Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-19-01506/USCOURTS-ca7-19-01506-0/pdf.json

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

---

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued April 15, 2020

Decided May 11, 2020

Before

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

AMY C. BARRETT, Circuit Judge

No. 19-1506

VLADIMIR M. GOROKHOVSKY, et al.,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

CITY OF CHICAGO,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of 

Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 18-cv-02800

Sharon Johnson Coleman,

Judge.

O R D E R

On April 13, 2018, Vladimir Gorokhovsky, a lawyer from Milwaukee, was 

having dinner in a Chicago restaurant with M.G., his minor son. While they were in the 

restaurant the City impounded their vehicle and immobilized it with a wheel clamp (or 

“boot”) to enforce several unpaid tickets. The vehicle was owned by Gorokhovsky Law 

Office, LLC, of which Gorokhovsky is the sole member. The LLC is a plaintiff in this 

case along with Gorokhovsky and his son. Gorokhovsky went to a City impound lot

with M.G. and paid the fee for the boot and the outstanding tickets. By that time, 

however, it was after 10 p.m., and a City employee told Gorokhovsky a technician 

would not be available to remove the boot until 10 a.m. the next morning. As a result, 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

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

Case: 19-1506 Document: 51 Filed: 05/11/2020 Pages: 3
No. 19-1506 Page 2

Gorokhovsky had to pay out of pocket for transportation and a hotel for the night. The 

plaintiffs allege M.G. was so distressed by these events he cried uncontrollably and 

became physically ill.

The plaintiffs filed this suit pro se in federal court, asserting claims under § 1983 

and the Fourteenth Amendment as well as state-law claims. The federal claims are 

substantive due process claims alleging the City interfered with the plaintiffs’ property 

and bodily security rights by not immediately removing the boot upon payment. The 

state-law claims allege the City acted negligently, resulting in M.G.’s suffering. The 

plaintiffs sought compensatory damages for Gorokhovsky’s out-of-pocket expenses and 

M.G.’s suffering as well as punitive damages. The district court dismissed the case with 

prejudice, holding the plaintiffs each lacked standing. Specifically, the court held 

Gorokhovsky and M.G. did not have standing because they did not own the vehicle and

the LLC did not have standing because it alleged no injury.

1 The plaintiffs appeal.

At the outset, we note some problems with the district court’s standing analysis.

First, the court treated the issue of whether Gorokhovsky, the sole member of the LLC, 

had standing to assert the rights of the LLC as a jurisdictional issue. That is incorrect: it 

is instead an issue of the real party in interest, which is non-jurisdictional. Knopick v. 

Jayco, Inc., 895 F.3d 525, 529 (7th Cir. 2018); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 17. We “have in the 

past analyzed the issue as one of prudential standing, which would allow us to exercise 

discretion over whether to hear the case on the merits,” but we have also noted the 

concept of prudential standing has been called into question by the Supreme Court. Id.

(citing Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118, 127 & n.3 (2014)). 

Second, as the City concedes on appeal, M.G. did have standing to assert a claim based 

on the alleged violation of his bodily security even though he did not own the vehicle.

He alleges the actions of the City invaded his legally protected interest in bodily 

security, causing him a concrete and particularized injury that was not merely 

hypothetical. This, along with the fact that the injury is redressable, suffices to establish 

constitutional standing. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992).

Regardless, we affirm the dismissal on alternate grounds. This case fails to raise 

federal subject matter jurisdiction because the federal claims are wholly insubstantial 

and frivolous. “When the federal theories are insubstantial in the sense that ‘prior 

decisions inescapably render the claims frivolous,’ there is no federal jurisdiction.” Avila 

1 The plaintiffs stated in their response to the motion to dismiss that “all claims asserted by the plaintiffs 

are arising from [Gorokhovsky’s] own pecuniary losses, not from losses sustained by the LLC.” (District 

Court Docket 36 at 8.)

Case: 19-1506 Document: 51 Filed: 05/11/2020 Pages: 3
No. 19-1506 Page 3

v. Pappas, 591 F.3d 552, 553 (7th Cir. 2010) (citing Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 538 

(1974)). Our prior decisions establish conclusively that a substantive due process claim 

arising from executive action requires egregious conduct that “shocks the conscience.”

See, e.g., Christensen v. Cty. of Boone, 483 F.3d 454, 464 (7th Cir. 2007) (quoting Russ v. 

Watts, 414 F.3d 783, 789 (7th Cir. 2005)). Indeed, the Supreme Court has stated only “the 

most egregious” conduct resulting from executive action can rise to a substantive due 

process violation. Cty. of Sacremento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 846 (1998).

In Count I, the plaintiffs allege the City booted a vehicle to enforce unpaid 

parking and traffic tickets and then failed to have technicians available to remove the 

boot after hours. This does not come close to the kind of egregious, conscience-shocking 

conduct required to support a substantive due process claim. Count II alleges the same 

conduct caused M.G. severe distress to the point of physical illness. While an “extreme 

and outrageous” violation of the plaintiff’s person committed by a state actor may “rise 

to the level of a constitutional violation” in some circumstances, Wudtke v. Davel, 128 

F.3d 1057, 1063 (7th Cir. 1997), the conduct alleged here cannot be called extreme and 

outrageous. Our cases finding such violations involve much more severe conduct. See, 

e.g., Alexander v. DeAngelo, 329 F.3d 912, 916 (7th Cir. 2003) (holding in the context of 

physical assault the plaintiff’s liberty interest in bodily integrity is infringed only “by a 

serious, as distinct from nominal or trivial, battery”). Furthermore, the Fourteenth 

Amendment generally protects only against “deliberate action intended to harm.” Bublitz

v. Cottey, 327 F.3d 485, 491 (7th Cir. 2003). The City did not act with the intention of 

causing injury to M.G., nor could it have reasonably foreseen his injury would result 

from its decision not to have technicians on call 24/7. “The Constitution prevents 

fundamental rights from being aimed at; it does not, however, prevent side effects that 

may occur if the government is aiming at some other objective.” Christensen, 483 F.3d at 

463.

Accordingly, the federal claims are wholly insubstantial and do not support

federal jurisdiction. We affirm the district court’s dismissal of Counts I and II. Because

those federal claims formed the basis for supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law 

claims in Counts III and IV, we affirm the dismissal of those claims as well. We modify 

the district court’s dismissal to be without prejudice, however, as is proper for a 

dismissal for lack of jurisdiction. Lennon v. City of Carmel, 865 F.3d 503, 509 (7th Cir. 

2017).

AFFIRMED

Case: 19-1506 Document: 51 Filed: 05/11/2020 Pages: 3