United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted April 3, 2019*

Decided April 3, 2019

Before

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge

No. 18-2632

JOHN L. LERCH,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

CITY OF GREEN BAY, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Eastern District 

of Wisconsin.

No. 17-C-654

William C. Griesbach,

Chief Judge.

O R D E R

John Lerch, a landlord who owns low-cost rental properties in Green Bay, 

Wisconsin, has repeatedly sued the city and its housing inspectors for allegedly

violating his equal-protection rights. (This is his fourth such suit in the past decade.) In

this suit, Lerch again contends that the city has selectively enforced housing codes 

 

* 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).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 18-2632 Page 2

against his properties. The district court entered summary judgment for the city and its 

employees. We affirm.

Because Lerch did not respond to the defendants’ motion for summary judgment 

in the manner required by the local rules, the district court adopted the defendants’ 

proposed findings of fact, and we do the same. See E.D. WIS. CIV. R. 56(b)(1)(C); Salvadori 

v. Franklin Sch. Dist., 293 F.3d 989, 992 (7th Cir. 2002). For more than 30 years, Lerch

regularly has received tenant complaints, code-violation citations, and raze-or-repair 

orders against his properties. After he failed to timely bring five of his properties up to 

code, the city issued orders to raze four of them (the “Klaus,” “Crooks,” “George,” and 

“Ashland” properties) and to condemn the fifth (the “Broadway” property). In two 

prior suits, Lerch unsuccessfully challenged the orders against the Klaus, Crooks, and 

George properties, arguing that the city and its housing inspectors violated his equalprotection rights by enforcing housing codes more strictly against him—a “class of 

one”—than against other owners. See Lerch v. City of Green Bay, 218 Fed. App’x 502 

(7th Cir. 2007) (Lerch I); Lerch v. City of Green Bay, 271 Fed. App’x 528 (7th Cir. 2008) 

(Lerch II). After the city razed the Klaus property, Lerch brought a third class-of-one 

action against the city, also unsuccessfully, and we upheld the judgment on claimpreclusion grounds. See Lerch v. City of Green Bay, 406 Fed. App’x 46 (7th Cir. 2010)

(Lerch III).

In the complaint underlying this appeal, Lerch again brought a class-of-one 

challenge in response to the razing of the Klaus, Crooks, and George properties and, for 

the first time, asserted equal-protection claims related to his properties on Ashland and 

Broadway. Lerch named as defendants a few housing inspectors whom he had not sued 

previously, but he continued to press the same argument that he had brought against 

the city and other inspectors in Lerch I, II, and III: that the defendants selectively 

enforced housing codes against him and not against the owners of 14 properties with 

similar code violations. The district court entered summary judgment for the 

defendants, concluding that Lerch had not offered evidence (1) that the property 

owners he identified were identical to him or (2) that the defendants lacked a rational 

basis for issuing citations and condemnation orders based on housing-code violations. 

On appeal, Lerch maintains that he has presented sufficient evidence from which 

it can be inferred that his properties on Klaus, Crooks, George, Ashland and Broadway 

are similarly situated to the 14 properties he identified. We agree with the district court 

that Lerch has neither identified similarly situated property owners who received better 

treatment than he did, nor has he offered evidence that the city lacked a rational basis 
No. 18-2632 Page 3

for razing or condemning his properties. See Vill. of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 

564 (2000); Srail v. Vill. of Lisle, Ill., 588 F.3d 940, 945–46 (7th Cir. 2009). He provided no 

evidence that the 14 comparator properties were subject to code violations, tenant 

complaints, or inspections, so he did not show—as he was required to—that they were

“identical in all relevant respects” to his properties. Srail, 588 F.3d at 945. For that 

matter, the evidence of the code violations on his properties provides a rational basis for 

razing and condemning those buildings. See Miller v. City of Monona, 784 F.3d 1113, 

1120–22 (7th Cir. 2015).

Lerch also argues that the district court erred in striking a proposed amendment 

to his complaint, but we see no abuse of discretion. Lerch filed it well outside the 

window for amendments as of right—on the day that dispositive motions were due—

and did not request permission to amend from the court or the defendants. See FED. R.

CIV. P. 15(a); Liebhart v. SPX Corp., 917 F.3d 952, 964–65 (7th Cir. 2019).

We have considered Lerch’s remaining arguments and not one has merit.

Any further frivolous appeals will subject Lerch to monetary fines and a possible 

bar order under Support Sys. Int’l, Inc. v. Mack, 45 F.3d 185, 186 (7th Cir. 1995). 

AFFIRMED