Brown v. Dart

Filing 62

MEMORANDUM Opinion and Order Signed by the Honorable John Z. Lee on 7/28/17. Mailed notice(ca, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
ERNEST C. BROWN,
Plaintiff,
v.
THOMAS DART, Sheriff of Cook
County; BILQIS JACOBS-EL, Director
of the Cook County Department of
Facilities Management; and CARA
SMITH, Executive Director of Cook
County Department of Corrections,
Defendants.

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14 C 3032
Judge John Z. Lee

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Plaintiff Ernest Brown was incarcerated in the Cook County Jail (CCJ) for
several weeks in 2014. He brings suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Defendants
Thomas Dart, Bilqis Jacobs-El, and Cara Smith, alleging deliberate indifference to
the unconstitutional conditions of his confinement. Defendants have filed a motion
pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (“Rule”) 12(b)(6) seeking to dismiss
Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint for failure to state a claim. For the reasons set
forth below, Defendants’ motion to dismiss is denied.
Factual Background 1
Plaintiff was incarcerated within Division 6 of the CCJ for three weeks in
February and November of 2014.

Am. Compl. ¶ 17, ECF No. 39.

Throughout

The following facts are taken from the First Amended Complaint and are assumed
true on review of Defendants’ motion to dismiss. See Zahn v. N. Am. Power & Gas, LLC,
815 F.3d 1082, 1087 (7th Cir. 2016).
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Plaintiff’s incarceration, Defendant Dart was the Sheriff of Cook County, Defendant
Jacobs-El was the Director of the Cook County Department of Facilities
Management, and Defendant Smith was the Executive Director of the Cook County
Department of Corrections (CCDOC). Id. ¶¶ 4–6.
Plaintiff alleges that he was subjected to unconstitutional conditions of
confinement. Specifically, he alleges that his cell had inadequate heating, that he
and other inmates had inadequate access to hygienic facilities like toilets, sinks,
and showers, and that those same hygienic facilities were overrun with mold,
mildew, lime, and drain flies. Id. ¶¶ 19–20, 29. Moreover, according to Plaintiff,
mice and cockroaches were present throughout Division 6, including in Plaintiff’s
cell, id. ¶ 21, and he was provided inadequate shoes and an inadequate mattress,
which caused him to sustain various stress injuries. Id. ¶¶ 22–23. In addition,
Plaintiff was denied sufficient food, as well as prompt and adequate medical
treatment for various injuries that occurred during his incarceration (including the
stress injuries and a separate hand injury). Id. ¶¶ 24–25. Last, Plaintiff alleges
that he was charged by the commissary for goods that he did not receive, that he
was denied access to the law library, and that he was denied access to the religious
services of his choice. Id. ¶¶ 26–27.
During his stay in Division 6, Plaintiff filed multiple grievances detailing
complaints about conditions within the CCJ. See id. ¶¶ 27, 29–30. He alleges that
Defendants and the CCJ staff did not substantively respond to those grievances or
remedy the referenced conditions. See id. He also asserts that “others repeatedly

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notified Deputy Cook County Sheriffs on many occasions” of the conditions within
the CCJ. Id. ¶ 30. The other inmates received similarly inadequate responses. Id.
¶¶ 29–30.
On November 21, 2016, Plaintiff filed a First Amended Complaint bringing a
single count under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Defendants Dart, Jacobs-El, and Smith
in their individual and official capacities.

He claims that he was subjected to

unconstitutional conditions of confinement during his incarceration in Division 6,
and he argues that Defendants were deliberately indifferent to these conditions in
violation of his Eighth Amendment rights.

Defendants have moved to dismiss

Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a
claim.
Legal Standard
A motion brought under Rule 12(b)(6) challenges the sufficiency of the
complaint. Bell v. City of Country Club Hills, 841 F.3d 713, 716 (7th Cir. 2016).
Rule 8(a)(2) requires that a complaint contain a “short and plain statement of the
claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief, which is sufficient to provide the
defendant with fair notice of the claim and its basis.” Arnett v. Webster, 658 F.3d
742, 751 (7th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). “In determining a
complaint’s sufficiency, [a court will] construe it in the light most favorable to the
nonmoving party, accept well-pleaded facts as true, and draw all inferences in [the
nonmovant’s] favor.” Zahn, 815 F.3d at 1087 (internal quotation marks omitted).

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A complaint, however, must still contain “sufficient factual matter, accepted
as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556
U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)).
“The plausibility standard is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,’ but it asks for
more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.”

Id.

Furthermore, a court need not “accept as true any legal assertions or recitals of the
elements of a cause of action supported by mere conclusory statements.” Zahn, 815
F.3d at 1087 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Analysis
I.

Individual Capacity Claims
In bringing his individual capacity claims, Plaintiff alleges that each of the

Defendants acted with deliberate indifference to the conditions of his confinement,
in that they ignored court decrees, guidelines and directives, and inmate
grievances—including

Plaintiff’s

own

grievances—describing

the

objectively

unconstitutional conditions within Division 6. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 29–31. Defendants
have moved to dismiss the individual capacity claims against them, arguing that
they cannot be held personally liable to Plaintiff for the conditions of his
confinement. Defs.’ Mot. Dismiss at 5–6, ECF No. 52. Specifically, Defendants
contend that Plaintiff has failed to allege that they possessed subjective knowledge
of the conditions that he faced, because he only attributed knowledge of “general
facts” to them in his complaint. Id. Where those “general facts” involve systemic
conditions throughout Division 6, however, Defendants are mistaken.

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As such,

accepting the complaint’s allegations as true, the Court finds that Plaintiff has
stated a plausible claim for relief.
In order to state a claim for unconstitutional conditions of confinement,
Plaintiff must allege that (1) there was an objectively serious deprivation
“result[ing] in the denial of the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities,” and
(2) the defendant prison officials were “deliberately indifferent to this state of
affairs.” Gray v. Hardy, 826 F.3d 1000, 1005 (7th Cir. 2016) (quoting Farmer v.
Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994)) (internal quotation marks omitted). 2 Deliberate
indifference to an unconstitutional prison condition may be found where an official
knows about the condition and “facilitates, approves, condones, or turn[s] a blind
eye to it.”

Perez v. Fenoglio, 792 F.3d 768, 781–82 (7th Cir. 2015) (internal

quotation marks omitted).
A plaintiff bringing a § 1983 claim against a defendant in his individual
capacity “may not rely on a theory of respondeat superior” to establish culpability
and “must instead allege that the defendant, through his or her own conduct, has
violated the Constitution.” Id. at 781. In evaluating a deliberate indifference claim
under Rule 12(b)(6), “the personal involvement of senior jail officials, such as Sheriff
Dart, can be inferred [when] . . . the plaintiff alleges ‘potentially systemic,’ as
opposed to ‘clearly localized,’ constitutional violations.” Smith v. Dart, 803 F.3d
304, 309 n.2 (7th Cir. 2015) (quoting Antonelli v. Sheahan, 81 F.3d 1422, 1428–29
(7th Cir. 1996)).
Defendants have not challenged the sufficiency of Plaintiff’s individual capacity
claims with respect to the first prong, so the Court need not address that issue here.
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Although no bright-line test determines when a condition is “potentially
systemic” rather than “clearly localized” for purposes of deciding a motion to
dismiss, precedent provides guidance on this issue.

For instance, the Seventh

Circuit has indicated that allegations of pest infestations or nutritionally
inadequate food may be sufficient to state a claim based on systemic conditions,
because such conditions are unlikely to affect only one inmate in isolation. See
Antonelli, 81 F.3d at 1427–29; Smith, 803 F.3d at 312–13. District courts have
applied similar logic in concluding that inadequate access to toilet facilities and
inadequate heating should be treated as “potentially systemic” conditions at the
motion to dismiss stage. See, e.g., Moghaddam v. Godinez, No. 14 C 7275, 2015 WL
300468, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 15, 2015); Lieberman v. Budz, No. 00 C 5662, 2010 WL
369614, at *7 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 28, 2010). In still other decisions, courts have inferred
the existence of systemic conditions based upon allegations of generally unsanitary
conditions, Burton v. Dart, No. 14 C 10297, 2015 WL 5175143, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Sept.
3, 2015), inadequate shoes, Riley v. Williams, No. 14 C 3780, 2015 WL 6955491, at
*2 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 9, 2015), contaminated food, id., unheated showers, Lieberman,
2010 WL 369614, at *7, and inadequate access to hygienic products, Sanders v.
Sheahan, 198 F.3d 626, 629 (7th Cir. 1999).
Here, Plaintiff’s allegations are sufficient to state a conditions of confinement
claim against Defendants in their individual capacities. First, Plaintiff has alleged
that Defendants had overlapping responsibility for supervising the conditions and
policies of the CCJ during his incarceration in their respective roles as the Sheriff,

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the Director of the Department of Facilities Management, and the Executive
Director of the Cook County Department of Corrections. 3 Am. Compl. ¶¶ 4–6. He
further alleges that, by virtue of these roles, Defendants had notice of the conditions
within Division 6. Id. ¶ 29. Supervisors such as “the Sheriff and the Director of the
Jail can realistically be expected to know about or participate in creating systematic
jail conditions.” Sanders, 198 F.3d at 629 (citing Antonelli, 81 F.3d at 1428). Thus,
to the extent Plaintiff’s complaint describes systemic conditions in the CCJ, his
individual capacity claims are sufficient to meet the subjective-awareness prong of
the deliberate indifference test.
Second, Plaintiff’s complaint does, in fact, describe systemic unconstitutional
conditions of confinement.

His single-count complaint includes allegations of

inadequate shelter (ranging from insufficient heating to an inadequate mattress),
inadequate sanitation (including nonfunctioning toilets, showers, and sinks, moldy
hygienic facilities, and pest infestations), inadequate clothing, and inadequate food.
Am. Compl. ¶¶ 18–26.

Drawing reasonable inferences in Plaintiff’s favor, his

allegations regarding the conditions in Division 6 imply systemic concerns for the
CCJ, because these kinds of conditions were unlikely to affect Plaintiff in isolation.
See, e.g., Smith, 803 F.3d at 312 (finding nutritionally inadequate food potentially
systemic); Antonelli, 81 F.3d at 1428–29 (finding pest infestation potentially
It is possible that not every Defendant necessarily had supervisory control over
every unconstitutional condition that Plaintiff alleges. For example, if the Department of
Facilities Management and the CCDOC have discrete spheres of responsibility with regard
to the CCJ, some conditions might implicate one Defendant but not the others. Defendants’
motion to dismiss, however, failed to contest the conditions separately with respect to each
Defendant. As such, the Court declines at this time to delineate between conditions and
officeholders at a more granular level.
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systemic); Moghaddam, 2015 WL 300468, at *2 (finding inadequate access to
hygienic facilities potentially systemic); Jones v. Sheahan, 2001 WL 1230551, at *6
(N.D. Ill. Oct. 15, 2001) (finding inadequate heating potentially systemic). 4
Because Plaintiff has alleged systemic conditions of confinement, his
complaint sufficiently implicates Defendants’ awareness of these conditions and the
risks that they imposed on inmates, at least for purposes of deciding this motion to
dismiss. See Antonelli, 81 F.3d at 1428–29. Thus, while Plaintiff will bear the
burden of proving his allegations as this litigation progresses, he has sufficiently
articulated claims for relief to proceed at this stage. The Court therefore denies
Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s individual capacity claims.
II.

Official Capacity Claims
Plaintiff has also brought claims against Defendants in their official

capacities. He argues that Defendants were engaged in a tacit practice of turning a
blind eye to unconstitutional conditions within the CCJ, thus permitting the
conditions to persist. Am. Compl. ¶ 30. Defendants contend that Plaintiff’s official
capacity claims suffer two fatal shortcomings. First, they argue that the complaint
lacks sufficient factual matter to support allegations of a pattern or policy of
Standing alone, some of the conditions described in Plaintiff’s complaint may not
support an inference of systemic conditions of confinement. Take, for example, his
allegations regarding the commissary charges for goods he did not receive, as well as the
denial of access to religious services and the law library. See, e.g., Antonelli, 81 F.3d at
1429 (finding that denial of plaintiff’s request to attend religious services was “clearly
localized”).
However, Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint contains only a single,
generalized conditions of confinement claim, without separate counts for each condition.
Defendants’ motion to dismiss likewise refers to the conditions in the aggregate and does
not contest them individually. As such, the Court is reluctant to carve out portions of
Plaintiff’s claim at this stage, given that the parties themselves have declined to do so.
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ignoring jail conditions.

Defs.’ Mot. Dismiss at 7.

Second, they contend that

Plaintiff’s allegations cannot support a reasonable inference that other inmates
were affected by the conditions, which in turn undermines Plaintiff’s assertion that
the conditions were widespread. Id. at 9. For the reasons set forth below, however,
the Court finds that Plaintiff has stated claims against Defendants in their official
capacities and therefore denies Defendants’ motion to dismiss with respect to those
claims. 5
Under Monell v. Department of Social Services of New York, a plaintiff may
bring a § 1983 claim against a municipal entity or a municipal public official in his
official capacity. 436 U.S. 658, 690 & n.55 (1978).

Just as with an individual

capacity claim premised on a defendant’s deliberate indifference to unconstitutional
conditions of confinement, an official capacity conditions of confinement claim
requires showing that (1) “the adverse conditions complained of were ‘sufficiently
serious,’ such that the acts or omissions of prison officials giving rise to these
conditions deprived the prisoner of a ‘minimal civilized measure of life’s
necessities,’” and (2) “prison officials were deliberately indifferent to the adverse
Although neither party has briefed the issue, the Court notes that, because the
CCDOC is a department within the Cook County Sheriff’s office, and because an official
capacity claim is merely a means of suing the underlying governmental entity, Plaintiff is
attempting to sue the same entity twice. Courts within this district have previously
dismissed such duplicative official capacity claims against the lower-level defendant. See
Hildreth v. Cook Cty., No. 08-C-3506, 2010 WL 1656810, at *4 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 23, 2010)
(dismissing an official capacity claim against the Executive Director of the CCDOC, noting
that her inclusion “adds nothing to [the plaintiff’s] claim against the sheriff’s office.”). Here,
the inclusion of Defendant Smith adds nothing to Plaintiff’s official capacity claim against
the Sheriff’s office, because Plaintiff has already sued Sheriff Dart. Because Defendant
Smith has also been named in her individual capacity, however, dismissing the official
capacity claim against her would not remove her from this litigation.
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conditions.” Rice ex rel. Rice v. Corr. Med. Servs., 675 F.3d 650, 664–65 (7th Cir.
2010) (quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834).

In addition, proving deliberate

indifference under Monell requires that a plaintiff demonstrate “the existence of an
official policy or other governmental custom” by pointing to “(1) an express policy
that causes a constitutional deprivation when enforced; (2) a widespread practice so
permanent and well-settled that it constitutes a custom or practice [of denying
constitutional rights]; or (3) an allegation that the constitutional injury was caused
by a person with final policymaking authority.” Teesdale v. City of Chi., 690 F.3d
829, 833–34 (7th Cir. 2012) (citing Estate of Sims v. Cty. of Bureau, 506 F.3d 509,
515 (7th Cir. 2007)) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Plaintiff argues that his complaint alleges sufficient factual matter to sustain
a “widespread practice” Monell claim. Pl.’s Resp. at 5–7, ECF No. 56. While there
are no “bright-line rules defining a ‘widespread custom or practice,’” a complaint
must allege that “there is a policy at issue rather than a random event.” Thomas v.
Cook Cty. Sheriff’s Dep’t, 604 F.3d 293, 303 (7th Cir. 2009).

To meet this

requirement, the plaintiff must allege more than one, and sometimes more than
three, instances of misconduct. Id. Finally, in conditions of confinement cases, it is
sufficient to allege that an official practice “creat[ed] the conditions at the jail and
permitt[ed] them to persist.” Budd v. Motley, 711 F.3d 840, 843 (7th Cir. 2013).
Plaintiff alleges that Defendants engaged in a pattern of “ignor[ing] court
decrees, guidelines[,] and directives, and insufficiently respond[ing] to correct or
alleviate” the alleged conditions at the CCJ, even though they had “notice [of the

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conditions] from Brown and other inmates.” Am. Compl. ¶ 29. Plaintiff’s complaint
clearly describes a constitutional deprivation, 6 and he alleges that Defendants—
each of whom had responsibility for overseeing the CCJ—perpetuated a custom of
turning a blind eye to those conditions.

Although Plaintiff does not detail the

number of times that he and other inmates experienced each condition, it is
reasonable to infer that the conditions persisted at least from February through
November of 2014, which is sufficient to allege “that there [was] a policy at issue
rather than a random event.” Thomas, 604 F.3d at 306; see also Bradford v. City of
Chi., No. 16 C 1663, 2017 WL 2080391, at *4 (N.D. Ill. May 15, 2017) (finding
allegations of longstanding jail conditions sufficient to implicate a widespread
practice, even where plaintiff spent less than a day in the jail).
In addition, while it is true that some of Plaintiff’s allegations are expressed
in terms specific to his personal experience, such as when he describes his cell’s
insufficient heating, his complaint alleges that his experiences were representative
within Division 6. See Am. Compl. ¶ 29 (referring to the “deplorable conditions in
Division 6 suffered by Brown and others . . . .”) (emphasis added). These allegations
of general impact are buttressed still further by the very nature of the conditions
For the first time in their reply, Defendants briefly contest the objective seriousness
of the deprivations alleged in support of Plaintiff’s official capacity claims. Defs.’ Reply at
9, ECF No. 58. An overview of relevant case law indicates, however, that Plaintiff’s
allegations are sufficient in this regard. See, e.g., Smith, 803 F.3d at 312 (finding
allegations of pest infestation and nutritionally inadequate food sufficiently serious to
implicate the Eight Amendment in an official capacity suit); Budd, 711 F.3d at 843 (finding
allegations of inadequate bedding and heating sufficiently serious to survive a motion to
dismiss because determinations of such injuries “generally require[ ] the development of a
factual record”); Antonelli, 81 F.3d at 1431 (finding allegations of a pest infestation
sufficiently serious to survive a motion to dismiss).
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themselves. In a jail where group facilities like “toilets, sinks[,] and showers were
inoperable for long periods of time,” Am. Compl. ¶ 20, it is at least plausible that
multiple inmates would necessarily have been affected.

A pest infestation

extending from Plaintiff’s cell through “the living quarters and . . . in the cells and
dayroom” is also unlikely to affect Plaintiff in isolation.

Id. ¶ 21.

Drawing

reasonable inferences in Plaintiff’s favor, as the Court must upon review of a motion
to dismiss, it is no stretch to conclude that the alleged conditions affected many
inmates on a widespread basis. 7
In sum, because Plaintiff has alleged conditions within Division 6 that
deprived him of his Eighth Amendment rights, and because he has alleged that
Defendants had a tacit widespread practice of ignoring those conditions and the
risks they posed to Plaintiff and other inmates, the Court finds that the First
Amended Complaint has stated official capacity claims against Defendants.

This line of analysis points towards an underlying commonality between individual
and official capacity liability for conditions of confinement. At the motion to dismiss stage,
there appears to be little practical difference in analyzing an individual capacity claim and
an official capacity claim against the same defendant, where the former is premised on
systemic conditions and the latter is premised on a “widespread practice” under Monell. In
other words, where, as here, a plaintiff has described prison conditions so systemic as to
implicate the subjective awareness of senior jail officials, it is quite likely that those same
allegations would also imply a widespread custom or practice of deliberate indifference.
The Seventh Circuit has observed a similar interplay between individual and official
capacity claims under the first Monell prong. See Armstrong v. Squadrito, 152 F.3d 564,
581 (7th Cir. 1998) (noting that a successful official capacity claim would have also alleged
individual liability “if the supervisor personally [had] devised a deliberately indifferent
policy that caused a constitutional injury”). At least one district court decision has
acknowledged the same interaction for the second Monell prong. See Crockwell v. Dart, No.
13 C 4880, 2013 WL 6796788, at *3–4 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 23, 2013) (finding that plaintiff stated
both individual and official capacity claims where the complaint alleged a widespread
custom or practice of ignoring systemic ADA noncompliance).
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Accordingly, the motion to dismiss is denied with respect to Plaintiff’s official
capacity claims.
Conclusion
For the reasons stated herein, the Court denies Defendants’ motion to
dismiss [52]. At the next status hearing, the parties shall be prepared to set firm
deadlines in this long-pending lawsuit.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

ENTERED 7/28/17

__________________________________
John Z. Lee
United States District Judge

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