Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01110/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01110-0/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 March 30, 2016*

Decided April 6, 2016

Before

DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 16‐1110

LAURA A. JENNINGS,

Plaintiff‐Appellant,

v.

CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, et al.,

Defendants‐Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Southern District of

Indiana, Indianapolis Division.

No. 1:16‐cv‐00004‐TWP‐MJD

Tanya Walton Pratt,

Judge.

O R D E R

Appellant Laura Jennings has filed numerous cases in this court and in the

district courts of this circuit—enough to earn herself a sanctions order barring her from

filing any other litigation in any court in the Seventh Circuit until she has paid all the

                                                 

* After examining the briefs and record, we have concluded that oral argument is

unnecessary. The appeal is thus submitted on the briefs and record. See FED. R. APP. P.

34(a)(2). Pursuant to Seventh Circuit Internal Operating Procedure 6(b), this case has

been designated as successive to No. 14‐3337 and has been assigned to the same panel.

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

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

Case: 16-1110 Document: 12 Filed: 04/06/2016 Pages: 2
No. 16‐1110    Page 2

fees she owes to the district courts and to this court. See Support Sys. Int’l, Inc. v. Mack,

45 F.3d 185, 186 (7th Cir. 1995) (per curiam). But she filed the present appeal before the

Mack order was entered, and so we will resolve it on the merits based on the documents

she has already filed.

That said, her brief on appeal is hard to decipher. She writes that “[t]he

Appellant filed a civil suit on January 4, 2016 in the U.S. District Court in good faith

requesting a jury of her peers to hear the case presented. The monetary relief of

$11,000,000 for the unrelenting, consistent endurance of acts of retaliation and/or

reprisal seems a fair request.” The district court understood her to be making the

following allegations:

The defendants have violated 18 U.S.C. 1331 [sic], 18 U.S.C. 1028 Amendment I,

Amendment XIV Reprisal / Retaliation Act prior to during and to date while

Plaintiff is excercising [sic] her right to file a complaint as guaranteed by the

Constitution of the United States. Also acts of retaliation against plaintiff for

filing pass [sic] discrimination complaint :15‐2852 [sic] (all of which violates the

Plaintiff’s Civil Rights) (XIV Retaliation 42 U.S.C. § 405) and all prior cases.

The district court concluded that the complaint, even read generously, contained only

bare legal conclusions and lacked sufficient facts to state a plausible claim for relief. See

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). It accordingly dismissed the complaint for

failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, see Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 12(b)(6). In keeping with this court’s advice in cases such as Luevano v. Wal‐

Mart Stores, Inc., 722 F.3d 1014, 1022 (7th Cir. 2014), the court gave Jennings 14 days in

which to show cause why the case should not be dismissed on that basis.   

Jennings filed nothing in response to the court’s invitation, and so on January 25,

2016, it entered a judgment under Rule 58 dismissing the action. Jennings has appealed

from that order, but her appellate brief neither corrects the flaws that the district court

identified nor does it make a coherent argument showing why reversal might be

appropriate. We therefore AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.   

Case: 16-1110 Document: 12 Filed: 04/06/2016 Pages: 2