already been exposed to Covid-19 by March 19, before DiFranco submitted his request for an alternative assignment. As we have also noted, the Estate has not disputed the narrative of that report, which indicates that DiFranco was exposed to Covid-19 on or before March 19. And, again, the Estate has produced no evidence that DiFranco was exposed to the virus for a second time while working at some point after he made his accommodation request on the afternoon of March 19. All that we know is that DiFranco began to experience symptoms on March 26. Even if we indulge the assumption that the CPD had yet to accommodate DiFranco by March 26 (an assumption that is not supported by the record, as we discussed above), there is no evidence to support the notion that this delay led to a subsequent exposure to the virus that caused DiFranco to contract Covid-19.

This leaves the Estate to again fall back on the anomalies in the evidence which, in its view, suggest that the City has concocted a false narrative that exonerates itself from liability. We have already explained why we are not convinced that these anomalies would permit a jury to infer that the City failed to grant DiFranco's request for a new assignment. Our rationale also dispenses with the notion that the City, although agreeing that DiFranco died in the line of duty, altered the chronology of his workplace exposure to Covid-19 in order to fend off the Estate's claims. Even if we are off base in our reasoning, the record is simply devoid of evidence that DiFranco contracted Covid-19 while working at some point after his March 19 request for an accommodation, and without such evidence, the Estate cannot recover on a wrongful death claim.

One last point. The Estate has pointed to DiFranco's death, and his resulting unavailability as a witness, as a reason why we should be hesitant to affirm the grant of summary judgment. As a general matter, there is no special or relaxed summary judgment rule for cases involving decedents. True, we have observed, in cases alleging the use of excessive force by police officers against, or witnessed by, a now-deceased individual or individuals, that we should take particular care in our examination of the record and in our application of summary judgment standards. Estate of Escobedo v. Martin, 702 F.3d 388, 409 (7th Cir. 2012) (quoting Plakas v. Drinski, 19 F.3d 1143, 1147 (7th Cir. 1994)); see also Taylor v. City of Milford, 10 F.4th 800, 811 (7th Cir. 2021). But that observation does not relieve the Estate of its burden to present evidence showing that there is a material dispute of fact requiring a trial. Estate of Escobedo, 702 F.3d at 409.

Although DiFranco could not testify, any number of other witnesses employed in the Narcotics Division (including others on Sergeant Vanek's team) could have testified as to the veracity of CPD's assertion that DiFranco, along with other officers in the Narcotics Division, were reassigned during the week of March 23 to monitor public infrastructure from their individual police vehicles. Of course, both Vanek and Kimble were deposed in this case. But presumably there were hundreds of other officers available to the Estate who might also have been questioned on this point; the Estate certainly makes no argument to the contrary. Such witnesses might not have been able to speak to DiFranco's individual reassignment, but they certainly could have spoken to whether other Narcotics officers in DiFranco's position were in fact reassigned and when that occurred.

III.

The Estate's case has some intuitive appeal, and the DiFranco family certainly has our sympathies. Exactly what DiFranco feared would happen, given his cystic fibrosis and cystic-fibrosis-related diabetes, did happen: he was exposed to Covid-19 at work, contracted the disease, and died. The City's contemporaneous records regarding his request for a prophylactic reassignment do not memorialize what steps the CPD took in response to his accommodation request, and certain key documents, including the Covid-19 exposure report, were or appear to have been prepared after the fact. Nonetheless, City witnesses with knowledge of the steps the City took in response to DiFranco's request testified that DiFranco was in fact accommodated with an assignment that isolated him from others, albeit not as the result of a formal interactive process and not in accord with the Department's Covid-19-related protocols. At the same time, by conceding the accuracy of the exposure report's narrative below, the Estate admitted that DiFranco was exposed to the Covid-19 virus before he asked for reassignment; moreover, the Estate has presented no evidence that DiFranco was exposed to the virus in the course of his work at some later date. Consequently, there is no proof that CPD's action or inaction in response to DiFranco's accommodation request injured him. Ultimately, the Estate has failed to present evidence that calls into dispute any of the material facts set forth in the City's motion for summary judgment. To be sure, there are some inconsistencies and discrepancies in the City's evidence, but none that call the veracity of the City's account into question; and, as we have said, the mere possibility that a jury might disbelieve the City's witnesses at trial is not a basis on which to deny summary judgment.

We AFFIRM the district court's judgment.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Also on March 19, the Department issued Special Order S04-09, a directive setting forth the CPD's procedures related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Among other things, the directive addresses the use of universal precautions, including personal protective equipment; the decontamination of police vehicles, facilities, and equipment; procedures for the arrest, detention, and transportation of potentially infectious persons; response procedures for incidents involving persons exhibiting signs of Covid-19; what steps would be taken if an employee were exposed to Covid-19 (including reporting protocols); and the enforcement of any quarantine declared by the Illinois Department of Public Health. This special order did not address the reassignment of employees whose age or medical conditions made them particularly vulnerable to serious illness in the event they contracted Covid-19.

2.   On Saturday, March 21, DiFranco followed up on his accommodation request by emailing a “Self-Certification of Medical Condition” form to the Medical Section. R. 134-13 at 99–100. Submission of this form was not required for sworn police officers like DiFranco.

3.   There were two or three employee entrances to the Homan Square police facility. Police officers entering the Narcotics Division used keypads, and in some cases a palm-print reader, to access their offices.

4.   The Estate wrote, “While the substance of the report's narrative is true, the document itself is fraudulent and misleading because it had been backdated to March 19, 2020 ․ .” R. 147 at 20.

5.   The Estate makes this claim under both the ADA and the Illinois Human Rights Act. The standards for such a claim are essentially identical under both statutes, so we can focus on the ADA. Tate v. Dart, 51 F.4th 789, 793 (7th Cir. 2022).

6.   DiFranco's name did appear on more than one version of a list of police officers who had applied for a Covid-related reassignment and who had been certified by Dr. Arjmand as being medically eligible for such a reassignment. But those documents were not part of DiFranco's medical file, and there is no contemporaneous record of what action, if any, resulted from DiFranco's inclusion on the eligibility list.

7.   We rely here on O'Donnell's deposition testimony as the relevant account of how Covid-related reassignments were to be made rather than Special Order S04-09 (supra n. 1), which the Estate has highlighted in the briefing, or the March 19 email that was sent to all CPD employees. The Special Order outlines the precautionary steps the CPD would take to minimize the risk of exposure to Covid-19 generally (including the use of personal protective equipment) and what steps the Department would take in the event an employee was exposed to the virus; it does not address work reassignments. R. 134-5 at 241–52. The March 19 email merely indicates that once an employee has submitted paperwork to the Medical Section requesting reassignment, someone from the Medical Section would follow up with the employee; it does not otherwise outline the reassignment process. R. 130-2 at 35. It is O'Donnell's testimony that addresses the latter. R. 134-8 at 58–60, 102–03 (O'Donnell Dep. 56–58, 100–01).

8.   Vanek's testimony suggests that he relied solely on the date shown on the exposure report itself in asserting that he prepared the report on March 19. R. 134-11 at 41 (Vanek Dep. 39) (When asked when he prepared the report, Vanek answered, “I'd have to look at the date [on the report].”)

9.   However, Kimble himself allowed that he might have authorized the use of his signature stamp. R. 134-6 at 35 (Kimble Dep. 33) (“I don't recall placing it. But I would have authorized it if I didn't do it myself․”). See also R. 134-6 at 65 (Kimble Dep. 63) (use of signature stamps was common for some types of documents).

10.   Multiple witnesses also testified that, notwithstanding the formal process established for Covid-related reassignments, a police officer's commanding officer could unilaterally reassign him to a new position within the same command, both to accommodate the officer's disability and to avoid losing that officer to another division. R. 134-6 at 53 (Kimble Dep. 51); see also id. at 58 (Kimble Dep. 56); R. 134-8 at 54 (O'Donnell Dep. 52); R. 134-9 at 220–21, 225 (Sanchez Dep. 218–19, 223); R. 134-11 at 23–24, 33, 125 (Vanek Dep. 21–22, 31, 123). Sanchez regarded Vanek's decision to reassign DiFranco to beach surveillance as an informal accommodation. R. 134-9 at 220–21 (Sanchez Dep. 218–19).

11.   Some Illinois courts identify a fourth element: pecuniary damages to persons designated under the Wrongful Death Act. E.g., Bangaly v. Baggiani, 2014 IL App. (1st) 123760 ¶ 194 (citing Rodgers v. Cook Cnty., Ill., 2013 IL App. (1st) 123460 ¶ 31).

ROVNER, Circuit Judge.