Joseph Zloza v. City of Mauston

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted March 13, 2024*
Decided March 14, 2024
By the Court:
No. 23-2900
JOSEPH ZLOZA,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
CITY OF MAUSTON, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of
Wisconsin.
No. 23-cv-0851-bhl
Brett H. Ludwig,
Judge.
O R D E R
Joseph Zloza sued various municipal, state, and federal entities, accusing them of
a decades-long campaign of violating his constitutional rights. His complaint alleged a
litany of acts, beginning when Zloza was in the fourth grade when a Wisconsin police
officer allegedly punished him for running away from home. He also asserted that at
various times police officers drugged, assaulted, and tried to kill him, and that the
federal and state governments should have stopped or investigated this conduct. The
defendants filed motions to dismiss, but the district court set those aside and used its
authority to dismiss a “transparently defective” complaint as frivolous, despite Zloza
having prepaid the filing fee. See Hoskins v. Poelstra, 320 F.3d 761, 763 (7th Cir. 2003);
28 U.S.C. § 1915(e) (sua sponte dismissal for frivolousness permitted “[n]otwithstanding
any filing fee, or any portion thereof, that may have been paid”). The court noted that
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the appeal is
frivolous. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(A).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 23-2900 Page 2
the complaint, along with several letters Zloza had submitted, advanced claims that
were nonsensical and contradictory. The court also concluded that it would be futile to
grant Zloza leave to amend his complaint because his allegations were fantastical.
Zloza appealed, but his opening brief does not engage the district court’s
reasoning or provide a basis for disturbing the judgment. See F ED. R. A PP . P. 28(a)(8)(A).
The brief, in large part, recites portions of letters he submitted to the district court,
written in a stream-of-consciousness manner. It makes no reference to the district
court’s rationale for dismissal, presents no cogent arguments, and cites no law.
Although we construe pro se briefs generously, an appellate brief must contain a
discernable argument for reversal. See id.; Greenbank v. Great Am. Assurance Co., 47 F.4th
618, 629 (7th Cir. 2022). Because Zloza’s brief is wholly deficient, we will dismiss the
appeal. Anderson v. Hardman, 241 F.3d 544, 545 (7th Cir. 2001).
Although this is Zloza’s first appeal in this court, his filings in the district courts
have been frequent and similarly frivolous. A letter that Zloza submitted to the district
court in this case acknowledges that he has “flooded” the Western District of Wisconsin
with 36 complaints in 11 lawsuits filed in only the first 7 months of 2023. Those cases
resulted in a filing bar against Zloza in July 2023. The appellees point us to even more
cases filed by Zloza in the district courts of Wisconsin and of three other states. And we
observe that, in December 2023, he filed yet another similar lawsuit in the Northern
District of Illinois, possibly in an attempt to avoid his filing bar in the Western District
of Wisconsin. Given Zloza’s persistence, we warn him that further frivolous appeals
may result in sanctions, including fines that, if unpaid, may result in a bar on filing
papers in civil lawsuits in any court within this circuit. See Support Sys. Int’l, Inc. v. Mack,
45 F.3d 185, 186 (7th Cir. 1995).
DISMISSED

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