In the

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 23-2360 

THAD F. BROCKETT, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v.

EFFINGHAM COUNTY, ILLINOIS and

JIM NIEMANN, 

Defendants-Appellees. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Southern District of Illinois. 

No. 3:22-cv-00044-SMY — Staci M. Yandle, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED FEBRUARY 5, 2024 — DECIDED AUGUST 29, 2024 

____________________ 

Before ROVNER, BRENNAN, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges. 

ROVNER, Circuit Judge. Thad Brockett, a sheriff’s department employee, alleges he was terminated for supporting the 

former sheriff in disputes between the sheriff and the county 

chair, and for reporting misbehavior by two correctional officers under his supervision. For several decades, the Supreme Court has been fine tuning the scales that weigh a public employee’s free speech rights under the First Amendment 
2 No. 23-2360 

against the government’s need to efficiently and effectively 

provide services to its citizens. Brockett’s appeal of the district 

court’s dismissal of this case might have provided an opportunity to balance these competing interests once more. Our 

adversarial system, however, requires parties to present us 

with arguments minimally demonstrating that they are entitled to relief. Without that, we have no choice but to find that 

claims have been waived, as we do here.

I.

Brockett worked in the Effingham County, Illinois Sheriff’s Department from July 1996 until December 2014. In 2012, 

his supervisor, Sheriff John Monnet, promoted him to Operations Sergeant where he supervised and oversaw jail, telecommunications, and court security personnel. Defendant Jim 

Niemann took office as Chairman of the Effingham County 

Board in 2012. These facts are undisputed. For the remainder 

of the facts, for purposes of this motion to dismiss, we accept 

Brockett’s facts as true and draw reasonable inferences in his 

favor. Esco v. City of Chicago, 107 F.4th 673, 678 (7th Cir. 2024). 

We note that we have gathered many of these facts directly 

from the complaint, as Brockett’s brief failed to cite to the record as required by Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28(6); 

see also Boutros v. Avis Rent a Car Sys., LLC, 802 F.3d 918, 924 

(7th Cir. 2015). 

According to Brockett, upon taking office, Niemann attempted to interfere with, control, and manipulate the operations of the Sheriff’s Department over the objections of Sheriff 

Monnet, and publicly accused the Sheriff of mismanaging 

public funds and converting public property. Niemann and 

other members of the County Board, the Sheriff’s office, and 
No. 23-2360 3

the public were aware that Brockett supported Sheriff Monnet 

in his disputes with Niemann and the Board members.

In early 2013, Sheriff Monnet terminated two Effingham 

County correctional officers after an investigation led by 

Brockett uncovered inmate safety and security procedure violations. Brockett alleges that due to the defendants’ demands, the officers were later reinstated. In mid-2013, Brockett conducted another investigation of the same two correctional officers, collecting evidence that they sexually harassed 

female inmates to obtain or attempt to obtain sexual favors. 

Brockett reported his new findings, along with the original 

findings, to the Sheriff, the Effingham County State’s Attorney, the Illinois State Police, the FBI, an Assistant United 

States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, the Office 

of the Illinois Appellate Prosecutor, coworkers not in the 

chain of command in the Sheriff’s Department, and to members of the public. Nevertheless, Niemann and the Board 

shielded the officers from discipline and prosecution.

In early 2014, Niemann, with approval of the Board, successfully initiated proceedings with the Illinois Labor Relations Board to have Brockett removed from the union so that 

he could be terminated without union protection. The newly 

elected Sheriff, David Mahon, took office on December 1, 

2014, and discharged Brockett two weeks later, claiming that 

the Board had deleted funding for the position of Operations 

Sergeant. Brockett alleged that this rationale was pretextual, 

and that the defendants were, in fact, retaliating against him 

for exercising his First Amendment rights by supporting 

Sheriff Monnet, and by reporting the correctional officers’ unlawful acts.
4 No. 23-2360 

Brockett sued Niemann and the County pursuant to 42 

U.S.C. § 1983, alleging a claim of First Amendment retaliation. 

The district court determined first that Brockett’s speech pertained to matters personal to Brockett and not to matters of 

public concern, and second, that his speech was made pursuant to his official duties and not as a private citizen. For these 

reasons, the court concluded that Brockett’s speech was not 

protected by the First Amendment. Brockett appealed but has 

failed to provide this court with anything more than the most 

cursory arguments. We therefore affirm the district court’s 

grant of the defendants’ motion to dismiss, but for alternate 

reasons.

II.

Public employees do not relinquish their First 

Amendment rights by accepting government employment. 

Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 417 (2006). On the other hand, 

government employers, like all employers, must be able to 

curtail speech that interferes with the operations of the 

government entity in order to promote “the efficiency of the 

public services it performs through its employees.” Pickering 

v. Bd. of Ed. of Twp. High Sch. Dist. 205, 391 U.S. 563, 568 (1968).

The Supreme Court’s major analyses of public employee free 

speech began with Pickering and was modified by Connick v. 

Myers, 461 U.S. 138 (1983)—the two cases together forming 

the now-well-known balancing test which weighs a public 

employee’s interest in freedom of speech against the 

government’s interest in the efficient provision of services. In 

the Pickering-Connick framework, a court must first ask if the 

employee spoke (1) as a private citizen and (2) on a matter of 

public concern. Connick, 461 U.S. at 147; Pickering, 391 U.S. at 

568. If the answer to either of these questions is “no,” then the 
No. 23-2360 5

employee has no First Amendment cause of action. Garcetti, 

547 U.S. at 418. If both are true, then the court goes on to ask 

whether “the interest of the state, as an employer, in 

promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs 

through its employees” outweighs “the interests of the 

[employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of 

public concern.” Pickering, 391 U.S. at 568. In Garcetti the court 

further clarified, that “when public employees make 

statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are 

not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and 

the Constitution does not insulate their communications from 

employer discipline.” Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 421. 

The Supreme Court has noted, “conducting these inquiries sometimes has proved difficult.” Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 418; 

see Kingman v. Frederickson, 40 F.4th 597, 602 (7th Cir. 2022) 

(noting that determining whether the Free Speech Clause protected the plaintiff’s complaints about the city administrator 

was not “an easy task”). Yet despite these complexities, 

Brockett does not engage with any analysis of the First 

Amendment issues. For example, the substance of his argument on the first issue—whether the speech constituted a 

matter of public concern—consists of only four sentences. 

They are as follows: 

It appears that the district court failed to apply 

the above principle [of accepting as true all wellpleaded facts and resolving all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff’s favor], and that the conclusion that a dispute between a Sheriff versus 

the Chairman of the County Board and the 

County Board over alleged conversion of public 

property and mismanagement of public funds 
6 No. 23-2360 

was not a matter of public concern was fashioned from whole cloth with no basis in fact or 

law.

No case cited by the district court supports the 

district court’s position on this “public concern” 

issue. There are no facts alleged in the Amended 

Complaint which support the district court’s 

conclusion.

Moreover, political activity is protected by the 

First Amendment regardless of the employment 

status of the Plaintiff. Heffernan v. City of Patterson. 136 S. Ct. 1412 (2016). 

Brockett Br. at 9 (emphasis omitted). 

Brockett does not set forth the elements of a First Amendment retaliation claim. See Deeren v. Anderson, 72 F.4th 229, 235 

(7th Cir. 2023). Nor does he assert that he meets the prerequisites of Pickering-Connick balancing. He cites but one case on 

speech as a matter of public concern, Heffernan, 578 U.S. at 266, 

but only for the proposition that “political activity is protected 

by the First Amendment.” Brockett Br. at 9. Political speech is 

indeed protected by the First Amendment, but not always. 

The limitations on protections of that speech for public employees can only be determined by looking at the requirements of Pickering, Connick, Garcetti, and their progeny, and 

thus Brockett had to provide some argument that his speech 

satisfied the requirements of Pickering and Connick. 

Of course, in this case we are approaching these questions 

in the context of a motion to dismiss, so the requirements of 

Pickering and Connick must be viewed through the lens of our 

liberal, undemanding pleading standard. To survive a motion 
No. 23-2360 7

to dismiss, a complaint must be plausible on its face, meaning 

that the plaintiff must have pled “factual content that allows 

the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant 

is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 

662, 678 (2009). A complaint need not contain detailed factual 

allegations to meet that standard, but must go beyond mere 

labels and conclusions, and must “be enough to raise a right 

to relief above the speculative level.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. 

Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). Allegations that state “legal 

conclusions” or “[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a 

cause of action” are not entitled to the assumption of truth. 

Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. 

Although the pleading standard is liberal, it is still the case 

that a plaintiff challenging the dismissal of his complaint 

must make an argument as to why the lower court erred in 

finding that the complaint failed to state a claim on which relief could be granted. “Thus, even a complaint that passes 

muster under the liberal notice pleading requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) can be subject to dismissal 

if a plaintiff does not provide argument in support of the legal 

adequacy of the complaint.” Lee v. Ne. Ill. Reg'l Commuter R.R. 

Corp., 912 F.3d 1049, 1053–54 (7th Cir. 2019). In Lee, we noted 

that the plaintiffs spent “significant time discussing the liberalness of the federal pleading standard, arguing that too much 

was expected of them at the pleading stage,” but they “fail[ed] 

to provide argument that each claim satisfied the pleading 

standard.” Id. We held that the plaintiff’s failure to grapple 
8 No. 23-2360 

with the legal issues that the defendants raised on appeal resulted in waiver. Id.1

Brockett’s primary argument is “that no case cited by the 

district court supports the district court’s position on this 

‘public concern’ issue.” Brockett Br. at 9. But he does not tell 

us why those cases do not support the district court’s position, 

or, more importantly, which cases do support his argument. 

Likewise, he says that “[t]here are no facts alleged in the 

Amended Complaint which support the district court’s conclusion.” Id. This is an odd argument, as it is Brockett’s duty 

to allege facts showing his entitlement to relief, and he fails to 

tell us which facts alleged in the complaint do that, and why. 

Brockett wholly ignores the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure requirement that his argument contain “appellant’s contentions and the reasons for them, with citations to the authorities and parts of the record on which the appellant relies.” 

1 We should not confuse the requirement for a party opposing a motion to dismiss to “provide argument in support of the legal adequacy of 

the complaint” (Lee, 912 F.3d at 1053–54) with the district court’s responsibilities upon reviewing such a motion. To be sure, we have held that a 

district court may not grant a motion to dismiss solely because there is no 

response from the non-movant. Marcure v. Lynn, 992 F.3d 625, 631 (7th Cir. 

2021). It is the movant’s burden, after all, to demonstrate an entitlement to 

relief on the motion to dismiss. Id. The district court has an independent 

duty to evaluate whether the movant has met that burden. In this appeal, 

however, we are not evaluating whether the district court erred by granting relief solely based on the non-movant’s failure to respond at all. The 

district court evaluated the motion to dismiss and concluded that the 

claim should be dismissed on the merits. Brockett has appealed that decision, telling us that the district court wrongly granted the motion to dismiss. On appeal, he now has an obligation to tell us why he believes the 

district court erred.
No. 23-2360 9

Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A). This alone, should be grounds for 

dismissal. See Boutros, 802 F.3d at 924.

Our review on a motion to dismiss is de novo, so we must 

consider a plaintiff’s arguments as to the sufficiency of his 

complaint anew. Kubiak v. City of Chicago, 810 F.3d 476, 480 

(7th Cir. 2016). Where a plaintiff, on appeal, offers only a few 

cursory sentences, we cannot properly perform our review, 

and “[w]e will not fill this void by crafting arguments and 

performing the necessary legal research.” Shipley v. Chicago 

Bd. of Election Comm’rs, 947 F.3d 1056, 1062–63 (7th Cir. 2020)

(quoting Fednav Int'l Ltd. v. Cont'l Ins. Co., 624 F.3d 834, 842 

(7th Cir. 2010)). “In our adversarial system of adjudication ... 

we rely on the parties to frame the issues” as our system “is 

designed around the premise that parties represented by 

competent counsel know what is best for them, and are responsible for advancing the facts and argument entitling 

them to relief.” United States v. Sineneng-Smith, 140 S. Ct. 1575, 

1579 (2020) (cleaned up). Therefore, “[a]rguments that are underdeveloped, cursory, and lack supporting authority are 

waived.” Shipley, 947 F.3d at 1063. And even arguments that 

have been raised in the district court may still be waived on 

appeal if they are underdeveloped here. Puffer v. Allstate Ins. 

Co., 675 F.3d 709, 718 (7th Cir. 2012); see also Ostrowski v. Lake 

Cnty., 33 F.4th 960, 966 (7th Cir. 2022) (appellate court held 

claim was forfeited when appellate brief barely touched on 

the statutory basis for the claim even where that basis had 

been raised in the complaint). As the focus sharpens on appeal, an appellate court requires “more information and more 

comprehensive analysis than was provided for the district 

judge,” not less. Salve Regina Coll. v. Russell, 499 U.S. 225, 232 

(1991). 
10 No. 23-2360 

Because Brockett’s argument in his “speech as a matter of 

public concern” section is waived, we do not need to independently evaluate whether he also waived his argument that 

he was speaking as a private citizen and not pursuant to his 

duties. The Pickering-Connick test requires satisfaction of both 

prongs of the two-part prerequisites to balancing. Garcetti, 547 

U.S. at 418; Connick, 461 U.S. at 146. 

Despite our holding, we must stress that there is no magic 

number of words, sentences or cases that a litigant must provide to the court to defeat a motion to dismiss. We encourage 

concise and efficient briefing. But at the same time, if a litigant 

has come to the court to assert that a district court judge erred 

when granting a motion to dismiss, that litigant must engage 

in a legal argument telling us why. Our adversarial system 

relies on counsel to advance arguments entitling them to relief. Sineneng-Smith, 140 S. Ct. at 1579. The judgment of the 

district court is therefore AFFIRMED.