Brian S. Singer v. City of Chicago

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Argued September 30, 2025
Decided October 14, 2025
Before
MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
NANCY L. MALDONADO, Circuit Judge
No. 24-2469
BRIAN S. SINGER,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
CITY OF CHICAGO, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 1:19-cv-00135
Martha M. Pacold,
Judge.
O R D E R
This is the third civil rights lawsuit that Brian Singer has brought in connection
with his arrest by Chicago police officers in 2016. He voluntarily dismissed the first two
suits. The district court dismissed his third suit as an impermissible second refiling of
his first suit under the Illinois savings statute, see 735 ILCS 5/13-217, and otherwise
barred by the two-year limitations period. Because the district court correctly concluded
that all three of Singer’s suits arose from the same operative facts, we affirm.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. A PP. P. 32.1

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No. 24-2469 Page 2
I
Singer brought his first suit (Singer I) pro se in state court in October 2017,
alleging that Chicago police officers unlawfully arrested him and beat him in October
2016. He sought compensatory damages for pain and suffering and medical expenses.
Singer eventually retained counsel and voluntarily dismissed his suit without prejudice
in January 2018, stating in his motion that he intended to refile in federal court.
Six months later, Singer filed suit in federal court (Singer II), seeking relief for the
same arrest-related injuries—this time against his condominium association, members
of the association, and the association’s law firm. Singer filed his initial form complaint
pro se, but shortly thereafter he retained counsel who soon entered an appearance.
According to Singer, the condominium defendants for years had harassed and
discriminated against him based on his faith and disability, violated state housing rules,
and, as relevant here, conspired to violate his civil rights by making “false police reports
which helped incite the CPD officers” to falsely arrest and beat him in October 2016. He
further reserved the right to amend his complaint to add as defendants the City of
Chicago and police officers involved in the October 2016 arrest. Singer alleged that the
beating resulted in permanent injuries to his lumbar spine, cervical spine, and left
shoulder and sought damages for medical expenses. During discovery, Singer’s counsel
sought the identities of police officers involved in Singer’s arrest, intending to add the
officers as defendants. But in October 2018, Singer voluntarily dismissed the second suit
without prejudice.
Singer brought his third suit (Singer III)—the subject of this appeal—in January
2019. In his operative complaint, filed by his current counsel, Singer alleged that the
City of Chicago and individual officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights during
the 2016 arrest when they illegally detained him and used excessive force against him.
See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. As in his earlier two suits, Singer sought damages for the injuries
he allegedly suffered while detained.
The City of Chicago moved to dismiss the complaint on untimeliness grounds,
arguing that Singer had waited more than two years after his claim accrued to file this
suit. Singer countered by invoking the Illinois savings statute, a remedial provision in
the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure that allows plaintiffs one year after a voluntary
dismissal to refile their complaint if any asserted claims arose from the same set of facts
alleged in the prior action. See 735 ILCS 5/13-217. Singer contended that the savings
statute allowed him to proceed because he refiled Singer III within a year of voluntarily

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No. 24-2469 Page 3
dismissing Singer I. The City of Chicago responded that Singer had already taken
advantage of his opportunity to refile when he brought Singer II because it raised the
same facts as Singer I regarding the 2016 arrest.
The district court accepted the City’s argument that Singer’s complaint was
untimely and dismissed the complaint with prejudice. The court acknowledged that
state tolling and revival rules apply to § 1983 claims, see Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261,
269 (1985), but determined that Singer could not rely on the Illinois savings statute to
proceed on Singer III because all three suits arose, at least in part, from Singer’s 2016
arrest. Accordingly, the district court concluded that Singer III was an impermissible
second refiling of Singer I.
II
The Illinois savings statute offers plaintiffs a second chance to refile an action
that was dismissed—whether voluntarily or for a jurisdictional defect. See 735 ILCS
5/13-217. Under the statute, plaintiffs have just one opportunity to file a follow-on
action arising out of the same operative facts as the earlier, dismissed suit.† See First
Midwest Bank v. Cobo, 124 N.E.3d 926, 930 (Ill. 2018). To determine whether two suits
encompass the same cause of action, the Supreme Court of Illinois has directed courts to
“pragmatically” consider similarities in timing, scope, origin, or motivation of the
actions. Id. (citing River Park, Inc. v. City of Highland Park, 703 N.E.2d 883, 893 (Ill. 1998)).
We review de novo a district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss, accepting as true all
well-pleaded facts in the complaint and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of
the plaintiff. Kubiak v. City of Chicago, 810 F.3d 476, 480–81 (7th Cir. 2016).
On appeal, Singer brings a two-pronged challenge to the district court’s
determination that Singer III was an impermissible second refiling of Singer I. First, he
contends that Singer II should not have been considered his single refiling of Singer I
because it arose from different facts. He attempts to distinguish Singer II from his other
two suits by arguing that it arose from facts unrelated to his 2016 arrest—a pattern of
† This requirement of “same operative facts” mirrors the element under the res
judicata doctrine requiring an “identity of cause of action.” See First Midwest Bank v.
Cobo, 124 N.E.3d 926, 930 (Ill. 2018). But unlike res judicata, the savings statute does not
require identity of parties or a final judgment on the merits to bar a subsequent suit.
See id. at 933.

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No. 24-2469 Page 4
conduct between 2012 and 2016 in which his condominium neighbors engaged in faith-
based discrimination, failed to accommodate his disability, committed insurance fraud,
and violated state housing rules. He stresses that Singer I and III, in contrast, referred
only to his police encounter.
The district court correctly determined that Singer III was barred by the single
refiling rule because Singer’s earlier two suits arose—at least in part—from the same
facts. To be sure, Singer I addressed only the events around Singer’s 2016 arrest. And
Singer II alleged conduct seemingly unrelated to the arrest. But as Illinois courts
interpret the savings statute, a second action is still a refiling of the first if it includes any
claims based on the same facts, even when it also asserts additional claims from
different facts. See D'Last Corp. v. Ugent, 681 N.E.2d 12, 17 (Ill. App. Ct. 1997). Critically,
Singer II’s operative complaint alleged that the condominium defendants made “false
police reports which helped incite the CPD officers.” Singer also explicitly reserved the
right to amend his complaint to add the City of Chicago as well as the police officers
responsible for his arrest. And in both Singer I and II, he sought damages for injuries he
suffered during his arrest.
Singer’s second challenge to the court’s conclusion that Singer III was an
impermissible second refiling of Singer I is that Singer II named different defendants
(i.e., condominium defendants) than those named in Singer I. Singer cites Illinois
appellate decisions for the proposition that “[t]he identity of the defendant is an
essential element of an action” for purposes of the savings statute.
The district court properly concluded that two suits need not name the same
defendants to present the same cause of action. Whether two actions arise from the
same operative facts does not turn on “how the plaintiff labels the complaint,” the
Illinois Supreme Court has clarified with regard to the savings statute. Cobo, 124 N.E.3d
at 930. “The Illinois rule does not differentiate … between actions brought against
different defendants by the same plaintiff.” Evans ex rel. Evans v. Lederle Lab'ys, 167 F.3d
1106, 1113 (7th Cir. 1999). Instead, the single refiling rule applies when defendants
named in the first suit “could have been included in [the second] filing, but were not.”
Watkins v. Ingalls Memorial Hosp., 105 N.E.3d 789, 805 (Ill. App. Ct. 2018); see also
Muhammad v. Oliver, 547 F.3d 874, 878 (7th Cir. 2008). Indeed, in Singer II, Singer
explicitly stated in his complaint that he “reserve[d] the right to amend” so that he
could add the City of Chicago as well as police officers as defendants. And in response
to the City of Chicago’s motion to dismiss in Singer III, Singer admitted that his counsel
in Singer II “aggressively” attempted to obtain the identities of police officers involved

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in his 2016 arrest by issuing subpoenas. Both Singer’s complaint and conduct in Singer II
confirm that the suit partially arose from his arrest and that he took steps toward
adding police defendants before voluntarily dismissing his suit.
Finally, Singer suggests that the district court did not acknowledge that he filed
his complaint in each case pro se—a status that he argues should have entitled those
pleadings to liberal construction and less stringent standards. But Singer overstates the
significance of his pro se status because he had the benefit of counsel at the critical
stages of each of his three suits. Although Singer filed his initial complaints in Singer I
and II pro se, he voluntarily dismissed both suits with the assistance of counsel. And as
the district court recognized, Singer’s counsel in Singer II was involved from an early
stage, entering an appearance shortly after Singer filed his complaint. As for Singer III,
the court was within its discretion to conclude that pro se litigants are bound by
procedural rules, see McNeil v. United States, 508 U.S. 106, 113 (1993), when it dismissed
his third suit as untimely.
AFFIRMED

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