Show Notes:

Hosts Kian Hudson and Mark Crandley examine two recent Seventh Circuit decisions that clarify critical pleading and compliance standards.

Cases Discussed:

Packing Corporation of America Thrift Plan v. Dina Langdon
When a divorced employee sends a fax requesting a beneficiary change but dies before submitting the proper forms, who gets the retirement benefits—the ex-wife or the estate? The court addresses whether the "substantial compliance" doctrine survives recent Supreme Court precedent and draws a bright line: good intentions aren't enough if you don't follow the plan's procedures.

Miao v. United Airlines
After being removed from a flight following a dispute over overhead bin space, a passenger alleges racial discrimination. The court tackles a fundamental question: when is differential treatment enough to get past a motion to dismiss? The answer reveals the high bar discrimination plaintiffs face at the pleading stage, even when they identify a comparator.

Episode Summary

In this episode of Seventh Circuit Roundup, hosts Kian Hudson and Mark Crandley break down two recent and consequential Seventh Circuit decisions addressing Fair Housing Act pleading standards and constitutional limits on prosecutorial immunity. The discussion highlights practical litigation takeaways for practitioners navigating motions to dismiss, discrimination claims, and public-employment disputes.

This episode covers three important decisions that the Seventh Circuit issued in November 2025: Chicago Teachers Union v. Educators for Excellence (a case addressing whether there is a private cause of action to enforce the federal ban on employer advocacy of candidates for union offices), Schoeps v. Sompo Holdings (a case brought by heirs of a German Jewish art collector to recover a Van Gogh painting now owned by a Japanese insurance company), and Bostic v. Murray (a Section 1983 case arising from a probation officer’s assault of a female probationer).

Kian kicks off the episode with Chicago Teachers Union, which involves a union’s attempt to enforce a provision of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) that prohibits unions and employers from spending money to promote candidates in union elections. The Seventh Circuit panel held that the union lacked an implied cause of action, explaining that this provision has an alternative method of enforcement (submitting complaints to the Department of Labor) and that a different LMRDA provision does have an express private cause of action.

Next, Lara brings her considerable art-history expertise to bear in discussing Schoeps, a case about a German family’s attempt to recover a painting (one of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers) that was misappropriated during the Holocaust and that was purchased many years later by a Japanese insurance company (which now displays the painting in Tokyo). The family sued in Illinois federal court, because an affiliate of the Japanese company sells insurance in Illinois and because the painting was briefly displayed at a Chicago art museum in 2001. In doing so, the family invoked the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016, which preempts state-law statutes of limitations—but which does not create its own cause of action. The Seventh Circuit held that neither federal common law nor federal equitable principles gave the family a federal cause of action. And the Seventh Circuit rejected the family’s state-law claims on personal-jurisdiction grounds, holding that the insurance company’s contacts with Illinois were insufficient to establish “purposeful availment.”

Mark wraps up the episode with Bostic, a case that raises an important question under Section 1983—if a supervisor is personally involved in a constitutional violation committed by one of their subordinates, what state of mind must the supervisor have to be liable? The Seventh Circuit held that the answer depends upon the constitutional provision at issue, including the state of mind required to establish the underlying constitutional violation. Because the plaintiff in Bostic pursued a substantive due process theory, the Court held that the applicable standard was deliberate indifference—and it held that the plaintiff failed to meet that standard at summary judgment because the information the defendants possessed was insufficient to put them “on actual notice of the risk that [the probation officer] would eventually grope and assault [the plaintiff].”