Court Opinion

ID: 9807470
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:06:04.794882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:16:08.043983
License: Public Domain

2023 IL App (1st) 220926-U
                                            No. 1-22-0926
                                      Order filed August 31, 2023
                                                                                       Fourth Division

 NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the
 limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).
 ______________________________________________________________________________
                                                IN THE
                                  APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS
                                          FIRST DISTRICT
 ______________________________________________________________________________
 ABDUL MOHAMMED,                                                )   Appeal from the
                                                                )   Circuit Court of
           Plaintiff-Appellant,                                 )   Cook County.
                                                                )
     v.                                                         )   No. 21 L 3603
                                                                )
 DAN BRIDGES, ET AL.,                                           )   Honorable
                                                                )   James O’Hara,
           Defendants-Appellees.                                )   Judge, presiding.

           PRESIDING JUSTICE LAMPKIN delivered the judgment of the court.
           Justices Hoffman and Martin concurred in the judgment.

                                              ORDER

¶1        Held: The appellant’s brief is stricken because it fails to comply with Supreme Court Rule
                341 on numerous fronts and presents an appeal that is frivolous, and plaintiff’s
                appeal is dismissed.

¶2        Pro se plaintiff Abdul Mohammed appeals the final judgment of the Circuit Court of Cook

County, which dismissed his complaint against defendants with prejudice on the basis that his

claims were barred by the doctrine of res judicata. Rather than decide the instant appeal on the
No. 1-22-0926

merits, we have instead opted to use our inherent authority to strike the plaintiff’s brief and dismiss

his appeal.

¶3      For the reasons that follow, the appellant’s brief is stricken and plaintiff’s appeal is

dismissed. 1

¶4                                        I. BACKGROUND

¶5      The saga of what has become plaintiff’s propensity to file frivolous pro se complaints

against the defendants began in 2018, when he filed suit in DuPage County, Illinois (“Mohammed

I”). That ten-count complaint named Erin Anderson and Susan Vivian as defendants individually

and as employees of the Naperville School District 203. Though we need not recite the entirety of

the complaint, some of its contents provide valuable context for this appeal.

¶6      Among other things, plaintiff alleged that Anderson and Vivian defamed plaintiff by telling

his children that he had raped and physically abused their mother, had their mother arrested, and

threatened school staff, or that Anderson and Vivian interfered with plaintiff’s parent/child

relationship and violated his federal right to “companionship and society” with his children.

Plaintiff also claimed that Anderson and Vivian’s behavior constituted a hate crime against

plaintiff as defined by the Criminal Code of 2012.

¶7      That action was subsequently removed to the United States District Court for the Northern

District of Illinois, where Anderson and Vivian moved for sanctions. The district court dismissed

plaintiff’s complaint in a written order on August 21, 2019, which detailed at length plaintiff’s

egregious, unprofessional, and harassing behavior. For example, on March 25, 2019, plaintiff

        1
          In adherence with the requirements of Illinois Supreme Court Rule 352(a) (eff. July 1, 2018),
this appeal has been resolved without oral argument upon the entry of a separate written order.

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No. 1-22-0926

responded to an email from defense counsel asking that he not yell at the law firm’s staff by

writing, “Do whatever you like. This f**kin [sic] email is equivalent to the dirt of my shoes. I will

also present a Motion for Sanctions against both of you. Just think that the process to get your ass

sued has just started. I am taking this email as a threat.”

¶8     On April 15, 2019, plaintiff sent defense counsel an email titled, “Cry Babies,” with a

picture of a crying baby and a string of crying baby emojis. On June 6, 2019, plaintiff sent defense

counsel an email calling them ill-mannered and undisciplined, and further presumed that defense

counsel was of Iranian descent, saying, “The Iranis I know are very good people with great

manners but I don’t know what kind of an Irani you are, you are bringing disgrace to your

community. Shameless Creatures and an utter disgrace to the whole human race itself. Have a

Good Night [sic].”

¶9     On June 9, 2019, plaintiff referred to defense counsel in an email as “Shameless Creatures.

Scumbags. Scourge of the Society [sic]. A bane to our society.” On July 10, 2019, plaintiff referred

to defense counsel as a “sissy” and a “milksop,” which the district court noted is defined as, “an

unmanly man.” On still another occasion, plaintiff described defense counsel in an email as

“Hiding behind females. Wimp.” On July 11, 2019, plaintiff called defense counsel fifteen times

in eleven minutes. The district court’s description of plaintiff’s behavior went on, and we need not

recite it all here. But suffice it to say, the district court dismissed plaintiff’s complaint with

prejudice, citing its inherent authority to sanction misconduct.

¶ 10   Not to be deterred, plaintiff appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh

Circuit (Seventh Circuit), which affirmed the district court’s order on November 5, 2020. The

Seventh Circuit warned plaintiff that “continued frivolous filings may result in the imposition of a

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No. 1-22-0926

sanction, including loss of the privilege of filing in forma pauperis, or a monetary fine, which, if

unpaid, may lead to a filing bar.” Plaintiff subsequently petitioned for a writ of certiorari from the

United States Supreme Court, which was denied on January 19, 2021.

¶ 11   In the meantime, on September 9, 2019, plaintiff filed a second complaint (Mohammed II),

this time in Kane County, Illinois. The list of named defendants expanded to include fourteen

individuals, the Naperville School District, and a law firm.

¶ 12   Mohammed II contained allegations similar to Mohammed I, along with allegations that the

defendants had violated plaintiff’s Equal Protection and Due Process rights, were engaged in a

civil conspiracy against plaintiff, had violated the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans

with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), and were retaliating against him for prior litigation. One of

plaintiff’s retaliation claims stated that the defendants and their attorneys were prohibiting plaintiff

from dropping off lunch for his son at school.

¶ 13   Mohammed II was removed to the United States District Court for the Northern District.

The district court subsequently issued an order on February 8, 2021, which granted the defendants’

motion to dismiss on almost every count, either because the claims were precluded by res judicata,

or because plaintiff failed to state a legitimate cause of action. Only one count survived: plaintiff’s

claim that one defendant defamed plaintiff and intentionally inflicted emotional distress by telling

his children that he was a child molester. The district court admitted that plaintiff stated a valid

claim when assuming the truth of the complaint. Two days after the district court issued its order,

plaintiff emailed the district court’s deputy the following:

       “Ms. Deanes, I have the following question for Judge Feinerman: How come it is OK to

       only ban me from dropping Lunch for my son whereas other parents can drop Lunch for

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No. 1-22-0926

       their children? Please answer the above question via email either to me or to my attorney,

       Marco Rodriguez. Sincerely, Abdul Mohammed.”

¶ 14       On April 5, 2021, the district court dismissed Mohammed II in its entirety with prejudice.

It found that plaintiff’s email to the courtroom deputy was not a sincere request, but rather a

sarcastic rhetorical question attacking the court’s integrity, given that the previous February 8,

2021, order containing the court’s reasoning was available to plaintiff. In its order, the district

court summarized plaintiff’s “years-long campaign to enlist the courts in his efforts to harass his

ex-wife and others associated with her,” noting that since 2016, when his wife had filed for divorce

and moved to a domestic abuse shelter, he had filed at least twenty lawsuits against her and others.

¶ 15   While Mohammed II was pending, on April 16, 2020, plaintiff filed a complaint

(Mohammed IIIa) in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, which

named as defendants many of the parties from Mohammed I and II, as well as numerous others

that are not parties in the case at bar. He amended that complaint multiple times, culminating in a

558-page amended complaint that was filed on May 17, 2020.

¶ 16   Three weeks later on June 10, 2020, plaintiff filed an identical 558-page complaint

(Mohammed IIIb), save for the spacing of the caption, various edits, and the date on the last page,

in the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. It was transferred back to the

Northern District. The same day, the district court dismissed Mohammed IIIa with prejudice for

“an egregious violation of [Federal] Rule 8(a).” Plaintiff appealed that dismissal to the Seventh

Circuit.

¶ 17   While that appeal was pending, the district court dismissed Mohammed IIIb with prejudice

on January 27, 2021. The defendants requested an order barring plaintiff from further filing, but

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No. 1-22-0926

the district court found that request to be moot. It noted that the Circuit Court of DuPage County,

Illinois, had indefinitely enjoined plaintiff from filing any further actions against several specific

parties, and that the Appellate Court of Illinois upheld that order. See Mohammed v. ICNA Relief

USA, 2020 IL App (2d) 190828-U. It also noted that the Executive Committee for the United States

District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Executive Committee) had initially entered an order

requiring all of plaintiff’s filings to be screened, and later imposed a 12-month filing ban. The

Seventh Circuit affirmed those orders. It also barred plaintiff from “proceeding in forma pauperis

in any new or pending case, in the district court or court of appeals, until he has paid, in full, all

outstanding fees and costs for all of his lawsuits.” Thus, the district court observed, “all forums in

Illinois are effectively closed to [plaintiff].” Plaintiff did not appeal the dismissal of Mohammed

IIIb, and on October 26, 2021, the Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Mohammed IIIa.

¶ 18   That brings us to the complaint, and the subsequent dismissal, that forms the basis of the

instant appeal. While his appeal of Mohammed IIIa was pending, on April 5, 2021, plaintiff,

determined to experiment with new forums, filed a complaint in the Circuit Court of Cook County,

Illinois. The instant complaint named the same defendants as those named in Mohammed II, and

some of the same defendants from Mohammed I and III. Likewise, the allegations of this complaint

are the same as those in Mohammed II, and they share some commonalities with Mohammed I and

III. At the start of the instant complaint, under a heading titled, “Facts Common to All Counts of

the Complaint,” plaintiff alleged, “One or more allegations in this complaint has been litigated

before the Federal Court.” On August 20, 2021, defendants filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to

Section 2-619(4) of the Code of Civil Procedure, alleging that the doctrine of res judicata barred

plaintiff’s complaint.

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No. 1-22-0926

¶ 19   On December 14, 2021, the trial court found that plaintiff’s complaint was barred by the

doctrine of res judicata and dismissed plaintiff’s complaint with prejudice. On January 4, 2022,

plaintiff filed a motion to reconsider the trial court’s judgment, which also asked the trial court to

recuse itself. That motion included sections that claimed the trial court was engaged in treason and

committing fraud upon the justice system. Attached to his motion was a complaint that plaintiff

filed in the United States Court of Federal Claims on November 29, 2021. Among numerous other

factual allegations, plaintiff claimed that members of the Executive Committee had harassed

plaintiff, threatened him with criminal charges and arrest, and attempted to extort him for $1,000.

He also claimed that members of the Executive Committee orchestrated a raid of his home by

Naperville police officers and federal agents.

¶ 20   Before the trial court could rule on plaintiff’s motion to reconsider, he filed a petition for a

substitution of judge for cause on March 24, 2022. That petition incorporated his motion to

reconsider and further alleged that the trial court must be biased because, “No impartial judge can

enter an order to deprive an 8-year-old of his lunch as it happened in this case.” On June 6, 2022,

the trial court denied plaintiff’s motion to reconsider and petition for substitution of judge for

cause. Plaintiff filed a notice of appeal on June 21, 2022.

¶ 21                                       II. ANALYSIS

¶ 22   Plaintiff has raised a number of issues in his appellant’s brief, but he has declined to label

any of them with descriptive point headings, so we instead summarize, as well as we can, the issues

contained in his brief. Plaintiff asserts that: (1) his email to the courtroom bailiff in Mohammed II

was not misconduct; (2) the dismissals in Mohammed I, II, and III were not final judgments on

their merits; (3) the district court judge responsible for dismissing Mohammed I, II, and III was

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No. 1-22-0926

biased; and (4) applying the doctrine of res judicata to the instant complaint was unfair. These

issues contain a number of sub-points that claim, for example, that plaintiff is being harassed by

federal agents, and that the district court that dismissed his prior cases was similar to the secretive

and abusive “Star Chamber” established by King Henry VII, and that the district court committed

treason.

¶ 23   We need not reach any of these issues because of plaintiff’s substantial and pervasive

failure to comply with Rules 341 and 342, and the frivolous nature of his appeal. Failure to comply

with the rules governing appellate briefs is not an inconsequential matter, and a party’s failure to

comply with Rule 341 is grounds for disregarding its arguments on appeal. Burmac Metal

Finishing Co. v. West Bend Mut. Ins. Co., 356 Ill. App. 3d 471, 478 (2005). Rule 341’s

requirements are not mere suggestions, and this court has the inherent authority to strike briefs, or

even dismiss appeals entirely, when an appellant’s brief fails to conform to Rule 341. People v.

Williams, 2020 IL App (3d) 180024, ¶ 25. Rule 375(b) also empowers us to impose sanctions when

we determine that an appeal is frivolous, not taken in good faith, or brought for an improper

purpose such as to harass or needlessly increase the cost of litigation. Ill. S. Ct. R. 375(b).

¶ 24   Rule 341(h)(1) requires a brief to include a table of contents that “shall consist of the

headings of the points and subpoints as in the Argument,” Ill. S. Ct. R. 341(h)(1). Plaintiff’s “Points

and Authorities” section contains no headings or subheadings and is instead only a page and a half

of case citations unattached to any point or argument.

¶ 25   Rule 341(h)(2) requires an introductory paragraph explaining: (1) the nature of the action

and of the judgment appealed from and whether the judgment is based upon the verdict of a jury,

and (2) whether any question is raised on the pleadings and, if so, the nature of the question. Ill. S.

                                                 -8-
No. 1-22-0926

Ct. R. 341(h)(2). Plaintiff’s “Nature of the Case” section contains six numbered paragraphs

constituting a full page of text. Five of those paragraphs discuss details related to plaintiff’s prior

litigation in the district court. Only the sixth paragraph, which is one sentence that reads, “After

the dismissal of Mohammed III, Plaintiff filed this instant case, and the instant case was dismissed

under res judicata and this appeal follows,” has anything to do with this case. And even still, it

provides virtually no information about the nature of this case, which is the entire point of that

section.

¶ 26    Rule 341(h)(3) requires appellants to include a section outlining the standard of review. Ill.

S. Ct. R. 341(h)(3). This section is nowhere to be found in plaintiff’s brief.

¶ 27    Rule 341(h)(6) requires appellants to include a statement of facts, “which shall contain the

facts necessary to an understanding of the case, stated accurately and fairly without argument or

comment, and with appropriate references to the pages of the record on appeal.” Ill. S. Ct. R.

341(h)(6). Plaintiff’s brief contains a section titled, “Statement of Facts,” but that is about all that

can be said for its compliance with the rule. The section is approximately one page long. Its

compliance with the need for citations to the record is tenuous, at best. And it contains virtually

no information about the proceedings in the instant case. Instead, it is entirely devoted to the facts

of plaintiff’s previous litigation and fails to engage with the facts of that litigation fairly or

objectively. For example, plaintiff refers to the overwhelming and egregious list of inappropriate

behavior identified by the district court in Mohammed I as “so-called misconduct,” and “so-called

inappropriate    email     communications.”       Plaintiff’s   insufficient,    argumentative,     and

misrepresentative statement of facts has hindered our review and understanding of this case. As a

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No. 1-22-0926

result, we have had to rely on defendants’ brief to direct us to relevant parts of the record to

understand the facts of this case.

¶ 28    Furthermore, Rule 341(h)(7) instructs that the argument section must contain the

appellant’s contentions with citation to authorities and the record. Ill. S. Ct. R. 341(h)(7). The

failure to cite authority or articulate an argument will result in forfeiture of that argument on

appeal. People v. Oglesby, 2016 IL App (1st) 141477, ¶ 205. We are entitled to have the issues

clearly defined with pertinent authority cited. Id. Plaintiff’s brief ignores this requirement. His first

claim, simply titled, “Argument #1,” says, “The email to Judge Feinerman as described above in

paragraph 4 was not misconduct and the court has not explained why sending an email to a Judge

is misconduct.” It contains no detail, argument, or citations.

¶ 29    In fact, in thirteen pages of argument, which contains a twelve-and-a-half-page wall of text,

plaintiff has not cited to the record once. This is unsurprising, given that the majority of plaintiff’s

argument is devoted to such fanciful and entirely unsubstantiated claims as: the district court

responsible for dismissing Mohammed I, II, and III was biased against plaintiff for a laundry list

of reasons including race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, and ethnicity; federal agents

have threatened plaintiff; the district court responsible for dismissing plaintiff’s prior federal

litigation is part of a “coterie of thugs”; that unspecified judges have violated their oaths of office;

that the district court’s prior orders constituted fraud; that the district court’s functioning is

analogous to Henry VII’s “Star Chamber”; and even that the district court’s actions constituted

treason. Much of plaintiff’s brief is spent relitigating the orders entered by the district court, rather

than addressing the relevant final judgment in this case. The scant paragraph which plaintiff

devotes to the question of whether the instant complaint was barred by res judicata contains only

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No. 1-22-0926

conclusory statements, relying on the above-summarized unsubstantiated arguments to claim that

the district court’s judgments are void. While plaintiff’s arguments are frivolous, nonsensical, and

unsubstantiated, we note that the writing itself is far from incoherent. Clearly plaintiff possesses

the ability to research and write at a relatively high level; his refusal to comply with our rules can

be seen as nothing else but willful.

¶ 30   Finally, we note that plaintiff has also failed to comply with the requirements of Rule

341(h)(9) and Rule 342. Ill. S. Ct. R. 341(h)(9); Ill. S. Ct. R. 342. The appendix attached to

plaintiff’s brief contains only one document, and it is not one of the documents required by Rule

342. Instead, it is a complaint filed by plaintiff in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia

on February 15, 2023, which names, among others, United States Attorney General Merrick

Garland, United States Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, and many of our esteemed

colleagues on the federal bench. Predictably, this complaint alleges, among other things, that

federal judges have been conspiring against plaintiff to deprive him of his constitutional rights.

Defendants ask us to strike this complaint and any argument based upon that complaint, but given

our ultimate decision here, that action would be moot.

¶ 31   However, before we may enter sanctions against a litigant for failing to comply with

Supreme Court Rules or for filing a frivolous appeal, Supreme Court Rule 375 requires us to give

the party in question notice and an opportunity to respond. Ill. S. Ct. R. 375. On June 14, 2023, we

ordered plaintiff to explain why he should not be sanctioned for violating Rules 341 and 342 and

for filing a frivolous appeal, and gave him 30 days in which to do so.

¶ 32   One month later, plaintiff sought a three-month extension of time, claiming it was a

reasonable accommodation pursuant to the ADA. On July 18, 2023, we entered and continued

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No. 1-22-0926

plaintiff’s motion until August 1, 2023, and ordered that, if plaintiff has a disability as defined by

the ADA and would like to request accommodations, he must submit a request for

accommodations. Our order supplied plaintiff with the relevant email address and location of the

requisite forms to do so.

¶ 33    Plaintiff neglected to request any accommodations as directed. Instead, on August 21,

2023, he sought another extension of time, this time for six months, and again claimed it was a

reasonable accommodation pursuant to the ADA. The same motion claimed that our June 14, 2023,

order was “nothing but another instrument to harass a legally disabled plaintiff in order to protect

white defendants and to deprive plaintiff’s 8-year-old son of his lunch.” Plaintiff also threatened

legal action against this Court and accused this Court of being prejudiced against plaintiff on the

basis of his “race, religion, color, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, etc.”

¶ 34    Needless to say, plaintiff has not provided us with any compelling reason why he should

not be sanctioned, nor has he availed himself of the established protocol for seeking disability

accommodations we encouraged him to pursue. To the contrary, his decision to instead opt for

dilatory tactics, threats of legal action, and baseless accusations only reinforces the need for

sanctions here.

¶ 35    This is hardly the first time a reviewing court has admonished plaintiff about the

inadequacies of his briefs and his conduct. See e.g. Mohammed v. ICNA Relief USA, 2020 IL App

(2d) 190828-U (upholding order from circuit court enjoining plaintiff from filing any further

duplicative actions against the parties in Illinois courts, while criticizing his failure to comply with

Rule 341). There, plaintiff’s brief was only criticized for the inadequacies of his statement of facts

and lack of a standard of review section. Id. ¶¶ 26-29. Plaintiff’s refusal to comply with our rules

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No. 1-22-0926

seems to be escalating. The appellate court previously and graciously indulged plaintiff’s

arguments on the merits, despite his failure to comply with rules, and despite his history of using

the court system as a means to harass others. Id. ¶ 30.

¶ 36   No more. Striking a brief and dismissing an appeal is undoubtedly a harsh sanction.

However, lesser remedies have not tempered plaintiff’s propensity to file frivolous nonsense that

harasses defendants and vilifies any member of the judiciary that, in his mind, has the audacity to

defy him.

¶ 37   We recognize that plaintiff is a pro se litigant without the skill or knowledge of a trained

lawyer. But being a pro se litigant does not relieve him of the obligation to comply with Rule 341

and Rule 342. Ellis v. Flannery, 2021 IL App (1st) 201096, ¶ 8. More importantly, it does not

alleviate his obligation to exercise civility, respect, and common sense. Under ordinary

circumstances we might nevertheless indulge plaintiff’s arguments on their merits. But plaintiff is

no ordinary litigant. The record before us demonstrates that he has harassed countless parties, not

limited to those named as defendants here, with frivolous litigation in venues throughout the state

for the better part of a decade. There is no telling how much time, energy, and money has been

wasted dealing with his farcical legal escapades. Even as this appeal has been pending, plaintiff

has not ceased his onslaught of frivolous litigation and baseless accusations.

¶ 38   The doors of the courthouse are meant to be open to all, giving every person a forum to

seek redress for their injuries. Plaintiff has shown time and time again that he is incapable of

availing himself of our justice system in a civil and professional manner. Not only that, but the

mountain of frivolous litigation with which he assails courts and other litigants makes it that much

harder for everyone else to obtain the access to justice they so rightly deserve.

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¶ 39   To consider plaintiff’s arguments on their merits would be to reward his continued abuse

of our court system and the parties he drags into court. Because plaintiff has failed to comply with

Rule 341 in numerous ways, and because his appeal is frivolous, meant only to harass or needlessly

increase the cost of litigation, striking his brief and ordering dismissal pursuant to Rules 375(a)

and (b) is an appropriate and necessary sanction.

¶ 40                                   III. CONCLUSION

¶ 41   For the foregoing reasons, we strike the appellant’s brief and dismiss the appeal.

¶ 42   Appeal dismissed.

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