Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—SEX—N.D. Ill.: Nursing mother’s sex discrimination, retaliation claims fail to survive summary judgment, (May 8, 2026)

By Nicholas Kaster, J.D.

Being untruthful during an administrative investigation and repeatedly violating department policies supported the conclusion that she was failing to meet job expectations.

A nursing mother’s sex discrimination and retaliation claims against her employer failed to survive summary judgment, a federal district court in Illinois has ruled. The sex discrimination claim failed because she did not identify any similarly situated non-female employees who received better treatment. Moreover, the court found that no reasonable jury could find that the employer’s stated reasons for changing her shift, and later firing her, were pretextual. The employee’s retaliation claims failed because she did not present sufficient evidence to support causation (Guzman v. Village of Stickney, No. 24 CV 4606 (N.D. Ill. May 6, 2026)).

Police officer. The employee was a police officer with the Village of Stickney, Illinois for over a decade. In June 2022, she gave birth and took three months of parental leave. When she returned to work, she had to balance the demands of being a full-time police officer with having a newborn, a sick daughter, and an injured husband all at home.

Lactation breaks. Part of that challenge was finding times and places to pump breast milk. The Police Department provided a locker room for her to take lactation breaks in, but she contended that those breaks were discouraged and the facilities were inadequate under state and federal law. When the employee tried to assert her rights to adequate lactation breaks and spaces, she was moved to the night shift, causing significant personal and familial difficulties.

Discharge. The Village maintained that it fully complied with its obligations and accommodated the employee. The Village maintained that she took increasingly lengthy breaks, repeatedly violated Department policies, and was untruthful when asked about those alleged violations in formal administrative investigations. As a result, her employment was terminated.

Lawsuit. After exhausting administrative remedies, the employee brought suit, alleging that the Village discriminated against her on the basis of sex, retaliated against her for asserting her rights as a nursing mother, and failed to comply with state and federal requirements to provide nursing mothers with adequate breaks and spaces to express breast milk at work. The Village moved for summary judgment.

Sex discrimination claims. The employee’s Title VII sex discrimination claim faltered, according to the court, because she failed to identify any similarly situated non-female employees who received better treatment. As to her shift change, the employee maintained that four purported comparators were all less senior officers who could have been transferred to the midnight shift but were not. But the record did not support that claim, said the court. At the time of her shift change, all three of those offices were “probationary police officers” and thus not subject to placement based on seniority. All non-probationary officers who remained on the day shift were more senior than the employee or were on administrative leave. The probationary police officers were not similarly situated to the employee, the court concluded, and the better treatment she claimed some received—being assigned to a preferred shift with less seniority—did not appear anywhere else in the record.

As to her termination, the employee failed to identify any comparators at all. Rather, the record reflected that, around the same time of the administrative investigations into the employee’s conduct, four male patrol officers were also subject to administrative investigation, and three of those were also found to have been dishonest during their investigation. Those three officers all resigned to avoid being terminated. The employee thus failed to carry her burden, the court concluded.

Retaliation claims. The employee’s retaliation claims failed because she did not present sufficient evidence to support causation. Suspicious timing is rarely enough to create a triable issue and defeat summary judgment, said the court. To infer a causal connection in the face of a prolonged gap between the protected conduct and the adverse action, there needs to be “evidence of prolonged antagonism against the plaintiff, evidence that, despite a long gap, the alleged retaliation was the first opportunity for retaliation, or something similar.” Here, the employee was moved to the night shift a month and a half after her claimed protected activity—too long of a gap to support causation on its own. She presented no evidence that the decisionmaker for both alleged adverse employment actions was antagonistic towards her or motivated by retaliatory intent. To the contrary, said the court, the record indicated that the decisions had either nothing to do with the employee’s protected activity (terminating her for multiple policy violations), or nothing to do with the employee at all.

The employee instead argued for a “cat’s paw” theory of liability based on a supervisor’s comments toward and alleged bias against her. The court observed that the mere fact that an employee’s wrongdoing was reported by a biased supervisor with a retaliatory or discriminatory motive does not establish liability under a cat’s paw theory. Rather, the employee must show that the biased supervisor’s actions were a proximate cause of the adverse employment action. If an employer believed it had independently sufficient reasons to take an adverse employment action without relying on the credibility of the biased supervisor, the employee’s cat’s paw theory will fail for lack of proximate cause. Here, the employee presented no evidence to contradict the decisionmaker’s testimony that the administrative investigation was sufficient to terminate her.

PUMP Act. The employee also brought a claim under the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (PUMP Act). However, the court held that the presumption against statutory retroactivity defeated the employee’s PUMP Act claim. The PUMP Act requires employers to provide breastfeeding accommodations in the workplace. It was signed into law on December 29, 2022, and was effective April 28, 2023. Nothing in the record indicated that the employee expressed breast milk after she took leave on March 10, 2023.

State-law claims. The employee also asserted claims under the Illinois Nursing Mothers in the Workplace Act (INMWA) and under retaliatory discharge provisions of Illinois law.

The parties disputed whether the INMWA provided a cause of action in the first instance. However, the court declined to reach that issue, because it found that the Illinois Tort Immunity Act barred such a claim in this case. The relevant section provides: “No civil action other than [those for damages arising out of patient care] may be commenced in any court against a local entity … for any injury unless it is commenced within one year from the date that the injury was received or the cause of action accrued.” The last possible date of accrual for a claim was March 10, 2023, the day the employee began her second leave. She did not return to work until June 5, 2023, one year and one day after the birth of her son, and thus could not have accrued any additional injuries under the INMWA after her return. This suit was not brought until June 3, 2024, several months after the Tort Immunity Act extinguished any claims she may have accrued prior to March 10, 2023. The claim, if one existed, was time barred, the court held.

To establish a retaliatory discharge claim under Illinois law, the employee must plead and prove that she was: (1) discharged; (2) in retaliation for her activities; and (3) that the discharge violated a clear mandate of public policy. While distinct from the test under federal law, the employee’s retaliatory discharge claim under Illinois law failed for the same fundamental reason: she did not show a causal connection between her protected activity and her termination.

Accordingly, the Village’s motion for summary judgment was granted.

The case is No. 24 CV 4606.

Judge: Shah, M.

Attorneys: Gianna Scatchell Basile (Law Offices of Gianna Basile) for Maria Guzman. Molly Maureen O'Reilly (Law Offices of Molly O'Reilly) for Village of Stickney.

Companies: Village of Stickney

Cases: SexDiscrimination PregnancyDiscrimination Discrimination WageHour Discharge Retaliation StateLawClaims IllinoisNews