KOSENKA PISTELL v. COOK COUNTY (2023)

Order

The two-page amended complaint in this case, whose opening paragraph recites the name of a plaintiff other than the one named in the case caption, and whose substantive allegations comprise a mere nineteen lines of text, does not satisfy even the liberal notice pleading standards of Fed. R. Civ. P. 8, Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009). Plaintiff asserts what appears to be a failure to accommodate claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, as she alleges that while employed by defendant Cook County, she refused, due to her “deeply held religious beliefs,” to be vaccinated pursuant to the County's “policy requiring its employees to vaccinate against Covid-19”; that defendant “refused to accommodate [her] sincere religious beliefs in any way”; and that plaintiff “eventually learned that she had been terminated.” Am. Compl. at ¶¶ 2, 8, 11, 13. But these allegations do not suffice to state a Title VII failure to accommodate claim, which requires facts sufficient to suggest plausibly that: “(1) an observance or practice that is religious in nature, and (2) that is based on a sincerely held religious belief, (3) conflicted with an employment requirement, and (4) the religious observance or practice was the basis or a motivating factor for the employee's discharge or other discriminatory treatment.” Kluge v. Brownsburg Cmty. Sch. Corp., 64 F.4th 861, 883 (7th Cir. 2023), vacated on other grounds, No. 21-2475, 2023 WL 4842324 (7th Cir. July 28, 2023).

Here, plaintiff does not identify any religious “observance or practice,” nor does she describe defendant's policy or explain how it conflicts with any such observance or practice. Further, the vaccination policy that defendant attaches to its motion, which I may consider because plaintiff refers to it in her amended complaint and it is central to her claim, see Williamson v. Curran, 714 F.3d 432, 436 (7th Cir. 2013), contains a provision captioned, “Exemption from Vaccination Requirements,” which plaintiff does not claim to have invoked. Indeed, plaintiff does not allege that she ever informed defendants that she was unwilling to receive a Covid-19 vaccine for religious reasons. Accordingly, there is no plausible basis for inferring that defendant took her “off paid status” or terminated her “with the motive of avoiding the need to accommodate [her] religious beliefs.” Anderson v. United Airlines, Inc., No. 23 C 989, 2023 WL 5721594, at *4 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 5, 2023). Finally, while plaintiff faults defendant for “refusing” to grant her an accommodation, she does not allege what sort of accommodation she believes she needed, given the availability of a religious exemption to defendant's vaccination policy, nor does she claim to have requested any such accommodation.

For all of the foregoing reasons, plaintiff's barebones complaint does not state a claim under Title VII. See id. (plaintiffs who did not request a religious exemption from the defendant's Covid-19 vaccination policy and did not allege “what accommodations, if any, they requested” did not state a Title VII claim). Defendant's motion to dismiss is granted.

Elaine E. Bucklo, United States District Judge