O R D E R
Li Men appeals from the grant of summary judgment in her suit under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act against her former employer, Inguran, LLC. The district court saw no evidence from which a jury could conclude Inguran terminated her because of her age. We agree and AFFIRM.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
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I
A
Li Men began working as a laboratory technician for Inguran in 2014 at the age of
44. She reported to manager Katiana Oliveira, who was seven years younger than her. Men's problems began on March 10, 2020, when Oliveira observed her handling two test tubes at one time, a violation of Inguran's standard operating procedures. Men says that she did not willfully disregard the policy but instead forgot about a recent change in the company's procedures. She claims that, in the course of the incident, Oliveira yelled at her, interrupted her attempts to explain herself, and labeled her as disrespectful and disruptive. For her part, Oliveira contends that Men was the one who interrupted her, raised her voice, and said the company's procedures were unimportant. Based on this incident, Oliveira issued Men a written warning for insubordination and failure to follow Inguran's procedures. The warning stated that Oliveira and Men had previously discussed her performance, but that Men continued to disregard the company's standard operating procedures. The warning described Men as "behav[ing] in a disrespectful and disruptive manner while [Oliveira] was attempting to warn [Men] regarding [her] unsatisfactory work performance" handling test tubes and as "us[ing] disrespectful manners towards [her] manager" when Men criticized Inguran's new protocols.
The next documented incident occurred on June 16, 2022. Oliveira was on vacation that day, so a shift leader named Elise Christiansen was the acting supervisor. Men herself had just returned from a vacation and was unaware that Christiansen was in charge. When Men tried to perform her usual duties, Christiansen told her to perform a different task instead. Men sought clarification of Christiansen's authority. Christiansen then contacted Oliveira who reportedly told Men that she could perform her regular role that day. After Men tried to return to her ordinary tasks, Christiansen told her to go speak with human resources. Men explained the morning's events to HR officer Jalyn Boles, who acknowledged that, with Oliveira on vacation, "there [was] a lot of miscommunication going on." Boles told Men to follow Christiansen's instructions because she was the acting manager. Men then returned to work and did as Christiansen asked.
The next day, Men emailed Boles and said, "While Katiana [Oliveira] doesn't like me. I can't tell [if] she has discriminated [against] me for my race or my age or something else. When I say something with a bad accent, she makes faces to other people which [makes me] feel insulted. Sometimes she yells at me. When she yells at me, sometimes I can't help myself to yell back and then she says I am rude." Men added that Oliveira
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treated her differently than others when it came to reporting mistakes by coworkers. It is unclear whether Boles responded to this email, nor do we see evidence that Boles shared the email with Oliveira.
A few weeks later, on July 8, 2022, Oliveira issued Men a second written warning for insubordination based on the June 16 incident. The warning indicated that Men did not follow instructions and adopted her own approach to workplace tasks. Men refused to sign the warning, though. For several weeks, she continued to say to Boles and Oliveira that they were disciplining her unfairly and asked that they rescind the second warning. Later that same summer, Men made several mistakes at work. At one point, Inguran's quality assurance department identified a contaminated sample from Men's lab, which Oliveira determined happened because Men had failed to properly discard the previous sample from the test tube. At another point, Christiansen told Oliveira that Men had misplaced a sample in the lab two days prior. Christiansen's discovery of the misplaced sample potentially averted a contamination problem. Around the same time, Men's shift leader complained about her attitude and reported that she was difficult to work with.
On July 14, 2022, Oliveira completed performance evaluations for those she supervised. She rated employees on a scale of one to five across many categories, with one being the lowest. Oliveira gave Men primarily ones and twos on the scale, though she did receive some threes and a four. Oliveira stated in the form's comment section that Men did not follow instructions, adopted her own approach to the completion of tasks, and did not obey directives issued by her manager and shift leader. During this same period of time, Inguran management began planning for a reduction in force. The company ultimately laid off three lab technicians in August 2022:
Benjamin Swayze (19), Joshua Dudley (32), and Men (52). All three employees received low performance ratings in their July 2022 evaluations.
B
Almost two years later, in April 2024, Men sued Inguran in federal court asserting claims for age discrimination and retaliation in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. She represented herself. She later amended her complaint and discovery ensued, with the district court ultimately entering summary judgment in favor of Inguran.
The district court first evaluated Men's age discrimination claim. Men insisted that Inguran had subjected her to three adverse employment actions: the second written warning, the poor performance review, and termination. Relying on Oest v. Ill. Dep't. of
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Corrs., 240 F.3d 605, 613 (7th Cir. 2001), the district court determined that only the termination constituted an adverse employment action, as the other two actions did not involve "tangible job consequences." The district court then concluded that a reasonable jury could not find that Inguran terminated Men because of her age, rather than as part of the company's reduction in force. The evidence showed that Men was not meeting Inguran's legitimate employment expectations, and there was no evidence to support that Inguran's reasons for terminating her were pretextual.
The district court likewise determined that there was not sufficient evidence for a jury to conclude that Inguran retaliated against Men based on her reporting allegations of age discrimination to HR. Although her email to HR's Jalyn Boles speculating that Oliveira was discriminating against her arguably constituted "statutorily protected activity," Men had failed to identify evidence showing a causal connection between this report and her ultimate termination.
Finally, in a separate order, the district court denied Men's request for leave to amend her complaint a third time to add a state law damages claim for emotional suffering and the intentional infliction of emotional distress. The court held that her proposed amendment was futile because she had only pleaded claims of discrimination and retaliation under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which this court has determined does not allow for damages for pain and suffering. See Franzoni v. Hartmarx Corp., 300 F.3d 767, 773 (7th Cir. 2002). The court also determined that her request to add a new state law claim was untimely and unfairly prejudicial to Inguran. The request came at a time when the parties had already completed extensive discovery and Inguran had already deposed Men. These circumstances, the district court concluded, did not warrant permitting a third amended complaint.
Men now appeals.
II
We review the district court's grant of summary judgment without deference and take our own fresh look at the evidence. See Markel Ins. Co. v. Rau, 954 F.3d 1012, 1016 (7th Cir. 2020). In cases with cross-motions for summary judgment, we construe the evidence "in favor of the party against whom the motion under consideration is made."
Id. Summary judgment is appropriate where "there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).
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Men raises two claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act—one alleging discrimination, in violation of 29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(1), and another retaliation, in violation of § 623(d).
A
We begin with Men's ADEA discrimination claim. Men insists that she has presented sufficient evidence for a jury to conclude that Inguran gave her the second written warning, rated her performance poorly, and terminated her because of her age. She points to the fact that Inguran chose to terminate her during the reduction-in-force instead of Leeroy Olivares, a 19-year-old employee whose performance review score was markedly worse than hers. In Men's view, this fact alone would allow the jury to conclude that Inguran's stated reason for terminating her—poor performance—was pretextual. We disagree. First, as part of the company's reduction in force, Inguran terminated two other employees who were significantly younger than Men and had scored better than her on the performance review: Benjamin Swayze (19) and Joshua Dudley (32). On this record, Inguran's decision to retain 19-year-old Olivares could not lead a jury to conclude that the company terminated Men because of her age. Second, the record supports that Inguran had nondiscriminatory reasons to retain Olivares instead of Men. While Olivares had received a lower score on the performance review, his record, unlike Men's, showed no instances of insubordinate or disrespectful behavior toward a supervisor.
B
Men's retaliation claim fares no better. She urges us to find that the timing between her complaints to HR and termination was suspicious and could lead a reasonable jury to find Inguran's actions were retaliatory. But this claim could not succeed at trial, as Men identifies no evidence to show that her supervisor Oliveira was even aware that she made this complaint to HR. And even if Oliveira was aware, she based Men's termination on her poor performance review, which in turn derived from Men's documented mistakes in the laboratory. Further, Men has failed to offer evidence to support her theory that Inguran's proffered reasons for her termination were pretextual. This retaliation claim, like her primary age-discrimination claim, suffers from a failure of proof. To be sure, Men is right to observe that workplace reprimands and negative performance evaluations can constitute adverse employment actions, even without a showing of accompanying "tangible job consequences." Indeed, as Men's counsel on appeal underscores, the Supreme Court in Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, 601 U.S. 346, 359 (2024) held that plaintiffs bringing discrimination claims under Title VII must "show only
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some injury respecting [their] employment terms or conditions." We have since applied this rule to ADEA discrimination claims as well. See Arnold v. United Airlines, Inc., 142 F.4th 460, 470 & n.21 (7th Cir. 2025). In the end, however, this does not affect our decision. Even if we find that the warning and performance review do constitute adverse employment actions, we see no evidence permitting a finding that Inguran took any actions because of Men's age.
Finally, we see no abuse of discretion in the district court denying Men's request to file a third amended complaint. The request came unaccompanied by the identification of new factual allegations that could support a state law claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Additionally, Men admitted she would need to extend discovery to obtain medical assessments to support this new claim, and Inguran would have to conduct discovery on entirely new issues, so allowing the amendment would cause undue delay and prejudice to Inguran.
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We are grateful to the University of Chicago Law School's Legal Aid Clinic for representing Men on appeal. Its briefing was excellent, and student advocate Hannah Kessel did a fine job before our court.
But seeing no legal error in the district court's entry of summary judgment for Inguran, we AFFIRM.
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