Manal Farhan v. 2715 NMA LLC (2025)

Citation: Manal Farhan v. 2715 NMA LLC (2025)
Parent Document: Manal Farhan v. 2715 NMA LLC (2025)
Jurisdiction: United States (federal)
Effective Date: 2025-12-04
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10747698/manal-farhan-v-2715-nma-llc/ ↗

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substantive legal standards that apply to a case, see Adams v.
City of Indianapolis, 742 F.3d 720, 728 (7th Cir. 2014), we may
not treat a plaintiff’s failure to plead or argue every element
of her summary judgment burden of proof as a reason to dis-
miss a plausible claim.
     Summary judgment and Rule 12(b)(6) motions to dismiss
arise at very different stages of a case and serve very different
purposes. The former asks whether a plaintiff has enough ev-
idence to potentially satisfy her burden at trial; the latter asks
only whether a claim is plausible enough that it’s worth the
time and expense of discovery. Compare Celotex v. Catrett, 477
U.S. 317, 322–23 (1986) (explaining when summary judgment
is proper), with Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (describing how a plain-
tiff can survive a motion to dismiss). The distinction is im-
portant, because plaintiffs rarely will know or even be able to
guess the full story of what happened to them without dis-
covery. Swierkiewicz, 534 U.S. at 512; Carlson, 758 F.3d at 830.
Demanding that a plaintiff’s pleadings track the summary
judgment standard of proof, as the majority does here, prem-
aturely closes the courtroom doors to plaintiffs with plausible
claims for relief.
                               III
    The majority also faults Farhan for presenting her allega-
tions in what it calls a “novel and unsupported” theory of the
case. Ante, at 2. The majority concedes that “the circumstances
of [Farhan’s] eviction could support a claim under the FHA if
presented differently.” Ante, at 11. But the majority concludes
it “cannot credit” that theory because Farhan did not argue it
properly below. Id.
No. 24-1532                                                       23

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