By Todd Harrison, J.D.

A disagreement concerning overtime escalated into yelling and profanity, resulting in a police call and a two-day unpaid emergency leave for the employee.

Affirming a district court’s grant of summary judgment against the Title VII discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environment claims asserted by a postal carrier, the Seventh Circuit found his comparator evidence lacking, and determined that no reasonable jury could conclude that the emergency leave placement was attributable to his race or national origin, rather than the heated confrontation he had on the workroom floor with his supervisor. As to the retaliation claim, it was undisputed that the employee had filed several EEO complaints and had suffered an adverse action. However, his claim for suspicious timing concerned a complaint that was closed more than three years before the incident on the workroom floor, a gap too great to raise an inference of causation (Ismail v. Steiner, No. 25-1412 (7th Cir. Sept. 10, 2026)).

The employee in this case was born in Palestine and identifies as Middle Eastern. He worked as a postal carrier, and his shift would start with sorting the day’s deliveries on the workroom floor.

Confrontation. On February 11, 2022, while the employee was sorting his deliveries on the workroom floor, his supervisor told him to return from his route by 5:30 p.m. They debated about how long the route should take given that day’s mail volume. The interaction escalated into yelling, and the supervisor and the union steward both asked the employee to move the discussion to the supervisor’s office. The employee refused and continued to yell profanity on the workplace floor.

In response, the supervisor left the floor and called the postmaster and the police. When law enforcement arrived, they escorted the employee out of the building. The employee was then placed on emergency off-duty status, resulting in his immediate removal from work and the docking of two days’ pay.

Complaints. Following this confrontation, the employee filed an EEO complaint about the event. An investigation found no evidence of discrimination or retaliation. As of July 2023, the employee had filed eight other EEO complaints between 2003 and 2018, and 31 union grievances between 2006 and January 2022.

After receiving the final agency decision for his complaint filed in response to the February 11 incident, the employee filed this lawsuit, asserting claims for race and national origin discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII. Although he did not expressly state a claim for a hostile work environment, the district court nonetheless considered such a claim out of an abundance of caution. Ultimately, the district court granted USPS’s motion for summary judgment against all claims, leading to this appeal.

Comparator. First, the appeals court considered the employee’s Title VII race and national origin discrimination claims. Applying the McDonnell Douglas framework, the first three factors of the employee’s prima facie case went unchallenged. However, the USPS did take issue with the final factor—whether a similarly situated employee received more favorable treatment.

As a comparator, the employee proffered a white, female carrier who also answered to the same supervisor. He contended that the comparator had confronted and yelled at the supervisor on the workroom floor, but was not escorted out by police. However, the employee did not observe the alleged incident firsthand and had no personal knowledge of the incident. Nor did he know whether the comparator ever faced any form of discipline. Further, the supervisor himself could not recall any serious confrontations with any other carriers.

The employee also pointed to the union steward, who testified that arguments between mail carriers and members of management occasionally took place on the workroom floor. However, the union steward did not identify the names or racial and ethnic identities of the mail carriers involved in these altercations. He also acknowledged that such confrontations were usually deescalated by the individuals involved.

Given this evidence, the employee failed to create a genuine issue of fact that the comparator had engaged in substantially comparable conduct and later received more favorable treatment. As a result, he could not make out a prima facie case under the McDonnell Douglas framework. In addition, even when taking the record as a whole, the appeals court agreed with the district court that no reasonable jury could conclude that the emergency placement of the employee was attributable to his race or national origin, rather than the heated altercation. Accordingly, the district court properly entered judgment in favor of the USPS on this claim.

Causation. As to the employee’s claim for retaliation, the USPS agreed that the employee engaged in protected activity by filing numerous EEO complaints and did not dispute that he suffered an adverse action that would dissuade others from filing future complaints. The issue with this claim turned on causation.

Here, the employee relied primarily on what he believed to be suspicious timing to draw a causal link between a previous EEO complaint and the February 11 incident. However, the EEO complaint on which the employee relied was filed in 2018 and was closed by January 9, 2019, a gap of more than three years prior to the February incident. This was “much too great to raise a reasonable inference of causation,” said the court.

Grievances. In an effort to save his retaliation claim, the employee also pointed to various union grievances he had filed, including one in January 2022. But those grievances complained of overtime and timekeeping processing and approval errors rather than actionable discrimination. Thus, they could not form the basis of a Title VII retaliation claim, explained the court.

Comparator again. Having failed to show suspicious timing, the employee again pointed to his proffered comparator to create an inference of retaliation. However, the court noted that nothing in the record indicated the comparator had filed any EEO complaints, making her inapt with regard to this claim.

Because the employee failed to present any evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that his protected activity under Title VII motivated the USPS’s treatment of him on February 11, the entry of summary judgment on this claim was appropriate.

Hostile work environment. Finally, the court considered the claim for a hostile work environment. The district court had assumed without deciding that the treatment suffered by the employee on February 11 was severe, humiliating, and physically threatening. The district court also assumed that being escorted off the workplace floor unreasonably interfered with the employee’s work performance. However, the district court could not find any evidence that the supervisor’s actions against the employee were motivated by his race or national origin. The appeals court here agreed.

Again, the court observed that the employee and supervisor had clearly clashed. However, based on the record, no reasonable jury could find that the supervisor’s treatment of the employee, however disrespectful or ill-advised, had anything to do with the employee’s race or national origin. Accordingly, the district court’s judgment was affirmed.

The case is No. 25-1412.

Judge: Lee, J.

Attorneys: Raed A. Shalabi (Law Office of Raed Shalabi) for Yousef A. Ismail. Paraisia R. Winston, Office of the U.S. Attorney, for David Steiner.

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