Opinion
23-2900
03-14-2024
JOSEpH ZLOZA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF MAUSTON, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
Submitted March 13, 2024 [*]
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. No. 23-cv-0851-bhl Brett H. Ludwig, Judge.
ORDER
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 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 FED. R. APP. 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.
[*] We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the appeal is frivolous. FED. R. APP. p. 34(a)(2)(A).