Circuit Watcher

Abdullahi v. Prada USA Corp.
Before POSNER, FLAUM, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.
POSNER, Circuit Judge. The plaintiff was a salesperson at a Prada store, was fired, and has sued Prada for violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and also 42 U.S.C. § 1981. The suit charges, under both statutes, discrimination and retaliation. The district judge dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim.
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The principal issue is the meaning of “race” in section 1981, which provides, so far as relates to a case of employment discrimination, that “all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts . . . as is enjoyed by white citizens.” The plaintiff’s Title VII claims, with (as we’ll see) one exception, are time-barred, but not her section 1981 discrimination and retaliation claims. The judge thought them barred for a different reason—that they did not charge racial discrimination. Her original complaint did, along with discrimination on the basis of national origin (she was born in Iran) and religion (Muslim). But in her amended complaint (which like the original one was on a standard complaint form for employment discrimination supplied by the Northern District of Illinois and used mainly by unrepresented plaintiffs, such as the plaintiff in this case, and which has boxes, each for a different type of discrimination, that the plaintiff can place a check mark in), unlike her original complaint, only the “national origin” and “religion” boxes were checked. There is also a box marked “color,” which was not checked in either complaint. …the dismissal of the Title VII post-employment retaliation claim and of the section 1981 claims is reversed and the case is remanded for further consideration of all those claims. The dismissal of the remaining claims is affirmed. AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND REMANDED. Abdullahi v. Prada USA Corp.