Maria DiFranco v. City of Chicago

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 24-3164
MARIA DIFRANCO, as the Independent
Administrator of the ESTATE OF MARCO
DIFRANCO,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
C
ITY OF CHICAGO, a municipal corporation,

Defendant-Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 21-CV-01600 — Jeremy C. Daniel, Judge.
____________________
ARGUED SEPTEMBER 9, 2025 — DECIDED AUGUST 7, 2026
____________________
Before R
OVNER, HAMILTON, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.
R
OVNER, Circuit Judge. Marco DiFranco was the first Chi-
cago police officer to die of Covid-19 contracted in the line of
duty. His widow, Maria, as the administrator of his estate (the
“Estate”), seeks to hold the City of Chicago (the “City”) liable
for violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C.

2 No. 24-3164
§ 12101 et seq., the Illinois Human Rights Act, 775 ILCS 5/1-
101 et seq., and the Illinois Wrongful Death Act, 740 ILCS
180/1, for allegedly failing to timely accommodate his disabil-
ity and reassign him to an isolated position in order to prevent
his exposure to the virus. So far as the record reveals, how-
ever, the CPD did accommodate DiFranco, and his illness and
death did not result from an exposure to Covid-19 that oc-
curred after he requested reassignment. Although the Estate
questions the credibility of the City’s witnesses, it has pre-
sented no evidence calling into dispute the City’s version of
the material facts. We therefore affirm the district court’s de-
cision to enter summary judgment in favor of the City.
I.
DiFranco worked for the Chicago Police Department
(“CPD”) for 22 years. As of 2020, he was assigned to the Nar-
cotics Division, conducting surveillance and undercover drug
and gun buys, using the internet and social media to identify
prospective sellers. The Narcotics Division comprised some
300 police lieutenants, sergeants, and patrol-level officers like
DiFranco, all working out of the CPD’s Homan Square office
on Chicago’s West Side. DiFranco was known as one of the
division’s top officers.
DiFranco had cystic fibrosis as well as cystic-fibrosis-re-
lated diabetes. (Cystic fibrosis is a progressive genetic disor-
der characterized by the accumulation of mucus which inter-
feres with the functioning of the respiratory, digestive, and
other systems of the body.) Prior to the 2020 Covid-19 pan-
demic, DiFranco had not needed or requested a workplace ac-
commodation.

No. 24-3164 3
On March 19, 2020, the Department sent an email
(“COVID-19: Guidance for Vulnerable Populations”) to all
employees advising anyone who believed that their age or
medical condition placed them at higher risk of serious illness
from Covid-19 to contact the Department’s Medical Section to
discuss next steps. R. 130-2 at 35. Sworn officers seeking a
Covid-related accommodation were to have their medical
provider submit supporting documentation by email. At that
point, the Department’s Medical Director would review the
documentation and someone from Medical Services would
follow up with the officer. According to the CPD’s Director of
Human Resources, Robert Landowski, the March 19 email
“superseded” the Department’s existing disability accommo-
dations policy as it related to Covid-19. R. 134-5 at 87 (Lan-
dowski Dep. 85).
1

At 4:33 p.m. that same day, March 19, DiFranco’s medical
provider emailed a letter to the Medical Section confirming
that DiFranco suffered from cystic fibrosis and cystic fibrosis-
related diabetes and requesting that DiFranco be given the

1
Also on March 19, the Department issued Special Order S04-09, a
directive setting forth the CPD’s procedures related to the Covid-19 pan-
demic. Among other things, the directive addresses the use of universal
precautions, including personal protective equipment; the decontamina-
tion of police vehicles, facilities, and equipment; procedures for the arrest,
detention, and transportation of potentially infectious persons; response
procedures for incidents involving persons exhibiting signs of Covid-19;
what steps would be taken if an employee were exposed to Covid-19 (in-
cluding reporting protocols); and the enforcement of any quarantine de-
clared by the Illinois Department of Public Health. This special order did
not address the reassignment of employees whose age or medical condi-
tions made them particularly vulnerable to serious illness in the event they
contracted Covid-19.

4 No. 24-3164
opportunity to work remotely or some other accommodation
that would distance him from others. R. 130-2 at 49–50. Dr.
Susan Arjmand, the CPD’s Medical Director, in short order
reviewed the letter and at 5:44 p.m. forwarded it by email to
Landowski indicating that DiFranco was at “high risk” from
Covid-19 due to his “lung disease and immunosuppression.”
R. 130-2 at 5.
2

However, so far as the record reveals, neither the Medical
Section nor the CPD team handling Covid-related reassign-
ments took formal follow-up steps to identify and/or docu-
ment a potential accommodation for DiFranco: the paper-
work in his medical file ends with the email from Dr. Arjmand
to Landowski. There is no dispute that DiFranco worked as
usual on the following day, Friday March 20, or that he was
off-duty on the following weekend, March 21 and 22.
The City and the Estate part ways as to what occurred
next. It is the Estate’s theory of the case that DiFranco reported
for work on Monday March 23 and continued his usual work
as a narcotics officer (reporting to the Homan Square facility
daily) with no accommodation or alteration to his work duties
before he went home ill on Thursday March 26. The City, on
the other hand, represents that subsequent events made it un-
necessary for the Narcotics Division to identify an individu-
alized accommodation for DiFranco, given that all narcotics
officers, including DiFranco, were reassigned to a new set of

2
On Saturday, March 21, DiFranco followed up on his accommoda-
tion request by emailing a “Self-Certification of Medical Condition” form
to the Medical Section. R. 134-13 at 99–100. Submission of this form was
not required for sworn police officers like DiFranco.

No. 24-3164 5
duties that isolated them from contact with one another and
the public.
The account from here forward is based on the evidence
that the City has submitted. As we shall discuss later in this
opinion, the Estate does not accept as true the City’s account
that DiFranco was given a timely accommodation to protect
him from exposure to the Covid-19 virus and, in any event,
that DiFranco had already been exposed to the virus before
he requested the accommodation. But the Estate has not sub-
mitted evidence calling into dispute the City’s account. In-
stead, the Estate relies on certain discrepancies and anomalies
in the evidence, coupled with DiFranco’s unavailability as a
witness, to suggest that a jury might conclude that the City’s
account of events is not worthy of belief, and that in fact,
DiFranco was forced to keep working without any change in
his duties as a narcotics officer, and it was the failure to reas-
sign him that led him to contract Covid-19 and lose his life.
On Friday March 20, 2020, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is-
sued a stay-at-home order effective at 5:00 p.m. on the next
day, Saturday March 21. Among other things, that order re-
quired Illinois residents to stay at home except as necessary
to engage in essential activities (including, for example, ob-
taining necessary goods and services); required most busi-
nesses to cease in-person operations, while allowing essential
businesses (including banks, grocery stores, pharmacies, gas
stations, and hardware stores), healthcare operations (includ-
ing hospitals), and essential public infrastructure (including
airports and public transportation) to remain open; and pro-
hibited people from congregating in groups of ten or more.
Ill. Exec. Order No. 2020-10 (Covid Exec. Order No. 8) (Mar.
20, 2020), https://www.illinois.gov/government/executive-

6 No. 24-3164
orders/executive-order.executive-order-number-
10.2020.html (last visited Aug. 6, 2026) (archived at
https://perma.cc/HJW5-MR6K)
According to Ronald Kimble, then the Commander in
charge of the Narcotics Division, after March 21, narcotics
teams were assigned to monitor critical city infrastructure and
observe compliance with the Governor’s stay-at-home order.
Narcotics officers would conduct this surveillance individu-
ally from their assigned CPD vehicles and were only to ob-
serve and report; if need be, uniformed officers would be
summoned to deal with any violations of the stay-at-home or-
der. Additionally, narcotics officers would no longer be re-
quired to report to the Homan Square facility on a daily basis.
R. 130-2 at 99–100 (Kimble Decl. ¶¶ 11–12).
In a like vein, CPD Sergeant Marc Vanek, who headed
DiFranco’s narcotics team, would later testify that once
“COVID officially hit,” everything in the Narcotics Division
was “shut down,” and narcotics officers were reassigned to
watch public infrastructure, including airports and CTA sta-
tions. R. 134-11 at 18, 122–24 (Vanek Dep. 16, 120–22). All of-
ficers in the division were assigned to conduct that surveil-
lance from the CPD cars already assigned to each of them as
narcotics officers. R. 134-11 at 33 (Vanek Dep. 31).
On Monday March 23, DiFranco met with Kimble to ex-
press concern about the Covid-19 epidemic and his need for
an accommodation that would minimize the risk of his expo-
sure to the virus. (It is unclear whether the wholesale reas-
signment of narcotics officers to monitor public spaces and
infrastructure that Kimble described in his testimony was still
in a nascent stage as of March 23 or whether DiFranco was
unaware of the plan.) According to Kimble, he assured

No. 24-3164 7
DiFranco that they would find an accommodation for him, in-
cluding working in the office, if need be. He advised DiFranco
to talk things over with Sergeant Vanek. R. 134-6 at 51, 53
(Kimble Dep. 49, 51).
Later that same day, DiFranco met with Noel Sanchez,
who was a Captain in the Medical Section. Sanchez and
DiFranco knew one another from Sanchez’s prior stints in the
Narcotics Division. As of late March 2020, Sanchez was work-
ing to identify officers who were qualified for Covid-related
reassignments and forwarding their names to his CPD supe-
riors for purposes of arranging appropriate accommodations
for these officers. DiFranco entered Sanchez’s office wearing
a mask and gloves. DiFranco expressed his frustration with
the prior two workdays, during which he and his fellow nar-
cotics officers had been sitting in an office together while the
Department figured out how to respond to the pandemic.
When DiFranco advised Sanchez of his medical condition,
Sanchez told him that alternative work assignments were
available. DiFranco asked what those assignments might be,
and Sanchez told him that although an alternative placement
decision would be made by officials “upstairs” and not by
Sanchez, “we can put you anywhere,” including, for example,
police headquarters or the training academy. But DiFranco
told Sanchez that his sergeant, Vanek, was going to take care
of him, that he would be driving in a car by himself on Lake
Shore Drive to keep people off the beaches, and that he was
content with that assignment. According to Sanchez,
DiFranco was just “venting” his frustrations with the Depart-
ment. Sanchez told DiFranco to let him know if Vanek’s plan
did not work out, and in that event, Sanchez would send his
name to his superiors for another assignment. R. 134-9 at 129–
32 (Sanchez Dep. 127–30).

8 No. 24-3164
James O’Donnell was the Chief of the Bureau of Constitu-
tional Policing and Reform; in that capacity, he had some
oversight of the Medical Section, and he worked with Human
Resources Director Landowski and Michelle Morris, Deputy
Director of Risk Management, to develop guidelines related
to the Covid-19 pandemic. O’Donnell testified that in March
of 2020, there was no official procedure in place for making
Covid-related work reassignments, as matters were evolving
on a daily basis in response to the pandemic. In practice, if the
Medical Section determined that an employee was qualified
for a temporary assignment during the pandemic, the Medi-
cal Section would notify O’Donnell’s team (O’Donnell
worked with a sergeant and another officer). A team member
would then contact the employee in question to confirm that
the employee wanted an alternative work assignment; if so,
the team would identify a proposed assignment and then fol-
low up with the employee to ask whether he wanted the al-
ternative assignment. (This was not always the case: Some of-
ficers declined reassignment to avoid jeopardizing their abil-
ity to return to their original positions.) If the employee ac-
cepted the new assignment, the team would contact both the
employee’s current commanding officer and his prospective
commanding officer to notify them of the reassignment.
O’Donnell testified that Sanchez did not have the authority to
make such reassignments; but O’Donnell allowed that
Sanchez, as an officer working in the Medical Section under
his supervision, might have given someone a temporary work
assignment without his knowledge (although, in that case, he
should have notified O’Donnell). Other high-level command-
ing officers might unofficially do the same with sworn officers
under their command.

No. 24-3164 9
Vanek testified that following DiFranco’s meetings with
Kimble and Sanchez, DiFranco and Vanek met on two occa-
sions at the Chicago Transit Authority’s Rosemont Station,
where they spoke to one another from their respective vehi-
cles. According to Vanek, DiFranco reported that he had told
Sanchez that Vanek would take care of him and keep him in
his assigned covert surveillance vehicle. Vanek indicated that
these sorts of patrol assignments were what narcotics officers
were being tasked with anyway, such that every officer was
alone in a CPD car. R. 134-11 at 24–25, 84, 127–30 (Vanek Dep.
22–23, 82, 125–28). Vanek never spoke with Sanchez about
DiFranco’s reassignment. R. 134-11 at 23–26 (Vanek Dep. 21–
24).
DiFranco worked March 24, 25, and 26. On the 26th, he
told Vanek that he wasn’t feeling well and thought he was
coming down with Covid or the flu. R. 134-11 at 108–09
(Vanek Dep. 106–07). DiFranco was out sick on March 27. He
was hospitalized on March 28 and tested positive for Covid
the following day. He died on April 2.
At some point, Vanek completed a communicable disease
exposure report bearing the date March 19, indicating that
DiFranco had been notified on that day that he had been ex-
posed to Covid-19 at the Homan Square building on or before
March 19, and that he had been notified of the exposure on
the 19th. The report’s narrative section stated:
On 19 MAR 2020, P.O. DiFranco was notified
that a Detective had tested positive for COVID-
19 that was actively working and reporting
every[ ]day to Homan Square 3340 W. Fillmore,
prior to testing positive. P.O. DiFranco utilized
the same entrance and exit points as the infected

10 No. 24-3164
Detective at 3340 W. Fil[l]more (Homan
Square). P.O. DiFranco also utilized the same el-
evator system as the infected Detective. P.O.
DiFranco was touching all handles, doorways,
buttons, doors as the infected Detective, prior to
notification [on] 19 MAR 2020. During the expo-
sure time P.O. DiFranco was in the performance
of regular narcotics INET [Internet Narcotics
Enforcement Team] duties.
R. 130-2 at 56.
3
The report indicated that the exposure had
been reported to Vanek at 9:53 a.m. on March 19; it estimated
that DiFranco had been exposed for a period of 10 days; indi-
cated that DiFranco had not been using personal protective
equipment during that period (the report stated “none
given”); and noted that DiFranco had been engaged in daily
covert narcotics activities during the exposure period. The re-
port identified five officers, in addition to Vanek himself, who
were witnesses to the exposure. Vanek signed the report as
DiFranco’s supervisor and recorded the date of his signature
as March 19. A certification line for DiFranco as the exposed
individual to sign, confirming the facts set out in the report,
lacked DiFranco’s signature. Instead, that line of the report in-
dicated that DiFranco was “Unable to Sign”; Vanek filled in
the date next to that notation as “19 MAR [20]20,” as he did
on the line above, next to his own signature as the supervisor
who prepared the report. R. 130-2 at 56. DiFranco, of course,

3
There were two or three employee entrances to the Homan Square
police facility. Police officers entering the Narcotics Division used key-
pads, and in some cases a palm-print reader, to access their offices.

No. 24-3164 11
was working as usual on March 19; he was also working the
following day.
As we discuss in greater detail below, there are multiple
indications that this report was prepared not on March 19 but
rather after DiFranco died and was backdated. The City all
but concedes as much. The Estate repeatedly describes the re-
port as “fraudulent,” Estate Reply Br. 14–16. Yet, in its mem-
orandum opposing the City’s motion for summary judgment
below, the Estate conceded the truth of the report’s narrative.
R. 147 at 20.
4

At the direction of the CPD’s general counsel, Sanchez
completed a memorandum on April 2 (the date that DiFranco
died) documenting his March 23 meeting with DiFranco. The
memorandum noted that DiFranco had expressed concern re-
garding his health due to the fact that another officer working
at Homan Square had tested positive for Covid-19 and
DiFranco believed he may have used or been in some of the
same areas as the infected officer. The memorandum also re-
flected DiFranco’s purported statement to Sanchez that his
sergeant was taking care of him and that he would be as-
signed to a car by himself monitoring the lakefront for unau-
thorized gatherings or crowds. R. 134-9 at 301.
Also on April 2, the CPD’s Awards Committee met to de-
termine whether DiFranco’s death had occurred in the line of
duty. Human Resources Director Landowski recalled that
there was no Covid exposure report available when he ini-
tially looked for it, but the report completed by Vanek was

4
The Estate wrote, “While the substance of the report’s narrative is
true, the document itself is fraudulent and misleading because it had been
backdated to March 19, 2020 ... .” R. 147 at 20.

12 No. 24-3164
subsequently made available to the Committee. R. 134-5 at 51
(Landowski Dep. 49). The Committee concluded that
DiFranco’s death had occurred in the line of duty (resulting
in enhanced benefits for his survivors). R. 130-2 at 59. Lan-
dowski testified that the Committee relied on a statutory re-
buttable presumption that DiFranco had contracted his illness
in the course of his work as a police officer and the absence of
any evidence rebutting that presumption. R. 134-5 at 122
(Landowski Dep. 120).
CPD Deputy Risk Manager Morris later completed a re-
port for the Illinois Occupational Safety and Health Admin-
istration indicating DiFranco was involved in confidential un-
dercover activities at the time of his exposure to Covid. R. 134-
12 at 84–85 (Morris Dep. 82–83); R. 130-2 at 12–17. When ques-
tioned about the report, she indicated that DiFranco was
working in his usual capacity as an undercover narcotics of-
ficer in March 2020; but the questioning left it unclear whether
DiFranco’s duties changed at any point after March 19 or 21.
See R. 134-12 at 86–88 (Morris Dep. 84–86).
Based on the foregoing account of events, the City takes
the position that it granted DiFranco’s request for reassign-
ment in a timely fashion (two business days after he made the
request) to minimize DiFranco’s risk of exposure to Covid,
thereby satisfying its obligation to accommodate his disability
in accord with the ADA and the Illinois Human Rights Act
and its duty of care under the Illinois Wrongful Death Act.
The City also contends that, for purposes of the Wrongful
Death Act, any delay in assigning DiFranco to a more isolated
position could not possibly have injured him, given the evi-
dence that he was exposed to the Covid-19 virus no later than

No. 24-3164 13
the morning of March 19, before DiFranco requested an ac-
commodation.
As noted, the Estate rejects the City’s central premise that
the CPD took prompt action to grant DiFranco’s accommoda-
tion request and to protect him from exposure to the Covid
virus. As we will discuss in greater detail below, the Estate
relies on gaps, ambiguities, and discrepancies in the City’s
case to posit that the CPD never, in fact, accommodated
DiFranco in any manner, formal or informal. And although
the Estate does not dispute the substance of the exposure re-
port that Vanek completed—i.e., that he was exposed to the
Covid-19 virus on or before March 19—it suggests that
DiFranco was exposed to the Covid-19 virus a second time at
some point after he submitted his request for an accommoda-
tion, and that it was the second exposure that caused him to
become ill. But as we shall also explain below, the Estate does
not cite evidence contradicting the City’s account or support-
ing the notion that DiFranco was exposed to Covid while at
work on some date after March 19. Ultimately, the Estate
simply relies on the possibility that a jury might find the
City’s witnesses are lying in an effort to cover up the City’s
purported responsibility for DiFranco’s death; and that pro-
spect is not a legitimate basis on which to avoid summary
judgment.
The Estate brought this suit against the City in the district
court, relying on its ADA claims as the basis for federal juris-
diction. After the district court dismissed the estate’s claims
for disparate treatment under the ADA and the Illinois Hu-
man Rights Act, the court subsequently, following the com-
pletion of discovery, granted summary judgment in the City’s

14 No. 24-3164
favor on the Estate’s failure-to-accommodate and wrongful
death claims.
As relevant here, the district court found that the CPD had
granted a reasonable accommodation to DiFranco on March
23 by having him, along with other narcotics officers, monitor
public places and infrastructure from their individual police
vehicles. The court was not convinced that there were any dis-
crepancies in the evidence that raised a question of fact in this
regard: although the CPD had not handled DiFranco’s re-
quest for an accommodation in the usual way and through
the usual channels, the record indicated that he had, in fact,
been accommodated, and it was the end and not the means of
accommodation that mattered. The City was therefore enti-
tled to summary judgment on the failure-to-accommodate
claim that the Estate asserted under both the ADA and the
Illinois Human Rights Act. As for the Estate’s wrongful death
claim, the Covid exposure report that Vanek completed indi-
cated that DiFranco had been exposed to the Covid virus at
the Homan Square facility no later than the morning of March
19—before DiFranco had even asked for an accommodation.
Thus, any error in the CPD’s handling of the accommodation
request could not have caused harm (including death) to
DiFranco. Although the Estate argued that the exposure re-
port should be treated with skepticism, it did not present ev-
idence that DiFranco was exposed to Covid-19 at some later
time, and without such evidence—even if the exposure report
were treated as false—the Estate could not establish a causal
link between any omission or fault on the City’s part and
DiFranco’s illness and death. The City was thus entitled to
summary judgment on the wrongful death claim. DiFranco v.
City of Chicago, No. 21 CV 1600, 2024 WL 4723743, at *4–6
(N.D. Ill. Nov. 8, 2024).

No. 24-3164 15
II.
We review the district court’s decision to grant summary
judgment to the City de novo, granting the Estate the benefit
of all reasonable inferences that may be drawn from the rec-
ord. E.g., Rabenhorst v. Noem, 162 F.4th 856, 862 (7th Cir. 2025).
In opposing the City’s motion for summary judgment, it was
the Estate’s obligation to present evidence sufficient to sup-
port a jury finding in its favor on the essential elements of its
claims, Myers v. Sunman-Dearborn Cmty. Schs., 142 F.4th 527,
532 (7th Cir. 2025); Waldridge v. Am. Hoechst Corp., 24 F.3d 918,
920–21 (7th Cir. 1994); mere speculation or conjecture will not
do, Pam v. City of Evansville, 154 F.4th 523, 528 (7th Cir. 2025);
Osborn v. JAB Mgmt. Servs., Inc., 126 F.4th 1250, 1258 (7th Cir.
2025). Moreover, the Estate cannot defeat summary judgment
simply by invoking the possibility that a factfinder might not
believe the City’s witnesses. Beatty v. Olin Corp., 693 F.3d 750,
754 (7th Cir. 2012); see also Giannopolous v. Brach & Brock Con-
fections, Inc., 109 F.3d 406, 411 (7th Cir. 1997) (collecting cases).
Rather, it must identify evidence which actually calls the
City’s factual account on a particular point into dispute. Os-
born, 126 F.4th at 1258; Johnson v. Advocate Health & Hosps.
Corp., 892 F.3d 887, 893–94 (7th Cir. 2018); Payne v. Pauley, 337
F.3d 767, 771 (7th Cir. 2003); Waldridge, 24 F.3d at 920–21.
A.
We begin with the accommodation claim.
5
An individual
pursuing such a claim must show that (1) he is a qualified

5
The Estate makes this claim under both the ADA and the Illinois
Human Rights Act. The standards for such a claim are essentially identical
under both statutes, so we can focus on the ADA. Tate v. Dart, 51 F.4th 789,
793 (7th Cir. 2022).

16 No. 24-3164
individual with a disability, (2) his employer was aware of his
disability, and yet (3) the employer failed to reasonably ac-
commodate his disability. E.g., E.E.O.C. v. AutoZone, Inc., 809
F.3d 916, 919 (7th Cir. 2016). This case does not involve the
more typical scenario in which the employer has either re-
fused its employee’s accommodation request outright or has
offered an alternative accommodation that the employee
deems inadequate. The Estate’s theory of the case is that be-
tween the submission of DiFranco’s accommodation request
on the afternoon of March 19 and his falling ill one week later
on March 26, the CPD utterly failed to act on his request. Its
failure-to-accommodate claim presumes that in the context of
the Covid-19 pandemic, the CPD was required to act with
some degree of alacrity, although it has not gone so far as to
say just how quickly the CPD was required to act on
DiFranco’s accommodation request: immediately? one day?
two days? Its position is that the CPD never accommodated
him, and that he was still performing his usual undercover
narcotics duties and reporting to Homan Square through the
date that he became ill. The City, for its part, does not take
issue with the notion that it had a duty to respond reasonably
quickly to DiFranco’s request for an accommodation. Its posi-
tion is that it did so: within two business days after DiFranco
submitted his request, he like other officers in the Narcotics
Division, was assigned to monitor public infrastructure and
gathering places from his assigned vehicle by himself, which
was a sufficient means of isolating him from others and min-
imizing the risk of his exposure to the Covid-19 virus. And
the Estate does not suggest that accommodating DiFranco

No. 24-3164 17
within two business days of his request was too slow; again,
its position is that this did not, in fact, occur.
On the question of whether DiFranco was, in fact, accom-
modated, the record indicates that he was. Vanek’s testimony
establishes that as of March 23, DiFranco was assigned to
monitor Chicago’s lakefront by himself using his usual un-
marked CPD vehicle. Sanchez’s testimony establishes that
Vanek had told DiFranco this by the time DiFranco met with
Sanchez on March 23 and that DiFranco was satisfied with
this arrangement. The Estate has identified no evidence con-
tradicting this testimony.
The Estate instead relies on two categories of evidence
which, in its view, call into doubt the veracity of Vanek’s and
Sanchez’s accounts.
First, the accommodation that the CPD purportedly gave
to DiFranco was not properly documented and was not is-
sued in accordance with the Covid reassignment procedure
set out in O’Donnell’s testimony:
• As noted above, the paper trail regarding DiFranco’s re-
quest for an accommodation ends with Dr. Arjmand’s email
to Landowski on the evening of March 19 indicating that
DiFranco was at risk from Covid-19 given his co-morbidities.
No contemporaneous documentation reflects what steps, if
any, the CPD took to address DiFranco’s accommodation re-
quest or that DiFranco was accommodated.
6

6
DiFranco’s name did appear on more than one version of a list of
police officers who had applied for a Covid-related reassignment and who
had been certified by Dr. Arjmand as being medically eligible for such a
reassignment. But those documents were not part of DiFranco’s medical

18 No. 24-3164
• Relatedly, accepting Sanchez’s and Vanek’s accounts as
true, no one bothered to document the accommodation
DiFranco was purportedly given until after DiFranco’s death
on April 2. Only then did Sanchez, acting on instructions from
the CPD’s general counsel, prepare his memo recounting his
March 23 meeting with DiFranco, including DiFranco’s pur-
ported statement that Vanek had given him an alternate as-
signment.
• The process by which DiFranco was accommodated, as
described by Sanchez and Vanek, was inconsistent with the
reassignment process that Chief O’Donnell described in his
testimony. O’Donnell indicated that once the name of an of-
ficer requesting, and deemed medically eligible for, a Covid-
related reassignment was forwarded to his office, he or some-
one from his team would confirm with the employee in ques-
tion that he wanted a reassignment, determine what alternate
position was available for the employee, follow up with the
employee to confirm that the new assignment was acceptable
to him, and then notify the appropriate commanding officers
of the reassignment. By Sanchez’s and Vanek’s accounts, none
of that occurred here: Vanek reassigned DiFranco, and
DiFranco reported the reassignment to Sanchez, without ei-
ther of them seeking O’Donnell’s input or approval or even
mentioning the reassignment to him. Per O’Donnell’s testi-
mony, neither Sanchez nor Vanek was authorized to reassign
an officer, and even if Sanchez departed from procedure and

file, and there is no contemporaneous record of what action, if any, re-
sulted from DiFranco’s inclusion on the eligibility list.

No. 24-3164 19
reassigned an officer unilaterally, he would have been ex-
pected to inform O’Donnell, which he did not.
7

• “Beach patrol,” as the Estate describes DiFranco’s sup-
posed new assignment, was not one of the categories of alter-
nate assignments that the CPD was granting to those request-
ing Covid-related work reassignments.
Second, there are other anomalies in the record which, in
the Estate’s view, suggest that Vanek’s and Sanchez’s ac-
counts amount to a false narrative that should not be credited:
• Most prominent among these anomalies is the Covid-19
exposure report that Vanek prepared, indicating that
DiFranco had been exposed to Covid over the course of a 10-
day period ending on March 19. The report was dated March
19, and Vanek testified that he prepared the report that day.
8

7
We rely here on O’Donnell’s deposition testimony as the relevant
account of how Covid-related reassignments were to be made rather than
Special Order S04-09 (supra n. 1), which the Estate has highlighted in the
briefing, or the March 19 email that was sent to all CPD employees. The
Special Order outlines the precautionary steps the CPD would take to
minimize the risk of exposure to Covid-19 generally (including the use of
personal protective equipment) and what steps the Department would
take in the event an employee was exposed to the virus; it does not address
work reassignments. R. 134-5 at 241–52. The March 19 email merely indi-
cates that once an employee has submitted paperwork to the Medical Sec-
tion requesting reassignment, someone from the Medical Section would
follow up with the employee; it does not otherwise outline the reassign-
ment process. R. 130-2 at 35. It is O’Donnell’s testimony that addresses the
latter. R. 134-8 at 58–60, 102–03 (O’Donnell Dep. 56–58, 100–01).
8
Vanek’s testimony suggests that he relied solely on the date shown
on the exposure report itself in asserting that he prepared the report on
March 19. R. 134-11 at 41 (Vanek Dep. 39) (When asked when he prepared
the report, Vanek answered, “I’d have to look at the date [on the report].”)

20 No. 24-3164
DiFranco did not sign the report: the report indicates that he
was “unable” to do so. Yet, DiFranco was working and report-
ing to Homan Square as usual on March 19, and for that mat-
ter on March 20 and March 23 as well. Two versions of the
report were produced in discovery, one with Kimble’s
stamped signature and one without; using a stamp was incon-
sistent with Department protocol.
9
And, contrary to Vanek’s
testimony as to when he prepared the report, Deputy Risk
Manager Morris and Human Resources Director Landowski
both testified that the report was created after DiFranco’s
death on April 2. R. 134-5 at 50–51 (Landowski Dep. 48–49);
R. 134-12 at 59–60 (Morris Dep. 57–58). Finally, Department
protocol called for anyone who was exposed to the virus to be
tested. R. 134-5 at 114 (Landowski Dep. 112). Yet, so far as the
record reveals, DiFranco was not tested, let alone quaran-
tined, until after he became symptomatic and was admitted
to the hospital a week later.
The other purported anomalies are more minor and mun-
dane. To cite just a few of the more pertinent examples:
• Sanchez recalled DiFranco telling him on March 23 that
Kimble had directed him (DiFranco) to meet with Sanchez to
discuss his accommodation request (R. 134-9 at 144, Sanchez
Dep. 142), but Kimble testified that he was unaware that
DiFranco had submitted an accommodation request to the

9
However, Kimble himself allowed that he might have authorized the
use of his signature stamp. R. 134-6 at 35 (Kimble Dep. 33) (“I don’t recall
placing it. But I would have authorized it if I didn’t do it myself....”). See
also R. 134-6 at 65 (Kimble Dep. 63) (use of signature stamps was common
for some types of documents).

No. 24-3164 21
Medical Section and that he did not instruct DiFranco to see
Sanchez. R. 134-6 at 52–53 (Kimble Dep. 50–51).
• Although, according to Sanchez and Vanek, DiFranco
was reassigned to patrol Chicago’s beaches on March 23, Kim-
ble and Morris each gave testimony which the Estate reads to
suggest that DiFranco was performing his usual duties as an
undercover narcotics officer on and after March 23. R. 134-6
at 40–41 (Kimble Dep. 38–39); R. 134-12 at 86 (Morris Dep. 84).
• Although Landowski testified that the Awards Commit-
tee relied on a statutory presumption in finding that DiFranco
died in the line of duty (R. 134-5 at 122, Landowski Dep. 120),
that could not have been true, as the statutory change incor-
porating that presumption was not made until later. See Act
effective June 5, 2020 § 5-153, 2020 Ill. Laws 35, 37 (Public Act
101-0633 § 10); 820 ILCS 310/1(g)(1) & (4).
Regarding the first anomaly, the departures from CPD’s
accommodation procedures and chain of command do not
raise a question of fact as to whether DiFranco was reassigned
from his regular narcotics duties to monitoring beach areas.
The deviations from the CPD’s accommodation protocols are
not surprising given the urgency posed by the Covid-19 pan-
demic, the Governor’s stay-at-home order, and the need to
protect all narcotics officers, not just DiFranco, from exposure
to the Covid-19 virus. In view of the decision to deploy large
numbers of narcotics officers to monitor public areas in order
to ensure compliance with the Governor’s stay-at-home or-
der, there was no need to consider an individualized accom-
modation for DiFranco: That reassignment met the criteria for
the type of individual accommodation that DiFranco re-
quired. In the usual course of business, given DiFranco’s re-
quest for a Covid-related reassignment, appropriate

22 No. 24-3164
individuals in the CPD hierarchy likely would have been in-
volved in the accommodation process and signed off on the
new assignment, and the assignment would have been for-
mally documented in DiFranco’s file. But these were not ordi-
nary times. The first global pandemic in more than 100 years
posed challenges to every employer, no less so to the CPD.
Landowski, O’Donnell, Kimble, and Vanek each testified that
operations within the Narcotics Division were changing on a
week-to-week, if not day-to-day, basis. R. 134-5 at 26 (Lan-
dowski Dep. 24) (“Things were moving fast. Things were
changing daily.”); R. 134-8 at 95 (O’Donnell Dep. 93) (there
was no official process for Covid-related reassignments in
March 2020: “every day was evolving with the police depart-
ment and its adaptation to COVID”);
R. 134-6 at 25 (Kimble
Dep. 23) (“every week it was different”); R. 134-11 at 135–36
(Vanek Dep. 133–34) (“There was mass confusion ... because
Covid was new and ... nobody knew how to handle it[.]”); see
also R. 134-9 at 181–82 (Sanchez Dep. 179-80) (noting “this was
a situation that nobody really saw was coming,” that the Med-
ical Section was “[s]everely understaffed” for a police force of
13,000 officers, and that “all of a sudden I’m supposed to keep
track of [requests for Covid-related accommodations] in some
kind of way”). The irregularities in the handling of DiFranco’s
request for an accommodation do not by themselves raise a
factual question as to whether he was in fact accommodated.
See Bunn v. Khoury Enters., Inc., 753 F.3d 676, 683 (7th Cir.
2014) (that employer may have unilaterally decided on ac-
commodation for disabled employee, without engaging in in-
teractive process and considering employee’s preferred ac-
commodation, was immaterial to employee’s accommodation
claim, where undisputed evidence revealed that employee
was, in fact, accommodated: “In this area of the law, we are

No. 24-3164 23
primarily concerned with the ends, not the means[.]”); see also
Igasaki v. Ill. Dep’t of Fin. & Prof. Reg., 988 F.3d 948, 961 (7th
Cir. 2021); Ford v. Marion Cnty. Sheriff’s Office, 942 F.3d 839,
855 (7th Cir. 2019); Rehling v. City of Chicago, 207 F.3d 1009,
1015–17 (7th Cir. 2000).
10

Of the second category of anomalies, only the statements
of Morris and Kimble regarding DiFranco’s duties in March
2020 bear directly on whether DiFranco was accommodated;
but neither undermines the City’s position that as of March
23, DiFranco was assigned to monitoring public beaches from
his police vehicle. The OSHA form that Morris completed in-
dicated that DiFranco was performing his typical duties as an
undercover narcotics officer as of the date of his exposure to
Covid-19. Per the exposure report that Vanek prepared, the
substance of which the Estate does not contest, DiFranco was
exposed to the virus on and prior to March 19, 2020. There is
no dispute that DiFranco was still working in an undercover
capacity prior to and as of March 19, and that he did not re-
quest an accommodation until later that same day. Likewise,
when Kimble was asked about DiFranco’s duties during his
deposition, he was asked about what DiFranco’s duties
would have been as of March 19. These statements have

10
Multiple witnesses also testified that, notwithstanding the formal
process established for Covid-related reassignments, a police officer’s
commanding officer could unilaterally reassign him to a new position
within the same command, both to accommodate the officer’s disability
and to avoid losing that officer to another division. R. 134-6 at 53 (Kimble
Dep. 51); see also id. at 58 (Kimble Dep. 56); R. 134-8 at 54 (O’Donnell Dep.
52); R. 134-9 at 220–21, 225 (Sanchez Dep. 218–19, 223); R. 134-11 at 23–24,
33, 125 (Vanek Dep. 21–22, 31, 123). Sanchez regarded Vanek’s decision to
reassign DiFranco to beach surveillance as an informal accommodation.
R. 134-9 at 220–21 (Sanchez Dep. 218–19).

24 No. 24-3164
nothing to do with what duties DiFranco performed after
March 19. Finally, insofar as Morris’s testimony is concerned,
she spoke to what DiFranco’s duties were in March 2020 gen-
erally, without being specific as to whether they may have
changed at any point later in the month; at best for the Estate,
her testimony is ambiguous.
As for the other items in the second category of evidence,
the Estate urges us to infer that they suggest the City has fal-
sified a self-serving narrative that it responded promptly to
DiFranco’s request for an accommodation; but we do not be-
lieve the record supports that inference. The discrepancies
that the Estate has cited (Was it Kimble who directed
DiFranco to meet with Sanchez? Did the Awards Committee
rely on a statutory presumption in finding that DiFranco died
in the line of duty?) do not call into question the key events as
the City has represented them: that DiFranco did meet with
Sanchez; that DiFranco was given an alternative assignment
by Vanek; that the Committee made a determination that
DiFranco died in the line of duty.
There certainly is substantial evidence, we agree, that the
Covid exposure report was backdated; and as the Estate
points out, there are cases holding that the backdating of a
document can give rise to a dispute of material fact. See Schaf-
fer v. Am. Med. Ass’n, 662 F.3d 439, 444 (7th Cir. 2011) (plaintiff
terminated after requesting leave time pursuant to Family
and Medical Leave Act to undergo knee replacement);
Brunker v. Schwann’s Home Serv., Inc., 583 F.3d 1004, 1008–09
(7th Cir. 2009) (plaintiff terminated after undergoing treat-
ment for multiple sclerosis at Mayo Clinic). But these are cases
in which the employer’s backdating of the relevant document
could reasonably be interpreted as an effort to avoid the

No. 24-3164 25
impression that the employee’s statutorily-protected leave
and/or perceived disability had anything to do with his sub-
sequent termination. See also Lewis v. Sch. Dist. # 70, 523 F.3d
730, 743–44 (7th Cir. 2008) (audio recordings of meetings
where plaintiff’s employment was discussed were tampered
with).
The same might be true here if there were a dispute as to
whether DiFranco was exposed to Covid-19 on (or no later
than) March 19, before he requested reassignment, or on a
later date subsequent to his request. In that case, the backdat-
ing of the exposure report could be construed as an effort by
the CPD to set forth a chronology of events that exonerated it
from liability for not honoring DiFranco’s request and his
subsequent exposure to Covid. But in fact, the Estate con-
ceded below that the exposure report’s narrative was true
(R. 147 at 20), and in so conceding, the Estate agreed that
DiFranco was exposed to Covid-19 on or before March 19.
Equally important is the Estate’s failure to support with any
evidence its conjecture that DiFranco was exposed to the virus
while at work on some date after he requested reassignment
on March 19.
On these facts, the backdating of the exposure report does
no more than add to the smoke created by the other anomalies
in the record. It does not give rise to a dispute of fact that is
material to the resolution of DiFranco’s ADA claim.
And the smoke otherwise emanating from the discrepan-
cies in the record, because it does not suffice to call into dis-
pute the factual propositions that the City has supported with
evidence, cannot forestall summary judgment. Ultimately, the
Estate’s theory of the case on its accommodation claim boils
down to an argument that if the case went to trial, a jury might

26 No. 24-3164
not believe the City’s witnesses. But we have long rejected
that line of argument as a basis for avoiding summary judg-
ment. See Corrugated Paper Prods., Inc. v. Longview Fibre Co., 868
F.2d 908, 914 (7th Cir. 1989) (“The opposing party may not
merely recite the incantation, ‘Credibility,’ and have a trial on
the hope that a jury may disbelieve factually uncontested
proof.”) (citation modified); see also id. n.7 (collecting cases);
Rand v. CF Indus., Inc., 42 F.3d 1139, 1146 (7th Cir. 1994) (the
nonmovant “cannot avoid summary judgment merely by as-
serting that [the movant’s witnesses] are lying”); U.S. v. Real
Property located at 3234 W. Washington Ave. N., Minneapolis,
Minn., 480 F.3d 841, 844 (8th Cir. 2007) (“Once the movant has
supported his or her motion, the opponent may not simply
rest on the hope of discrediting the movant’s evidence at
trial.”) (citation modified).
B.
We turn next to the Estate’s wrongful death claim (Count
V of the Estate’s amended complaint). As a matter of Illinois
law, the Estate must establish three elements in order to suc-
ceed on this claim: (1) that the City owed a duty of care to
DiFranco; (2) that the City breached that duty; and (3) that the
breach proximately caused DiFranco’s death. Stanphill v.
Ortberg, 2018 IL 122974 ¶ 33; Leavitt v. Farwell Tower Ltd.
P’ship, 625 N.E.2d 48, 52 (Ill. App. Ct. 1993); Thompson v. City
of Chicago, 472 F.3d 444, 457 (7th Cir. 2006) (applying Illinois

No. 24-3164 27
law).
11
Our focus, like the district court’s, is on the third of
these elements.
As we have discussed, the Estate’s theory of the case is that
the CPD did not grant DiFranco an alternative assignment
that would isolate him from other people in time to avoid his
exposure to the Covid-19 virus, that he consequently con-
tracted Covid while working, and that he died as a result. This
theory, of course assumes that DiFranco was exposed to the
virus at some time after he requested an alternative assign-
ment—an exposure that would not have occurred but for the
CPD’s failure to timely respond to his request and assign him
to new duties.
But there is no evidence that DiFranco was exposed to
Covid-19 in the course of his work at some time after March
19, when he requested a new assignment. We have addressed
the exposure report that Vanek completed, which indicated
that DiFranco had already been exposed to Covid-19 by
March 19, before DiFranco submitted his request for an alter-
native assignment. As we have also noted, the Estate has not
disputed the narrative of that report, which indicates that
DiFranco was exposed to Covid-19 on or before March 19.
And, again, the Estate has produced no evidence that
DiFranco was exposed to the virus for a second time while
working at some point after he made his accommodation re-
quest on the afternoon of March 19. All that we know is that
DiFranco began to experience symptoms on March 26. Even

11
Some Illinois courts identify a fourth element: pecuniary damages
to persons designated under the Wrongful Death Act. E.g., Bangaly v. Bag-
giani, 2014 IL App. (1st) 123760 ¶ 194 (citing Rodgers v. Cook Cnty., Ill., 2013
IL App. (1st) 123460 ¶ 31).

28 No. 24-3164
if we indulge the assumption that the CPD had yet to accom-
modate DiFranco by March 26 (an assumption that is not sup-
ported by the record, as we discussed above), there is no evi-
dence to support the notion that this delay led to a subsequent
exposure to the virus that caused DiFranco to contract Covid-
19.
This leaves the Estate to again fall back on the anomalies
in the evidence which, in its view, suggest that the City has
concocted a false narrative that exonerates itself from liability.
We have already explained why we are not convinced that
these anomalies would permit a jury to infer that the City
failed to grant DiFranco’s request for a new assignment. Our
rationale also dispenses with the notion that the City, alt-
hough agreeing that DiFranco died in the line of duty, altered
the chronology of his workplace exposure to Covid-19 in or-
der to fend off the Estate’s claims. Even if we are off base in
our reasoning, the record is simply devoid of evidence that
DiFranco contracted Covid-19 while working at some point
after his March 19 request for an accommodation, and with-
out such evidence, the Estate cannot recover on a wrongful
death claim.
One last point. The Estate has pointed to DiFranco’s death,
and his resulting unavailability as a witness, as a reason why
we should be hesitant to affirm the grant of summary judg-
ment. As a general matter, there is no special or relaxed sum-
mary judgment rule for cases involving decedents. True, we
have observed, in cases alleging the use of excessive force by
police officers against, or witnessed by, a now-deceased indi-
vidual or individuals, that we should take particular care in
our examination of the record and in our application of sum-
mary judgment standards. Estate of Escobedo v. Martin, 702

No. 24-3164 29
F.3d 388, 409 (7th Cir. 2012) (quoting Plakas v. Drinski, 19 F.3d
1143, 1147 (7th Cir. 1994)); see also Taylor v. City of Milford, 10
F.4th 800, 811 (7th Cir. 2021). But that observation does not
relieve the Estate of its burden to present evidence showing
that there is a material dispute of fact requiring a trial. Estate
of Escobedo, 702 F.3d at 409.
Although DiFranco could not testify, any number of other
witnesses employed in the Narcotics Division (including oth-
ers on Sergeant Vanek’s team) could have testified as to the
veracity of CPD’s assertion that DiFranco, along with other of-
ficers in the Narcotics Division, were reassigned during the
week of March 23 to monitor public infrastructure from their
individual police vehicles. Of course, both Vanek and Kimble
were deposed in this case. But presumably there were hun-
dreds of other officers available to the Estate who might also
have been questioned on this point; the Estate certainly makes
no argument to the contrary. Such witnesses might not have
been able to speak to DiFranco’s individual reassignment, but
they certainly could have spoken to whether other Narcotics
officers in DiFranco’s position were in fact reassigned and
when that occurred.
III.
The Estate’s case has some intuitive appeal, and the
DiFranco family certainly has our sympathies. Exactly what
DiFranco feared would happen, given his cystic fibrosis and
cystic-fibrosis-related diabetes, did happen: he was exposed
to Covid-19 at work, contracted the disease, and died. The
City’s contemporaneous records regarding his request for a
prophylactic reassignment do not memorialize what steps the
CPD took in response to his accommodation request, and cer-
tain key documents, including the Covid-19 exposure report,

30 No. 24-3164
were or appear to have been prepared after the fact. Nonethe-
less, City witnesses with knowledge of the steps the City took
in response to DiFranco’s request testified that DiFranco was
in fact accommodated with an assignment that isolated him
from others, albeit not as the result of a formal interactive pro-
cess and not in accord with the Department’s Covid-19-re-
lated protocols. At the same time, by conceding the accuracy
of the exposure report’s narrative below, the Estate admitted
that DiFranco was exposed to the Covid-19 virus before he
asked for reassignment; moreover, the Estate has presented
no evidence that DiFranco was exposed to the virus in the
course of his work at some later date. Consequently, there is
no proof that CPD’s action or inaction in response to
DiFranco’s accommodation request injured him. Ultimately,
the Estate has failed to present evidence that calls into dispute
any of the material facts set forth in the City’s motion for sum-
mary judgment. To be sure, there are some inconsistencies
and discrepancies in the City’s evidence, but none that call the
veracity of the City’s account into question; and, as we have
said, the mere possibility that a jury might disbelieve the
City’s witnesses at trial is not a basis on which to deny sum-
mary judgment.
We AFFIRM the district court’s judgment.