Jerico Matias Cruz v. City of Chicago

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted August 16, 2023 *
Decided August 21, 2023
Before
DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
No. 23-1267
JERICO MATIAS CRUZ,
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. 21-cv-06916
Mary M. Rowland,
Judge.
O R D E R
Jerico Matias Cruz believes that he was unlawfully arrested for criminal trespass
after he refused to leave a Starbucks coffee shop when told to do so. He sued Starbucks,
an employee of the store, the arresting officers, and the City of Chicago, accusing them
of violating his civil rights. After Cruz failed to respond to a motion to dismiss, the
* 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. FED. R. A PP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. A PP. P. 32.1

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No. 23-1267 Page 2
district court granted the motion. Because the complaint does not provide a factual
basis for liability, we affirm.
We accept the well-pleaded facts in the complaint as true and view them in the
light most favorable to Cruz. Wince v. CBRE, Inc., 66 F.4th 1033, 1039 (7th Cir. 2023).
While Cruz was patronizing a Starbucks shop, an employee called the police, telling
them Cruz was cursing loudly while on his phone and refused to leave when asked.
After the police told Cruz to leave, he moved to an outdoor patio and then the parking
lot, but remained on the property. Because he refused to leave, police arrested him for
trespassing. A prosecutor did not pursue charges, and Cruz had the arrest expunged.
Cruz sued the city of Chicago, police officers, Starbucks, and the employee who
called the police. He invoked, among other statutes, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 2000a(a), the
latter of which prohibits discrimination in public accommodations. He also attached
body-camera recordings of his arrest. Next, the district court screened his complaint.
See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2). Reasoning that Cruz did “not make any direct allegations as
to how [the laws he invoked] apply to his claims,” the court dismissed most claims and
defendants. It allowed him to proceed on a claim of unreasonable seizure under § 1983
against the arresting officers and the city, and it allowed him to amend his complaint to
supply missing allegations for the other claims. In response, Cruz refiled his initial
complaint (with no changes) and moved to reinstate the dismissed defendants.
The remaining defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that the body-camera
recordings and Cruz’s complaint showed probable cause for arrest, thus foreclosing
false arrest liability. When Cruz did not respond, the court granted an extension sua
sponte. He then sought another extension, which the court granted with a warning that
it would be the last and that failure to meet that deadline could result in dismissal. Cruz
again did not respond; instead, he sought another extension. Despite its earlier warning,
the court granted a third extension, but Cruz did not respond by the deadline. About a
month later, the court dismissed the case. It reasoned that the complaint and its
attachments showed probable cause for the arrest, negating a claim of an unreasonable
seizure. The court also denied Cruz’s motion to reinstate the defendants dismissed at
screening.
On appeal, Cruz focuses on what he contends was a violation of § 2000a(a), the
public accommodations law, and he appears to contest the court’s decision at screening
to dismiss his claim under this statute. For that claim to survive screening, he needed to
allege facts allowing the plausible inference that the defendants violated this law.
See Kaminski v. Elite Staffing, Inc., 23 F.4th 774, 777 (7th Cir. 2022). But Cruz did not

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No. 23-1267 Page 3
plausibly allege discrimination under § 2000a(a). His complaint lists the classes that
§ 2000a(a) protects, but it does not allege that his membership in a protected class
motivated any defendant. Without that allegation, neither the court nor the defendants
can infer how any adverse action was linked to a protected characteristic.
See id. at 777 – 78. Moreover, Cruz refused to cure this defect. The court rightly gave Cruz
a chance to amend his complaint and add these missing details, see Smith v. Knox Cnty.
Jail, 666 F.3d 1037, 1040 (7th Cir. 2012) (pro se litigants should be allowed to amend), but
he did not do so. And even now Cruz’s briefing does not fill in this crucial gap.
To the extent that Cruz challenges the dismissal of his claim for unreasonable
seizure, he argues that because he was not convicted, his seizure by arrest must have
been unlawful. He abandoned this argument by not raising it in the district court,
despite numerous chances to do so. In any case, the validity of an arrest does not turn
on an eventual conviction. Rather, the question is whether the arrest was supported by
probable cause, an absolute defense to liability for the arrest. See Gill v. City of
Milwaukee, 850 F.3d 335, 342 (7th Cir. 2017). And based on the complaint and the
attached body-camera recordings, Cruz refused to leave Starbucks’s property when told
to do so, providing probable cause for the officers to arrest him for trespassing.
AFFIRMED

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