Dored Shiba v. Markwayne Mullin

── Dored Shiba v. Markwayne Mullin ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Date: May 05, 2026 Category: General In the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 24-2514 DORED SHIBA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MARKWAYNE MULLIN, * Secretary of Homeland Security, Defendant-Appellee. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 18-cv-00914 — Martha M. Pacold, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED APRIL 1, 2025 — DECIDED MAY 5, 2026 ____________________ Before SYKES, SCUDDER, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges. SYKES, Circuit Judge. Dored Shiba suffered a fall at work two months after starting a new job as an immigration officer at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”), an agency within the Department of Homeland * We have substituted Markwayne Mullin, the current Secretary of Home- land Security. See FED. R. APP. P. 43(c)(2). 2 No. 24-2514 Security. He took medical leave, was paid workers’ compen- sation benefits, and remained off work for more than three years. When it became clear that he was incapable of return- ing to work, the agency terminated his employment. Shiba contested that decision before the Merit Systems Protection Board, which ordered the USCIS to reinstate him. His attempted return to work was not successful. His symp- toms immediately worsened, and he again took medical leave. When he applied to restart his workers’ compensation payments, he told the Department of Labor that he was una- ble to work because the residual infirmities from his original injury had never improved. While Shiba was still on leave, the Office of Inspector General opened an inquiry into his freelance activities repre- senting refugees before the United Nations Refugee Agency. After a lengthy investigation, the Inspector General deter- mined that he had improperly leveraged his federal position on behalf of Iraqi refugees. The USCIS again fired him. Shiba sued the Secretary of Homeland Security challenging his termination and alleging various forms of disability discrimination in violation of the Rehabilitation Act. He accused the agency of failing to accommodate his injury, subjecting him to a hostile work environment, and retaliating against him. The district court entered summary judgment for the Secretary on all claims. Narrowing his focus on appeal, Shiba presses only his ac- commodation and hostile-workplace claims. As the district judge correctly held, however, these claims are largely unex- hausted because Shiba did not timely pursue his administra- tive remedies. The claims also fail on the merits. We affirm. No. 24-2514 3 I. Background Shiba’s tenure as a federal employee began in 1998 when he was hired as a legal assistant at the Social Security Admin- istration. In late 2002 he slipped and fell in the bathroom at work, hitting his head on a sink. Shiba resigned from his po- sition and applied for Social Security disability benefits. He also sought and was approved for disability retirement, which entitled him to a separate annuity from the Office of Personnel Management. Shiba reentered the federal work force about four and a half years later. In April 2007 he started a new job as an immi- gration information officer in the Chicago field office of the USCIS. Because he continued to receive his disability annuity, he was classified in the USCIS employment system as a “reemployed annuitant.” In June 2007, just two months after starting his new job, Shiba slipped and injured his head and back in another bath- room fall. (The details of the incident