George Reusch, Jr. worked as a finance and insurance manager for The Hertz Corporation. After reporting a coworker's forgery of customer documents, Reusch took several days of leave for a family funeral and due to a potential COVID-19 exposure. Approximately six days after reporting the forgery, Hertz terminated him, citing excessive absenteeism, performance deficiencies, and customer service issues. Reusch sued, alleging retaliatory discharge under Illinois law. The district court granted summary judgment for Hertz, concluding that the six-day gap was insufficient to prove retaliation and that Reusch's absences severed any causal link. The district court also found that Reusch failed to show that Hertz's stated reasons for firing him were a pretext for retaliation.
The Seventh Circuit reviewed the grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing all evidence in the light most favorable to Reusch. The court identified three primary areas where genuine disputes of material fact existed. First, the court addressed the applicability of Hertz's policies. Hertz argued Reusch was subject to a 90-day probationary period during which standard attendance and bereavement policies did not apply. Reusch disputed this, noting his offer letter did not explicitly define a probationary period and that supervisors may have approved his absences. The court noted that a jury could find the probationary period ended before the absences occurred, or that the policies applied regardless, meaning Hertz's failure to follow its own disciplinary process could support an inference of pretext. Second, the court examined the timing of the termination. While a six-day gap is not automatically sufficient, the court held that a jury could find the termination occurred 'close on the heels' of the protected activity, especially if the intervening absences were authorized leave rather than misconduct. Third, the court found inconsistencies in Hertz's explanations. Transfer paperwork dated shortly before the termination indicated no performance concerns, yet Hertz later cited performance deficiencies. The court reasoned that such shifting rationales could allow a jury to infer that the stated reasons were a lie rather than an oddity or error. The court emphasized that at the summary judgment stage, it cannot weigh evidence or resolve credibility disputes, and the record contained sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude the firing was motivated by retaliation.
The case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings, meaning the trial will proceed to a jury. Hertz can no longer rely on the summary judgment ruling to end the case early. The decision clarifies that in Illinois retaliatory discharge claims, a short temporal gap between protected activity and termination, combined with policy inconsistencies and disputed factual circumstances regarding leave approval, can survive summary judgment. It leaves open the question of whether the probationary period actually applied to Reusch, a fact for the jury to determine.
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