Attorneys—not the Court—are responsible for making their own arguments. Furthermore, if attorneys raise an argument, the Court expects that they will do their own research and developed that argument. If the parties do not care about an argument, or a claim, enough to spend time litigating that argument or claim, then the Court should not be expected to shoulder the responsibility for them. Additionally, if after reviewing an opponent’s motion, a party wishes to abandon a claim, that party should affirmatively stipulate to that concession on the record.

            1.   Waiving Arguments

If a party fails to respond to an opponent’s argument, the Court will find that the argument is waived for the purpose of the pending motion (but not for the purpose of future motions). Furthermore, perfunctory and undeveloped arguments are waived. United States v. Berkowitz, 927 F.2d 1376, 1383 (7th Cir. 1991). For example, a two-sentence “argument” that cites no legal authority is not a legal argument. It is perfunctory, and the Court will not consider it. See Martinez v. Colvin, 12 CV 50016, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41754, at *26–27 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 28, 2014) (“[T]he Court notes that parties should not view judges as bloodhounds who are merely given a whiff of an argument and then expected to search the record high and low in an effort to track down evidence to locate and capture a party’s argument.”). Additionally, when an argument effectively requires analogous reasoning (think qualified immunity) but the brief contains no analogous reasoning, the Court may find waiver. And when responding to an argument, mere contradiction rather than a developed argument results in waiver. Id. at *27 (“[M]erely contradicting an opposing party’s developed argument with a single, unsupported sentence is not an argument.”).

            2.   Waiving Claims

Waiver of claims is treated differently. If the plaintiff evidences an intent to abandon a claim, it will be deemed waived. But critically, merely failing to respond to a motion for summary judgment is not evidence of abandonment of the claim. This occurs, for example, when a defendant moves for summary judgment, and the plaintiff fails to respond to the motion for summary judgment on one or all of its claims. Because the defendant bears the burden of establishing its entitlement to summary judgment, the Seventh Circuit has instructed district courts not to summarily hold for the defendant when the plaintiff fails to respond to the motion on all or some claims. Robinson v. Waterman, 1 F.4th 480, 483 (7th Cir. 2021).

Still, when the plaintiff fails to respond to a motion for summary judgment on all or some claims, one of two things is true (or both). Either the plaintiff does not care about the claim enough to form an argument, or the plaintiff affirmatively intends to abandon the claim. In either case, the Court should not have to waste valuable judicial resources researching and deciding the issue. Thus, if a plaintiff fails to respond to a motion for summary judgment, on all or a subset of the claims, the Court will order the plaintiff to show cause why the claim should not be considered abandoned. Failure to respond to the Court’s order will result in a dismissal of the claim with prejudice for want of prosecution under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b).

            3.   Motions to Dismiss

“Our system of justice is adversarial, and our judges are busy people. If they are given plausible reasons for dismissing a complaint, they are not going to do the plaintiff’s research and try to discover whether there might be something to say against the defendants’ reasoning.” Alioto v. Town of Lisbon, 651 F.3d 715, 721 (7th Cir. 2011) (quoting Kirksey v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 168 F.3d 1039, 1041 (7th Cir. 1999)). If the Court is presented with a colorable argument in a motion to dismiss, and the plaintiff fails to respond to that motion, the Court will assume that the plaintiff concedes the insufficiency of its complaint. Indeed, failing to make an argument before the district court would, in the end, amount to a waiver of the argument on appeal. Soo Line R.R. Co. v. Conrail, 965 F.3d 596, 601 (7th Cir. 2020).

Nevertheless, the insufficiency of allegations in a complaint is not dispositive. Plaintiffs might be able to repair insufficient allegations without violating counsel’s obligations under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 and the Rules of Professional Conduct. And the Seventh Circuit has repeatedly instructed district courts that plaintiffs must generally be afforded “at least one opportunity to try to amend [their] complaint before the entire action is dismissed.” White v. Ill. State Police, 15 F.4th 801, 808 (7th Cir. 2021). Therefore, when a plaintiff fails to respond to a colorable motion to dismiss, the Court will grant the dismissal without prejudice, but will afford the plaintiff one additional opportunity to cure the deficiencies in the complaint. Failure to respond to a second motion, or to timely repair the complaint, will result in a dismissal of the action for want of prosecution. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(b).