Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-15-01829/USCOURTS-ca7-15-01829-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted August 25, 2015*

Decided August 25, 2015

Before

RICHARD D. CUDAHY, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 15-1829

JOSEPH LEE BELL, JR.,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

GREGORY WAYNE NAWROCKI, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

No. 15-cv-249-pp

Pamela Pepper,

Judge.

O R D E R

Joseph Bell filed this action in federal court against his Milwaukee landlord and 

two other men. Essentially he alleges that his landlord tried to pressure him into 

abandoning his apartment by withholding adequate heat and hiring the other 

defendants—one of them a neighborhood drug dealer—to provoke a physical 

 

* The appellees were not served with process in the district court and are not 

participating in this appeal. After examining the appellant’s brief and the record, we 

have concluded that this case is appropriate for summary disposition. See FED. R. APP.

P. 34(a)(2). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

Case: 15-1829 Document: 18 Filed: 08/25/2015 Pages: 2
No. 15-1829 Page 2

altercation and give the landlord a pretext to evict him. The action of the defendants, Bell 

claims, violated the terms of his lease as well as state landlord-tenant laws. 

The district court screened Bell’s complaint, see 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B); Rowe v. 

Shake, 196 F.3d 778, 783 (7th Cir. 1999), and dismissed the action after concluding that 

Bell does not assert any claims under federal law or allege diversity jurisdiction over his 

state-law claims. Bell appeals, but he does not dispute the absence of diversity 

jurisdiction. And, as the district court explained, there is no federal-question jurisdiction 

because Bell’s complaint raises only state-law claims. Thus the district court properly 

dismissed the case for want of subject-matter jurisdiction. 

AFFIRMED. 

Case: 15-1829 Document: 18 Filed: 08/25/2015 Pages: 2