Echols v. Craig et al
Filing
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MEMORANDUM Opinion and Order: The Court grants defendant's motion to dismiss plaintiff's complaint. Plaintiff is granted 28 days in which to file an amended complaint, should he so choose. Signed by the Honorable George M. Marovich on 10/22/2013.Mailed notice(clw, )
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
DERRICK ECHOLS, JR.
Plaintiff,
v.
DR. FREDERICK A. CRAIG, DDS
Defendant.
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No. 11 C 6686
Judge George M. Marovich
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
After problems resulting from the extraction of one of his wisdom teeth, plaintiff Derrick
Echols, Jr. (“Echols”) filed a suit seeking relief under § 1983. In his amended complaint, Echols
alleges that defendant Dr. Frederick A. Craig, DDS (“Dr. Craig”) was deliberately indifferent to
his medical needs in violation of his constitutional right to be free from cruel and unusual
punishments. Dr. Craig has filed a motion to dismiss. For the reasons set forth below, the Court
grants the motion to dismiss.
I.
Background
The Court takes as true the factual allegations set out in Echols’s amended complaint.
Plaintiff Echols is an inmate at Stateville Correctional Center (“Stateville”) in Joliet,
Illinois and has been since September 2002. Defendant Dr. Craig is a dental surgeon employed
by Wexford Health Sources, Inc., which provides medical and dental services to inmates at
Stateville.
On July 14, 2009, at Stateville’s Health Care Unit, Dr. Craig extracted Echols’s wisdom
tooth. Once the anesthesia wore off, Echols began experiencing abnormal pain. When he
returned to have his sutures removed on July 23, 2009, another dentist, Jacqueline Mitchell (“Dr.
Mitchell”) removed the stitches. Echols complained to Dr. Mitchell that he was experiencing
intense pain, a discharge of puss and blood and a metallic taste near the extraction site. Dr.
Mitchell told Echols these symptoms were common and would go away. Echols continued to
experience pain and tried (but was not allowed) to return to the Health Care Unit.
Four days later, on July 27, 2009, Echols rinsed his mouth with salt water. As he did so,
two objects came out from under his gums and into his mouth. The two objects were gauze and
a half-inch metal drill bit. The next day, Echols returned to the Health Unit, where a physician
took an x-ray of Echols’s mouth and learned that a portion of the root of Echols’s wisdom tooth
still remained at the extraction site. A physician reopened the wound and removed both the
remaining root and more gauze. After that, Echols healed normally.
Echols alleges that Dr. Craig was deliberately indifferent to his medical needs when,
during the oral surgery to remove Echols’s wisdom tooth, he left a portion of the tooth root, part
of a drill bit and gauze at the extraction site. Echols alleges that, “[b]y failing to remove multiple
foreign objects from the tooth extraction site, [Dr. Craig] ignored an obvious risk to Mr. Echols’
health and caused Mr. Echols over two weeks of extreme and unnecessary pain.”
II.
Standard on a motion to dismiss
The Court may dismiss a claim pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure if the plaintiff fails “to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” Fed.R.Civ.P.
12(b)(6). In considering a motion to dismiss, the Court accepts as true all well-pleaded factual
allegations and draws all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff’s favor. McCullah v. Gadert, 344
F.3d 655, 657 (7th Cir. 2003). Under the notice-pleading requirements of the Federal Rules of
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Civil Procedure, a complaint must “give the defendant fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the
grounds upon which it rests.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 1964 (2007)
(quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957)). A complaint need not provide detailed
factual allegations, but mere conclusions and a “formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause
of action” will not suffice. Bell Atlantic, 127 S.Ct. at 1964-1965. “After Bell Atlantic, it is no
longer sufficient for a complaint ‘to avoid foreclosing possible bases for relief; it must actually
suggest that the plaintiff has a right to relief, by providing allegations that raise a right to relief
above the speculative level.’” Tamayo v. Blagojevich, 526 F.3d 1074, 1084 (7th Cir. 2008)
(quoting Equal Employment Opportunity Comm’n v. Concentra Health Services, Inc., 496 F.3d
773, 776 (7th Cir. 2007)). To survive a motion to dismiss, a claim must be plausible. Iqbal, 129
S.Ct. at 1950. Allegations that are as consistent with lawful conduct as they are with unlawful
conduct are not sufficient; rather, plaintiffs must include allegations that “nudg[e] their claims
across the line from conceivable to plausible.” Bell Atlantic, 127 S.Ct. at 1974.
III.
Discussion
To violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments, a
prison official must have acted with deliberate indifference. Thus, to establish his claim against
Dr. Craig, Echols must show: “(1) that he suffered from an objectively serious medical
condition; and (2) that the individual defendant was deliberately indifferent to that condition.”
Berry v. Peterman, 604 F.3d 435, 440 (7th Cir. 2010). The Supreme Court defined deliberate
indifference in Farmer v. Brennan, where it said:
a prison official cannot be found liable under the Eighth Amendment for denying
an inmate humane conditions of confinement unless the official knows of and
disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety; the official must both be
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aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of
serious harm exists, and he must also draw the inference.
Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. at 837. Neither negligence nor malpractice constitutes a violation
of the constitution. See Gayton v. McCoy, 593 F.3d 610, 620 (7th Cir. 2010) (“Evidence that the
official acted negligently is insufficient to prove deliberate indifference.”); Duckworth v. Ahmad,
532 F.3d 675, 679 (7th Cir. 2008) (“Deliberate indifference is not medical malpractice; the
Eighth Amendment does not codify common law torts.”).
Defendant argues that Echols has alleged negligence, perhaps, but not deliberate
indifference. The Court agrees. This case is similar to McGowan v. Hulick, 612 F.3d 636 (7th
Cir. 2010), in which the plaintiff alleged that during a molar extraction, his tooth fragmented and
the dentist used strange instruments to remove the splinters. The plaintiff also alleged that after
the extraction, he suffered severe complications, including a golf-ball size mass of tissue that
broke through his stitches and an infection that resulted in a perforated sinus. Id. at 638. The
Seventh Circuit held that the plaintiff had failed to state a claim against the dentist who extracted
the tooth. Id. at 641. The Seventh Circuit explained:
[Plaintiff] also asserts that [the dentist] botched the extraction, but his allegations
describe only negligence, perhaps gross negligence, without suggesting that [the
dentist] maliciously intended to cause [plaintiff] pain or otherwise performed the
procedure in a way that he knew would create a substantial risk of complications.
McGowan, 612 F.3d at 641. Just so here. Plaintiff does not allege that Dr. Craig intended to
cause Echols pain or that Dr. Craig knew he was leaving behind gauze and part of a drill bit.
Plaintiff argues that his allegations amount to deliberate indifference, rather than just
negligence. Plaintiff relies on a line of cases that say deliberate indifference may be inferred “on
the basis of a physician’s treatment decision” where “the decision [is] so far afield of accepted
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professional standards as to raise the inference that it was not actually based on a medical
judgment.” Norfleet v. Webster, 439 F.3d 392, 396 (7th Cir. 2006) (emphasis added). This does
not help plaintiff, though, because the focus in these cases is on a medical decision, implicit in
which is knowledge. If a plaintiff alleges that a doctor knows of a medical problem and makes a
treatment decision far afield of the standard treatment, then, yes, that plaintiff has stated a claim.
See Steele v. Choi, 82 F.3d 175, 179 (7th Cir. 1996) (“If the symptoms plainly called for a
particular medical treatment--the leg is broken, so it must be set; the person is not breathing, so
CPR must be administered--a doctor’s deliberate decision not to furnish the treatment might be
actionable under § 1983.”). Here, though, plaintiff has not alleged that Dr. Craig knew there was
gauze and a drill bit at the extraction site and then, contrary to standard practice, decided to sew
up the site without removing them.
The Court agrees with defendant that plaintiff has not stated a claim under § 1983 for
violation of his constitutional right to be free from cruel and unusual punishments. Accordingly,
plaintiff’s complaint is dismissed.
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IV.
Conclusion
For the reasons set forth above, the Court grants defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s
complaint. Plaintiff is granted 28 days in which to file an amended complaint, should he so
choose.
ENTER:
George M. Marovich
United States District Judge
DATED: October 22, 2013
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