United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted February 23, 2021*

Decided February 24, 2021 

Before 

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge 

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge 

THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge

No. 20-1800 

JEHAN Z. MIR, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

STATE FARM MUTUAL 

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE 

COMPANY, et al., 

 Defendants-Appellees. 

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Central District of Illinois. 

No. 1:19-cv-1225 

Joe Billy McDade, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

Jehan Zeb Mir, a California resident, got into a car accident in Los Angeles and 

filed a claim with his Illinois-headquartered insurer. The insurer denied the claim as it 

related to underinsured-motorist benefits. After disagreements with Mir during the 

mandatory arbitration process, the insurer petitioned the California Superior Court to 

compel Mir’s deposition. Mir violated several court orders to attend the deposition, and 

*

 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 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. 20-1800 Page 2 

the case was eventually dismissed. While the case was pending, though, Mir sued the 

insurer in the Central District of Illinois for breach of contract and racial 

discrimination. The district court granted the insurer’s motion to dismiss based on 

claim preclusion, issue preclusion, and other defenses. Because federal court was the 

wrong forum for Mir’s breach-of-contract claims, and Mir’s conclusory allegations did 

not state any other claim, we affirm. 

 An underinsured driver hit Mir’s car while he was driving in Los Angeles. The 

other driver, who was at fault, had an insurance policy that did not cover Mir’s full 

alleged damages, including lost earnings, so Mir filed a claim with his insurance 

provider, State Farm. State Farm covered the costs of Mir’s vehicle repair and medical 

bills but denied his claim for additional benefits under the uninsured-motorist 

provision of his insurance contract. Mir demanded arbitration—the sole mechanism the 

contract provided for resolving coverage disputes. 

When State Farm asked to depose Mir about his losses, he refused. He asserted 

that it was unnecessary because State Farm had deposed him several years earlier (for 

an unrelated lawsuit). So State Farm filed a petition in the California Superior Court to 

compel discovery. See CAL. INS. CODE § 11580.2(f)(1). The court granted the motion and 

twice ordered Mir to attend the deposition. He moved to vacate both orders, asserting 

that extrinsic fraud—State Farm’s wrongful failure to serve him with process—voided 

them. (The state court’s docket, however, reflects that State Farm filed proof of service.) 

The court in October 2019 dismissed the case (effectively ending the arbitration process) 

as a sanction for Mir’s “repeated violations of court orders.” Mir attempted to appeal 

but, having been deemed a vexatious litigant in the California courts, he needed 

permission, which was denied. 

Before the California case was dismissed, Mir sued State Farm, the agent who 

denied his claim, and the CEO (for “framing” the applicable policies) in the Central 

District of Illinois. Mir alleged that the defendants breached the insurance policy and 

the covenant of good faith and fair dealing by refusing to pay him uninsured-motorist 

benefits. He also asserted that State Farm committed extrinsic fraud in collusion with 

the California Superior Court because he was not personally served before the court 

compelled his deposition. He argued that, for the same reason, the California Superior 

Court never had personal jurisdiction over him. Finally, he alleged that the defendants, 

based on his “East-Indian/Pakistani race,” conspired to deny him the benefits of his 

insurance policy in violation of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1985, and 1986. 
No. 20-1800 Page 3 

The district court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. It determined that 

Mir’s contract and fraud claims were barred by claim and issue preclusion and 

dismissed those with prejudice. The court dismissed without prejudice Mir’s 

discrimination and conspiracy claims as conclusory and gave Mir 28 days to amend his 

complaint. But Mir stood by his original complaint and moved for reconsideration. The 

court denied the motion, concluding that Mir did not establish any errors of law or fact 

and, instead, reiterated his previous arguments and generally disagreed with the 

dismissal of his complaint. The court then entered final judgment. 

On appeal, Mir first argues that the district court erred in dismissing his contract 

and extrinsic-fraud claims. They were not barred by res judicata, he contends, because 

the legal issue in the California Superior Court involved only State Farm’s motion to 

compel Mir’s deposition, whereas the Central District of Illinois lawsuit concerns his 

entitlement to his insurance benefits. Further, he says, the California Superior Court 

never acquired personal jurisdiction over him due to the alleged lack of service, so its 

dismissal was not a final judgment on the merits that can preclude another suit. 

We see no need to grapple with whether the dismissal of the discovery case in 

California has preclusive effect over Mir’s lawsuit. Even if the contract-related claims 

were not barred, they did not belong in the Central District of Illinois, or indeed, in any 

federal or state court. Mir sought damages (his claimed benefits plus punitive damages) 

based on State Farm’s refusal to pay him uninsured-motorist benefits to which he 

believed he was entitled and for its decision to file a discovery petition which dragged 

him through the “harassment of prolonged court proceedings.” But under Mir’s policy, 

which incorporates by default the California Insurance Code, Mir was required to 

resolve any claim about coverage through arbitration. CAL. INS. CODE § 11580.2(f). And 

after he demanded arbitration but refused to be deposed, State Farm used the required 

procedure for compelling his compliance. Id. § 11580.2(f)(1). The California Superior 

Court had exclusive subject matter jurisdiction over the parties’ discovery dispute. Id.; 

Miranda v. 21st Century Ins. Co., 12 Cal.Rptr.3d 159, 168 (Cal. Ct. App. 2004). But no 

court, including the Central District of Illinois, had authority to decide any claim 

relating to State Farm’s obligation to cover Mir’s lost income and other losses. 

Further, to the extent that Mir’s fraud claim can be separated from his claims for 

insurance benefits, his allegations fell short of the heightened pleading requirements of 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b). Mir alleged that State Farm was “in cahoots” with 

the California Superior Court and that they “prevented [him] by trick, artifice or other 
No. 20-1800 Page 4 

fraudulent conduct from fairly presenting his claim” because he was not personally 

served with State Farm’s motion to compel before the court ruled. This simply states the 

elements of an extrinsic fraud claim under California law, which arises when “a party is 

denied a fair adversary hearing because he has been ‘deliberately kept in ignorance of 

the action or proceeding, or in some other way fraudulently prevented from presenting 

his claim or defense’” so that there “has never been a real contest in the trial or hearing 

of the case.” Kulchar v. Kulchar, 462 P.2d 17, 19 (Cal. 1969) (citation omitted). Even under 

regular pleading standards, parroting the elements of a claim does not suffice. Ashcroft 

v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). No allegations relate to the circumstances of the alleged 

coordination, and Mir’s complaint defeats any assertion that he was somehow unaware 

of the proceedings (which he vigorously contested). See FED. R. CIV. P. 9(b); Webb v. 

Frawley, 906 F.3d 569, 582 (7th Cir. 2018) (“Missing from the complaint is a sufficiently 

detailed and cohesive theory of the fraud.”). Dismissal was proper. 

Mir next argues that it was error to dismiss his § 1981, § 1985, and § 1986 claims 

for failure to state a claim, maintaining that his allegations put the defendants on notice 

that he sued them for race discrimination. Though it is true that his statutory citations 

alerted State Farm that he wished to pursue claims of discrimination and conspiracy to 

violate his civil rights, more is required. Mir needed to narrate the basis of his claim, but 

his allegations were too general to serve the function of providing “enough facts to state 

a claim to relief that is plausible on its face,” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 

570 (2007), so the court could “draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable 

for the misconduct alleged,” Iqbal, 556 U.S at 678. 

Here, Mir alleged that State Farm “kn[ew] about [his] East-Indian/Pakistani race” 

and, “motivated by discrimination against him,” denied him uninsured-motorist 

benefits. But Mir offered no other information to “nudge[] [his] claims across the line 

from conceivable to plausible.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570. Moreover, when bringing a 

§ 1981 race-discrimination claim, a plaintiff must initially plead and ultimately prove 

that, but for race, he would not have suffered the loss of a legally protected right. Comcast 

Corp. v. Nat’l Ass’n of African American-Owned Media, 140 S. Ct. 1009, 1019 (2020) 

(emphasis added). Nothing in Mir’s complaint—which he declined to amend—could 

permit the inference of but-for causation here.† And because his claims of conspiracy 

† The district court dismissed Mir’s § 1981 claim without prejudice on March 16, 

2020, and gave him 28 days to amend his complaint. Comcast Corp. was issued on March 

23, 2020. Mir stood by his original complaint, choosing instead to file a motion to 

reconsider (and then a notice of appeal). 
No. 20-1800 Page 5 

and failure to intervene under § 1985 and § 1986 derive from the underlying 

discrimination claim, they too were properly dismissed. See Ennin v. CNH Indus. Am., 

LLC, 878 F.3d 590, 597 (7th Cir. 2017). 

Last, Mir argues that the district court erred in finding it lacked personal 

jurisdiction over the agent who denied his request for benefits. Because we concluded 

that the district court properly dismissed all of Mir’s claims, we need not address its 

conclusions about any particular defendant. 

We have considered Mir’s remaining arguments, and none has merit. 

AFFIRMED