Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-18-03693/USCOURTS-ca7-18-03693-0/pdf.json

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

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In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

Nos. 18-3693 & 19-1439 

RONALD CROSBY, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v.

CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., 

Defendants-Appellees. 

____________________ 

Appeals from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. 

No. 18-cv-4094 — Virginia M. Kendall, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED DECEMBER 10, 2019 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 5, 2020 

____________________ 

Before KANNE, SYKES, and BARRETT, Circuit Judges. 

BARRETT, Circuit Judge. This case is about the scope of a release in a settlement agreement. In 2015, Ronald Crosby settled a lawsuit against Eduardo Gonzalez, a Chicago police officer who allegedly shoved Crosby out of a third-floor window before arresting him. In the settlement stipulation, 

Crosby released “all claims he had, has, or may have in the 

future ... arising either directly or indirectly out of the incident” against Gonzalez, the City of Chicago, and all future, 

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2 Nos. 18-3693 & 19-1439 

current, or former City officers. Crosby insists that this release 

does not bar his new suit against the City and its officers for 

torts they committed in the course of covering up Gonzalez’s 

misconduct. We disagree. 

I. 

In 2010, Ronald Crosby plummeted three stories from a 

window before Eduardo Gonzalez, a Chicago police officer, 

arrested him. Crosby maintains that Gonzalez intentionally 

pushed him through the window and then tried to justify his 

actions by falsely claiming—with corroboration from other 

officers who were present—that Crosby possessed a gun during the arrest. This alleged lie had grave consequences for 

Crosby: he was charged under the Illinois armed career criminal statute, convicted by a jury, and sentenced to eight years 

in prison. His conviction was reversed in 2014 by an Illinois 

intermediate appellate court and again by the same court in 

2016 after the Supreme Court of Illinois vacated the first reversal. 

Between the initial reversal of his conviction and the Illinois Supreme Court’s order vacating that reversal, Crosby initiated a pro se lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the arresting officers, alleging excessive force and an attempted 

coverup. Crosby was appointed counsel, who filed an 

amended complaint naming only Gonzalez and suing only 

for excessive force and improper entry. The parties settled, 

and the district court dismissed Gonzalez’s claims with prejudice in May 2015. 

The settlement agreement was between Crosby, Gonzalez, 

and “Defendant, City of Chicago,” though the latter had not 

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Nos. 18-3693 & 19-1439 3 

been named as a defendant in the complaint. It provided that 

Crosby would receive $5,000 in exchange for releasing 

all claims he had or has against the individual 

Defendant, Eduardo Gonzalez, and the City of 

Chicago, and its future, current or former officers ... , including but not limited to all claims he 

had, has, or may have in the future, under local, 

state, or federal law, arising either directly or indirectly out of the incident which was the basis 

of this litigation, and that such release and discharge also is applicable to any and all unnamed and/or unserved defendants. 

The contract also stipulated that Crosby’s attorney “interpreted, completely read and explained” its contents to 

Crosby, that it was governed by Illinois law, and that it was 

not to be “construed against a party merely because that party 

is or was the principal drafter.” Crosby, his attorney, and the 

City’s attorneys signed the agreement. 

Three years after Crosby entered this settlement, he filed 

another suit, this one against the City, Gonzalez, and the officers who backed up Gonzalez’s story. He did not rehash his 

claim for Gonzalez’s use of excessive force; instead, he focused on the officers’ alleged lie that he possessed a gun during the arrest. Crosby characterized this as a fabrication designed to cover up Gonzalez’s misconduct, and as a result of 

this lie, he said, he was unlawfully detained before trial, maliciously prosecuted, and wrongfully convicted and imprisoned. 

The defendants argued that Crosby’s release of “all possible claims that arise directly or indirectly from the ‘incident’” 

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4 Nos. 18-3693 & 19-1439 

plainly encompassed his claims regarding the defendants’ 

coverup of Gonzalez’s misconduct. The district court agreed 

and entered judgment against Crosby; in a separate order, it 

dealt with the parties’ dispute over costs.1 While it rejected 

some of the City’s claimed costs on the ground that they involved nonessential copying, it awarded the City $2,131.60 for 

the printing of transcripts of Crosby’s state-court criminal 

proceedings. The City reasonably printed the transcripts, the 

district court concluded, because Crosby’s state-court proceedings were relevant to this litigation. Crosby appeals both 

the judgment against him and the district court’s award of 

costs to the City. 

II. 

Crosby acknowledges that the agreement releases “all 

claims he had, has, or may have in the future ... arising either 

directly or indirectly out of the incident which was the basis 

of this litigation.” But he insists that this language is not as 

broad as it appears. He points out that the first four paragraphs of the agreement refer to his complaint against Gonzalez; for example, the third paragraph states that “settlement 

of these claims is not an admission of liability ... .” According 

to Crosby, these specific references narrow the scope of the 

general release that appears later in the contract, indicating 

that the claims that he asserted in his first suit—the ones 

against Gonzalez for excessive force—are the only ones encompassed by the release. 

1 The district court also accepted the defendants’ alternative argument 

that Crosby’s claims were precluded by res judicata. Because we affirm on 

the basis of the settlement agreement, we don’t address this alternative 

ground. 

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Nos. 18-3693 & 19-1439 5 

Crosby invokes Illinois law, which governs the construction of the contract, to support his position. In Gladinus v. 

Laughlin, the front of a check from an insurance company was 

coded for property damage to a car, and the check was for the 

exact amount of damage to the plaintiff’s vehicle. Even 

though the back of the check noted that by endorsing the 

check, “the payee/s agree/s to release and discharge all claims 

against [the insurance company],” the court held that the 

front of the check established “the understanding of all concerned parties that the release affected her claim for property 

damage only and not her action for personal injuries.” 366 

N.E.2d 430, 431–33 (Ill. App. Ct. 1977). Similarly, in Chicago 

Transit Authority v. Yellow Cab Co., the plaintiff had signed a 

release containing a four-digit code that referred exclusively 

to a property damage claim, the settlement was for the exact 

amount of damage done to the bus involved in the accident, 

and affidavits of the plaintiff’s claims adjusters stated that 

they contemplated releasing only the claim for property damage. Given this evidence, the court held that the release did 

not include claims for personal injuries arising from the accident despite broader language in the release. 463 N.E.2d 738, 

741 (Ill. App. Ct. 1984). 

Crosby argues that these cases establish a rule that an 

agreement’s reference to a specific claim always limits an otherwise general release to only the claim mentioned. That position reflects a significant misunderstanding of these cases. 

Under Illinois law, “the intention of the parties controls the 

scope and effect of the release; such intent is determined from 

the language of the instrument when read in light of the circumstances surrounding the transaction.” Gladinus, 366 

N.E.2d at 696. Gladinus and Chicago Transit Authority simply 

apply that rule, holding that the language of the relevant 

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6 Nos. 18-3693 & 19-1439 

contracts—which were coded for property damage with settlement amounts to match—reflected the parties’ intent to release only claims for property damage. 

The contract between Crosby, Gonzalez, and the City is 

markedly different from those at issue in Gladinus and Chicago 

Transit Authority. The latter contracts contained very specific 

indicia of the parties’ intent to restrict ostensibly broad language; the references to the underlying suit in Crosby’s settlement agreement are not analogous. It would have been odd 

for the settlement not to mention the underlying suit that 

prompted it; the desire to dispose of those claims is what 

drove the parties to the bargaining table. But the contract 

makes plain that in exchange for the settlement money, 

Crosby agreed to do more than dismiss his existing suit with 

prejudice: he also agreed to release the City, Gonzalez, and its 

officers from liability for “all claims he had, has, or may have 

in the future ... arising either directly or indirectly out of the 

incident which was the basis of this litigation.” The agreement 

was designed to resolve all claims related to the incident, not 

only the ones that Crosby asserted in his first suit. 

Crosby offers another reason why we should construe the 

scope-of-release clause narrowly. The clause releases claims 

“arising either directly or indirectly out of the incident which 

was the basis of this litigation.” As Crosby sees it, the “incident” 

to which the contract refers is Gonzalez’s act of pushing him 

through the window; the alleged coverup is a distinct incident 

that the agreement does not reach. Thus, he maintains, the release bars additional claims related to the use of excessive 

force, not claims stemming from his pretrial confinement, 

conviction, and imprisonment. 

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Nos. 18-3693 & 19-1439 7 

We rejected this very argument in Cannon v. Burge, which 

involved a similar release. 752 F.3d 1079 (7th Cir. 2014). In 

Cannon, the plaintiff sued Chicago police officers who tortured him to extract a confession of a crime for which he was 

ultimately convicted and imprisoned. He settled the suit for a 

modest sum in a contract that released not only the claims asserted against the defendant officers, but also “all claims he 

has, or may have in the future, arising either directly or indirectly out of the incident which was the basis of this litigation.” Id. at 1083. Years later, the plaintiff sued the City and 

various employees for, among other things, malicious prosecution, deprivation of a fair trial, and false imprisonment. To 

escape the release, the plaintiff “attempt[ed] to carve out his 

claims for wrongful conviction and malicious prosecution as 

separate and distinct incidents not covered by the settlement.” We rebuffed that attempt, observing that it “ignore[d] ... the ‘arising from’ language in the 1988 Stipulation.” Id. at 1092. 

The same reasoning controls here. Crosby released all 

claims “arising either directly or indirectly out of the incident.” 

Even if “the incident” refers to Crosby’s fall through the window rather than the arrest as a whole, Crosby’s claims regarding the coverup plainly “aris[e] from” the incident that was 

being covered up. As in Cannon, the language of the release 

plainly encompasses his claims for wrongs committed after 

his arrest; it forecloses his attempt to carve those claims out. 

Cannon dispenses with Crosby’s next argument too. 

Crosby maintains that he did not release his claims for injuries 

caused by the coverup because they “did not exist” when he 

signed the settlement agreement. He could not assert his 

state-law claim for malicious prosecution until his conviction 

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was vacated, see Cult Awareness Network v. Church of Scientology Int’l, 685 N.E.2d 1347, 1350 (Ill. 1997), his federal claim for 

unlawful pretrial detention until he was released, Manuel v. 

City of Joliet, 903 F.3d 667, 670 (7th Cir. 2018), or his federal 

claim for unlawful conviction until he obtained a favorable 

disposition, see Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 486–87 (1994). 

These were “future” claims, Crosby says, and Illinois disfavors the release of claims that have not accrued at the time the 

agreement is entered. 

But as we explained in Cannon, what matters under Illinois 

law is whether the parties could foresee these claims, not 

whether they had accrued at the time of the settlement. Like 

Crosby, the plaintiff in Cannon “had already been wrongfully 

convicted as a result of what he assert[ed] to be a malicious 

prosecution”; we noted that the fact “[t]hat he could not bring 

these claims until his conviction was set aside is irrelevant to 

the clear language of the ... Stipulation.” Cannon, 752 F.3d at 

1092. The relevant question is whether these claims were 

within the contemplation of the parties. See Farm Credit Bank 

of St. Louis v. Whitlock, 581 N.E.2d 664, 667 (Ill. 1991) (“[W]here 

both parties were aware of an additional claim at the time of 

signing the release, courts have given effect to the general release language of the agreement to release that claim as 

well.”); Rakowski v. Lucente, 472 N.E.2d 791, 794 (Ill. 1984) (noting that the plaintiff “knew when he executed the release” 

that the defendant “may have contributed to the accident”). 

And harms that arose from the same incident that was the 

subject of the Cannon plaintiff’s first suit—indeed, harms that 

he had already suffered at the time he signed the release—

were necessarily within the contemplation of the parties. 

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Nos. 18-3693 & 19-1439 9 

Crosby is similarly situated to the plaintiff in Cannon: he 

was well aware that he might have claims for malicious prosecution, unlawful detention, and unlawful conviction at the 

time he signed the release. In fact, he appeared to assert some 

of these claims in the first complaint that he filed in the original suit, see Complaint at 2–3, Crosby v. Gonzalez, No. 12-cv5622 (N.D. Ill. July 17, 2012), even though his amended complaint dropped them. Moreover, the Illinois intermediate appellate court had reversed his conviction more than a year before he signed the settlement agreement, so he knew at that 

point that bringing these claims was a very real—perhaps imminent—possibility.2 See People v. Crosby, 2014 IL App (1st) 

121645-U, vacated, 60 N.E.3d 75 (Ill. 2016). 

Still bucking Cannon, Crosby insists that a plaintiff’s release of future claims is unenforceable. But again, the relevant 

question is whether the claims were within the contemplation 

of the parties. Illinois does not prohibit the release of foreseeable claims; it prohibits the blanket release of claims that are 

“not within the contemplation of the parties.” Feltmeier v. Feltmeier, 798 N.E.2d 75, 89 (Ill. 2003). And as we have already 

explained, claims related to Crosby’s detention and prosecution were plainly foreseeable to the City, Gonzalez, and 

Crosby himself. 

But, Crosby protests, Illinois requires a “clear expression” 

of intent to extinguish future claims, see Chubb v. Amax Coal 

Co., 466 N.E.2d 369, 372 (Ill. App. Ct. 1984), and his release is 

2 While the Illinois Supreme Court vacated the appellate court’s judgment, it did so in 2016, and Crosby signed the release in 2015. Crosby then 

prevailed in the appellate court on remand; it reversed his conviction for 

a second time in 2017. 

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“inconsistent” and “ambiguous.” It “illogically” discharges 

“all claims he had [or] has” against the City and its officers, 

“including but not limited to all claims that he had, has, or 

may have in the future.” How, Crosby asks, can future claims 

be included in claims that one “had or has?” 

We will put aside Crosby’s characterization of his post-arrest claims as “future” claims. As we have already explained, 

the relevant question is whether the claims were within the 

contemplation of the parties, not whether they had accrued. 

Regardless, Crosby’s effort to gin up ambiguity is unavailing. 

The phrase is plainly designed to encompass any past, present, or future claims arising out of the incident that was the 

subject of his first suit. Illinois courts “will not strain to find 

an ambiguity where none exists,” so neither will we. Hobbs v. 

Hartford Ins. Co. of the Midwest, 823 N.E.2d 561, 564 (Ill. 2005). 

Crosby is bound by the terms to which he agreed, even if he 

regrets them now. 

III. 

There is one final matter: costs. Crosby argues that the district court should not have permitted the City to recover the 

costs that it incurred in procuring court transcripts of 

Crosby’s state criminal proceedings. According to Crosby, 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54 places the burden on the 

defendants to show the reasonableness of their requested 

costs. And, as he sees it, the City failed to carry that burden. 

Crosby has it backwards. The City did not bear the burden 

of showing that the costs were reasonable; Crosby bore the 

burden of showing that the costs were unreasonable. We have 

made very clear that “[t]he losing party has the burden to affirmatively show that the prevailing party is not entitled to 

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Nos. 18-3693 & 19-1439 11 

costs.” M.T. Bonk Co. v. Milton Bradley Co., 945 F.2d 1404, 1409 

(7th Cir. 1991); see also Beamon v. Marshall & Ilsley Tr. Co., 411 

F.3d 854, 864 (7th Cir. 2005) (“There is a presumption that the 

prevailing party will recover costs, and the losing party bears 

the burden of an affirmative showing that taxed costs are not 

appropriate.”) This “presumption in favor of awarding costs 

to the prevailing party is difficult to overcome, and ... the 

court must award costs unless it states good reasons for denying them.” Weeks v. Samsung Heavy Indus. Co., 126 F.3d 926, 

945 (7th Cir. 1997). We will not disturb a district court’s award 

of costs unless it clearly abused its discretion. Beamon, 411 

F.3d at 864. Crosby has done nothing to show that the City’s 

requested costs were unreasonable, much less that the district 

court abused its discretion in granting the City’s request. 

* * * 

The district court’s judgment and award of costs are 

AFFIRMED. 

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