United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted November 2, 2020*

Decided November 4, 2020 

Before 

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge 

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge 

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge

No. 20-1452 

KHALED SHABANI, 

 Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v.

CITY OF MADISON, et al., 

Defendants-Appellees. 

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. 

No. 19-cv-65-bbc 

Barbara B. Crabb, 

Judge. 

O R D E R

This is one of several lawsuits that Khaled Shabani brought against the City of 

Madison and its police officers. He asserts that, on various occasions, officers falsely 

arrested him, failed to intervene to prevent an officer’s use of excessive force against 

him, and retaliated against him for his prior suits. The district court entered summary 

judgment for the defendants, concluding that his false-arrest claim was barred by the 

doctrine of claim preclusion and unsupported by any evidence, and that his remaining 

claims also lacked evidentiary support. He filed a notice of appeal, but later moved to 

*

 We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and 

record adequately present the facts and legal arguments and oral argument would not 

significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). 
No. 20-1452 Page 2 

reopen the case so that he could submit evidence. The district court noted that Shabani 

neither substantiated his motion nor specified the relief he sought, so it denied the 

motion. 

Construing Shabani’s appellate brief liberally, see Anderson v. Hardman, 241 F.3d 

544, 545 (7th Cir. 2001), we discern only one argument: that the district court’s allegedly 

erroneous denial of his motion to reopen prevented him from introducing evidence to 

defeat summary judgment. But we lack jurisdiction to review this denial because 

Shabani filed his motion to reopen after filing his notice of appeal. His failure to file a 

separate notice of appeal from that decision means that we cannot review it. See Sosebee 

v. Astrue, 494 F.3d 583, 590 (7th Cir. 2007). 

Otherwise, Shabani’s brief fails to develop any basis for disturbing the district 

court’s judgment. He does not specify any errors in the court’s decision, nor does he 

engage the court’s rationale for ruling against him. As we have explained, “a brief must 

contain an argument consisting of more than a generalized assertion of error, with 

citations to supporting authority.” Anderson, 241 F.3d at 545, see also Fed. R. 

App. P. 28(a)(8)(A). 

This appeal is frivolous. And it is just one among many frivolous suits that 

Shabani has filed in the past few years. He lost a suit in 2016 against the Madison Police 

Department and did not appeal. He filed two suits this year that were promptly 

dismissed by the district judge as frivolous, and in each the judge certified that an 

appeal also would be frivolous. Shabani appealed anyway, but this court agreed with 

the judge in each of those cases and denied his motions to proceed in forma pauperis. 

Meanwhile Shabani has filed and lost at least eight similar suits in state court. It is thus 

evident that he is abusing the privilege of litigating in forma pauperis. We now order that 

in all of his future civil suits—in district courts of this circuit, as well as in the court of 

appeals—he prepay the filing fees in full. In other words, his entitlement to litigate in 

forma pauperis is revoked because of his persistent misuse of that option. 

DISMISSED