United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted December 5, 2012*

Decided December 5, 2012

Before

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

ANN CLAIRE WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 12‐2090

SCOTT W. HOLZRICHTER,

Plaintiff‐Appellant,

v.

CITY OF CHICAGO, et al.,

Defendants‐Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Northern District of Illinois,

Eastern Division.

No. 11 C 8402

George M. Marovich,

Judge.

O R D E R

Scott Holzrichter appeals from the dismissal of his second amended complaint,

which included claims for false arrest, see 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and violations of the Illinois

Freedom of Information Act, see 5 ILL. COMP. STAT. § 140. We affirm.

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

* After examining the briefs and record, we have concluded that oral argument is

unnecessary. Thus, the appeal is submitted on the briefs and the record. See FED. R. APP. P.

34(a)(2)(C).
No. 12‐2090 Page 2

We accept the allegations in Holzrichter’s complaint as true for purposes of

evaluating the dismissal of his complaint. See Santana v. Cook Cnty. Bd. of Review, 679 F.3d

614, 620 (7th Cir. 2012). In November 2009, the Circuit Court of Cook County issued an

Order of Possession, permitting the eviction of a tenant from a unit at the Covent Hotel, a

rental apartment building in Chicago. The next day Holzrichter, a desk clerk, removed the

tenant’s personal property from the unit. A police officer arrived and demanded that the

tenant’s property be returned to the unit, but Holzrichter refused. The officer then arrested

Holzrichter for violating a city ordinance prohibiting landlords from evicting tenants

without the assistance of the Cook County Sheriff. See CHICAGO MUN. CODE § 5‐12‐160.

Holzrichter sued the officer who arrested him, the City of Chicago, and the Chicago

Police Department, alleging that the defendants had no legal basis to arrest him. He also

claimed that the defendants violated the Illinois FOIA by refusing to provide him

information about the arresting police officer. The district court dismissed Holzrichter’s

false‐arrest claim on the ground that he did not allege facts making it plausible that he was

arrested without probable cause. Having dismissed the suit’s only federal claim, the court

declined to assert supplemental jurisdiction over Holzrichter’s state‐law FOIA claims and

dismissed them without prejudice.

Holzrichter contends on appeal that the tenant, who was subject to eviction due to

the entry of an Order of Possession, was not protected by the ordinance barring landlord

evictions, and that the police officer therefore did not have probable cause to arrest him.

This argument is incorrect: the tenant was a tenant at sufferance and accordingly was

protected by the ordinance. See CHICAGO MUN. CODE § 5‐12‐030(i); BLACKʹS LAW DICTIONARY

1605 (9th ed. 2009) (defining a tenant at sufferance as one who “has been in lawful

possession of property and wrongfully remains as a holdover after the tenantʹs interest has

expired”); Meyer v. Cohen, 632 N.E.2d 22, 29 (Ill. App. Ct. 1993).

The facts Holzrichter alleges therefore establish probable cause for his arrest,

meaning that he has pleaded himself out of court on his false‐arrest claim. See Atkins v. City

of Chicago, 631 F.3d 823, 832 (7th Cir. 2011), cert. denied 132 S. Ct. 1569 (2012). To prevail on a

false‐arrest claim under § 1983, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant police officer

lacked probable cause to arrest. Jackson v. Parker, 627 F.3d 634, 638 (7th Cir. 2011); McBride v.

Grice, 576 F.3d 703, 706 (7th Cir. 2009). Here, Holzrichter pleads that he ousted a tenant by

removing his personal property from a rental unit, which is exactly what the ordinance

makes illegal. CHICAGO MUN. CODE § 5‐12‐160 (prohibiting landlords from evicting “any

tenant from a dwelling unit without authority of law . . . by removing a tenant’s personal

property from said unit.”). Nor can Holzrichter take advantage of the ordinance’s exception,

because he removed the tenant’s property himself, rather than asking the Cook County

Sheriff to do so. See id. § 5‐12‐160(a) (no violation of the ordinance occurs when the landlord
No. 12‐2090 Page 3

“engages the sheriff of Cook County to forcibly evict a tenant or his personal property”).

Thus, given the facts pleaded by Holzrichter, an officer would have had a reasonable basis

to believe that Holzrichter’s removal of the tenant’s personal property violated the

ordinance, and that probable cause to arrest existed. See Jackson, 627 F.3d at 638.

Holzrichter also contests the district court’s dismissal of the state‐law FOIA claims,

focusing on those claims’ merits. But district courts have discretion to decline to hear

supplemental state‐law claims after all federal claims have been dismissed, and we will

reverse a district court’s decision to relinquish supplemental jurisdiction only in

extraordinary circumstances. See Capeheart v. Terrell, 695 F.3d 681, 686 (7th Cir. 2012). We

can identify no extraordinary circumstances here and therefore affirm the dismissal of

Holzrichter’s state‐law claims.

AFFIRMED.