Jill Otis v. Marie Froh

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted November 21, 2023*
Decided November 21, 2023
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge
No. 22-2041
JILL OTIS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
MARIE FROH,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of
Wisconsin.
No. 20-CV-1711-JPS
J. P. Stadtmueller,
Judge.
O R D E R
Jill Otis appeals the dismissal of her suit alleging that, over six years before she
sued, a county worker violated her constitutional rights by taking custody of her minor
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C). In the briefs on appeal, the
appellee is referred to as both “Marie Froh” and “Marie Flos,” but in her disclosure
statement the appellee says that she is “more properly identified as Marie Froh”; we
thus use “Marie Froh” in the caption.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 22-2041 Page 2
son. The dismissal was based on the expiration of the statute of limitations. Because Otis
does not challenge this reason for her adverse judgment, we dismiss the appeal.
Otis sued the State of Wisconsin, Racine County, and one of its employees, Marie
Froh, alleging that over six years earlier they unlawfully took and retained custody of
her minor child. A magistrate judge, proceeding with the parties’ consent under
28 U.S.C. § 636(c), dismissed the state and county defendants and allowed Otis to
proceed against Froh under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Froh moved to dismiss. She contended
that the relevant statute of limitations had expired when Otis sued on November 13,
2020. The district court agreed. It ruled that Otis had reason to know about her claim on
September 17, 2014—the date Froh took her son. See Milchtein v. Milwaukee County,
42 F.4th 814, 822 (7th Cir. 2022). And, the court added, whether it borrowed Wisconsin’s
prior statute of limitations (six years) or its current statute (three years) for her § 1983
claims, Otis’s suit was unquestionably time-barred. See Wis. Stat. Ann. § 893.53.
The court allowed Otis to amend the complaint, but she never did. It thought
that Otis might have been attempting to sue on behalf of her son, who had reunited
with his mother and was now over 18. It gave her 21 days either to amend her
complaint to clarify that she was asserting a representative claim on behalf of her son,
or to have her son seek to substitute as the plaintiff. See F ED. R. C IV. P. 17(a)(3). Otis did
not amend her complaint, and her son did not sign any filing attempting to substitute
himself as the plaintiff. The court, therefore, entered the judgment of dismissal.
On appeal, Otis does not contest the correctness of the district court’s conclusion
that her suit is time-barred, let alone cite any case law or legal argument that would cast
doubt on the ruling. She merely repeats the allegations in her complaint that Froh
wrongly deprived her of custody of her son. Although we construe pro se briefs
generously, an appellate brief must contain an argument challenging the district court’s
reason for dismissal and support that argument. See F ED. R. APP . P. 28(a)(8)(A); Anderson
v. Hardman, 241 F.3d 544, 545–46 (7th Cir. 2001). But an appellate brief like Otis’s “that
does not even try to engage the reasons the appellant lost has no prospect of success,”
Klein v. O'Brien, 884 F.3d 754, 757 (7th Cir. 2018), and must therefore be dismissed,
Anderson, 241 F.3d at 545–46.
DISMISSED

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