Culp v. Caudill: Seventh Circuit Clarifies Local Rule 56.1 Compliance and Affirms Broad Discretion on Costs in Mixed-Outcome Cases

Introduction

In Carl Culp v. Scott Caudill, Nos. 23-2397 & 23-2398, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit confronted a multi-claim civil rights suit arising from a police intervention with a suicidal, double-amputee civilian. The appeal presented three principal questions:

1. Whether Fort Wayne police officers’ summary-judgment submissions complied with Northern District of Indiana Local Rule 56.1 despite lacking pinpoint record citations inside the brief itself;
2. Whether the Fort Wayne Police Department and Allen County Sheriff’s Department could be held liable under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act for alleged failures to accommodate the plaintiff’s disability during a use-of-force incident; and
3. Whether the district court erred in denying all parties an award of costs after a “split decision” at trial.

Plaintiffs Carl and Roberta Culp lost on nearly every count, save one battery claim on which Roberta received nominal damages of $1. They appealed the summary-judgment rulings; Officers Woods and Schulien cross-appealed the denial of costs.

Summary of the Judgment

• Local Rule 56.1 Issue: The Seventh Circuit held that defendants’ statement of undisputed material facts, placed in the appendix rather than the body of the brief, satisfied the then-operative version of NDIN Local Rule 56.1(a). Consequently, summary judgment was not procedurally defective.
• ADA / Rehabilitation Act: Without deciding the unresolved question of whether Title II governs police investigatory and arrest conduct, the Court assumed arguendo that it did and affirmed summary judgment because plaintiffs produced no evidence of discrimination or failure to accommodate.
• Costs: Applying the “mixed outcome” doctrine, the Court found no abuse of discretion in the district court’s decision to make each side bear its own costs under Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(d)(1).
• Result: District court judgment affirmed in all respects.

Analysis

1. Precedents Cited

Below are the most significant cases the panel relied upon, ordered by thematic relevance.

• King v. Hendricks County Commissioners, 954 F.3d 981 (7th Cir. 2020)
  – Recognized that applicability of Title II to police enforcement remains an open question; adopted a “but-for” causation standard and deliberate-indifference test. Cited extensively to justify assuming, without deciding, ADA coverage while affirming summary judgment for lack of evidence.
• Lacy v. Cook County, 897 F.3d 847 (7th Cir. 2018)
  – Provided the two-part deliberate-indifference framework (knowledge + failure to act) for intentional-discrimination damages under Title II and § 504.
• City & Cnty. of San Francisco v. Sheehan, 575 U.S. 600 (2015)
  – U.S. Supreme Court case granting, then dismissing, certiorari on the ADA-arrest question; underscores the doctrinal uncertainty that continues today.
• Testa v. Village of Mundelein, 89 F.3d 443 (7th Cir. 1996)
  – Established that in mixed-outcome litigation, courts may deny costs to either party.
• Baker v. Lindgren, 856 F.3d 498 (7th Cir. 2017) and Gavoni v. Dobbs House, 164 F.3d 1071 (7th Cir. 1999)
  – Reinforced district courts’ “especially broad discretion” in allocating costs in mixed-result cases, even where one side wins nominal damages.

2. Legal Reasoning

A. Compliance with Local Rule 56.1

The earlier (2012) version of Northern District of Indiana Local Rule 56.1(a) allowed a movant’s “brief or the brief’s appendix” to house the statement of material facts. Because defendants placed a detailed statement (with citations) in their appendix, the district court—and now the Seventh Circuit—found full compliance. The Court emphasized:

Practical upshot: the Court signaled that form cannot eclipse substance when local rules offer alternative formatting choices.

B. ADA / Rehabilitation Act (Title II) Claims

1. Unsettled Coverage Question Preserved – As in King, the panel once again sidestepped deciding whether Title II applies to arrests. By assuming coverage and still finding no violation, the Court avoided deepening the circuit split.
2. Deliberate-Indifference Standard – To win compensatory damages, plaintiffs had to show (i) officers knew a federally protected harm was likely; and (ii) they failed to act. The evidence (an offhand “we don’t want to beat up a handicapped man” remark) was insufficient.
3. No “Failure to Accommodate” Proof – Carl neither requested accommodation nor demonstrated that his disability, rather than non-compliance, caused the use of force. He entered and exited the vehicle on his own; the prosthetics were already wet; and wife Roberta’s urging him to comply negated any inference of physical incapacity.
4. “But-For” Causation – The record did not suggest that, but for Carl’s disability, officers would have used less force.

C. Costs Award

Rule 54(d)(1) establishes a presumption in favor of costs for the “prevailing party.” Yet district courts retain latitude, especially where:

• Both sides enjoy partial victories;
• The prevailing side’s monetary recovery is nominal; or
• Other equitable considerations counsel restraint.

Here, plaintiffs lost nearly everything, but Roberta technically “prevailed” on her $1 battery verdict. The district court deemed the result too mixed to justify saddling either side with costs—a decision the Seventh Circuit upheld under deferential abuse-of-discretion review.

3. Anticipated Impact

• Procedural Guidance on Local Rule 56.1: Litigants in the Northern District of Indiana (and potentially elsewhere) now have appellate confirmation that placing the statement of undisputed facts in an appendix suffices—unless and until the local rule is revised. Practitioners should still check for post-2012 amendments, but the precedent constrains future arguments that such formatting is fatal.
• Incremental Clarity on ADA Arrest Litigation: While the Court again dodged the central doctrinal question, its reiteration of the “assume coverage, require evidence” approach will likely encourage defendants to seek summary judgment by attacking proof rather than debating legal applicability.
• Cost-Shifting in Mixed Outcomes: The decision strengthens district courts’ hand to deny costs outright when each side wins something—even a token sum—fostering a cautious approach before parties incur extensive taxable costs in hopes of reimbursement.

Complex Concepts Simplified

• Summary Judgment: A pre-trial mechanism allowing a judge to decide a case (or part of it) when no material facts are genuinely disputed, so a jury trial is unnecessary.
• Local Rule 56.1 Statement: A district-specific requirement that a party moving for summary judgment enumerate the facts it contends are undisputed, with record citations, so the judge can verify them quickly.
• Title II ADA & § 504 Rehabilitation Act: Federal statutes prohibiting disability discrimination by public entities (Title II) and recipients of federal funding (§ 504). Both can apply to police activity, though circuits disagree.
• Deliberate Indifference: A legal threshold for intentional discrimination. It means the defendant actually knew of a substantial risk of violating someone’s statutory rights but consciously disregarded it.
• Mixed-Outcome Costs: When both sides win something, the court may decide no one is the true “prevailing party,” so each pays its own court costs.

Conclusion

Culp v. Caudill may not revolutionize disability-rights or police-misconduct jurisprudence, but it carves out two practical precedents for litigators within the Seventh Circuit:

1. Compliance with NDIN Local Rule 56.1 is satisfied when the statement of undisputed facts resides in the appendix—even if the brief itself omits pinpoint citations—so long as the rule expressly allows that placement.
2. District courts possess wide, nearly unassailable discretion to decline cost-shifting where litigation ends in a split verdict.

Additionally, the Court’s continued avoidance of the broader “ADA-arrest” question signals that, for now, litigants must focus less on abstract legal coverage and more on assembling concrete evidence of discrimination or unaccommodated disability. Future plaintiffs should expressly request accommodations and document how their disabilities, rather than voluntary non-compliance, drove the police response. Until the Supreme Court or an en banc Seventh Circuit resolves the Title II applicability issue, Culp stands as a reminder that factual proof, not doctrinal debate, remains the surest path to victory—or to defeat—at summary judgment.