Karim v. Lemke et al

Filing 50

ORDER. Defendants Regina Beattie, Royce Brown-Reed, and Quinten Tanner's Motion to Dismiss 33 is denied. Signed by the Honorable Virginia M. Kendall on 3/10/2016: Mailed notice (am)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
Samuel Karim
Plaintiff,
v.
Michael Lemke, et al.
Defendants.

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No. 15 C 4803
Judge Virginia M. Kendall

ORDER
For the reasons set forth below, the Court denies Defendants Regina Beattie, Royce BrownReed, and Quinten Tanner’s Motion to Dismiss. (Dkt. No. 33.)
BACKGROUND
The Court takes the following allegations from the Complaint and treats them as true for the
purposes of the Defendant’s motion. See Gillard v. Proven Methods Seminars, LLC, 388 F.
App’x 549, 549-550 (7th Cir. 2010).
Karim is currently confined at Stateville Correctional Center. (Dkt. No. 7 at 1.) He sets forth a
number of allegations against Tanner, Beattie, and Brown-Reed in his Complaint.
Tanner is the dietary manager at Stateville and is responsible for overseeing inmates’ diets and
sanitation of the inmates’ food and related facilities. (Id. at ¶ 9.) The inmates’ diet includes a
level of soy well over the recommended daily amount. (Id. at ¶ 14.) Karim suffered from
various ailments due to the diet, including kidney stones, soy toxic poisoning, and gallstones.
(Id.) In addition, inmates’ meals were both transported on unsanitary carts and stored in rodent
and mold infested areas that caused Karim additional harm. (Id. at ¶ 15.) Brown-Reed is the
healthcare unit administrator and is responsible for inspections of each housing unit and food
service area. (Id. at ¶ 10.) Karim alleges that he was not provided with adequate cleaning
supplies and therefore was unable to clean his living space, leading to unsanitary living
conditions. (Id. at ¶¶ 17-19.) Due to those conditions and the resulting dust mites, Karim
suffered of symptoms and other harms. (Id. at ¶¶ 21-22.) Karim also lists a number of other
sanitation issues in the housing unit, including the existence of a number of dangerous conditions
such as mold (id. at ¶ 22), lead (id. at ¶ 29), and vermin (id. at ¶¶ 52-59). Beattie is the
pharmacist at Stateville and is responsible for ordering and filling the inmates’ prescriptions. (Id.
at ¶ 12.) Karim states that his prescription refilling was repeated delayed and that he was also
subjected to other inadequate medical care. (Id. at ¶¶ 77; 64-67.) Karim has raised these issues
to the prison administration through the institutional grievance process on numerous occasions.
(Id. at ¶¶ 16; 68-69.)

LEGAL STANDARD
A complaint must contain sufficient factual matter to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its
face to survive a 12(b)(6) challenge. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). A claim is
plausible on its face when the complaint contains factual content that supports a reasonable
inference that the defendant is liable for the harm. Id. The complaint should be dismissed only
if the plaintiffs would not be entitled to relief under any set of facts that could be proved
consistent with the allegations. See Visiting Nurses Ass’n of Southwestern Indiana, Inc. v.
Shalala, 213 F.3d 352, 354 (7th Cir. 2000). In making the plausibility determination, the Court
relies on its “judicial experience and common sense.” McCauley v. City of Chicago, 671 F.3d
611, 616 (7th Cir. 2011) (quoting Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950). “Allegations of a pro se complaint
are held ‘to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers....’” Alvarado v.
Litscher, 267 F.3d 648, 651 (7th Cir. 2001) (citing Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520, 92 S.Ct.
594, 30 L.Ed.2d 652 (1972) (per curiam)). As such, “pro se complaints are to be liberally
construed.” Wilson v. Civil Town of Clayton, Ind., 839 F.2d 375, 378 (7th Cir. 1988). For
purposes of this motion, this Court accepts all well-pleaded allegations in the complaint as true
and draws all reasonable inferences in the non-movant’s favor. See Yeftich v. Navistar, Inc., 722
F.3d 911, 915 (7th Cir. 2013).
DISCUSSION
Defendants Beattie, Brown-Reed, and Tanner, in a short five page motion, move to dismiss on
two grounds: first, that Karim has not set forth sufficient facts indicating that any of the three
were directly or personally involved in creating the circumstances that caused him harm, and
second, that Karim has not sufficiently alleged that he suffer a constitutional harm. (Dkt. No. 33
at 2-5.)
Turning to the first argument, and taking into account the liberal construction required due to
Karim’s pro se status, the Court holds that Karim has alleged sufficient facts directly linking the
Defendants to the harmful conditions. As both parties have recognized in their briefing, “[f]or a
defendant to be liable under § 1983, he or she must have participated directly in the
constitutional violation.” Hildebrandt v. Illinois Dep't of Nat. Res., 347 F.3d 1014, 1039 (7th
Cir. 2003). “[A]n official satisfies the personal responsibility requirement of section 1983 ... if
the conduct causing the constitutional deprivation occurs at [his] direction or with [his]
knowledge and consent. That is, he must know about the conduct and facilitate it, approve it,
condone it, or turn a blind eye.” Id. (citing Gentry v. Duckworth, 65 F.3d 555, 561 (7th
Cir.1995) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)). Here, Karim has alleged that each of
the moving Defendants were either responsible or in charge of some condition that caused him
harm. 1 Moreover, Karim has alleged, and the Defendants do not dispute, he raised these issues
with the prison administration via the grievance process many times (and to apparently no avail).
1

Karim alleges that Tanner, who is in charge of food sanitation and dietary concerns, violated his constitutional
rights when he acted with deliberate indifference towards a number of conditions such as unsanitary food
transportation and an unhealthy diet. (Dkt. No. 7 at ¶ 76.) Similarly, Karim alleged that Beattie, the Stateville
pharmacist, violated his constitutional rights by repeatedly delaying the filling and delivery of his medicine. (Id. at
77.) Finally, Karim contends that Brown-Reed, who is the healthcare unit administrator, violated his rights by
failing to provide adequate cleaning supplies and failing to adequately address a number of other sanitation related
issues.

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(Dkt. No. 7 at ¶¶ 68-69.) Taking all reasonable inferences in the non-movant’s favor, the Court
infers, based on those grievances, that all of the moving Defendants were aware of the various
issues and nevertheless failed to address them, effectively turning a “blind eye.” Hildebrandt,
347 F.3d at 1039. As such, the Court rejects the Defendants’ first contention.
Moving to the second dispute, the Court holds that Karim has alleged sufficient facts to support a
finding that he suffered a constitutional harm. Defendants take the position that Karim has failed
to show that he suffered a sufficiently serious harm under the Constitution. 2 Here, it is certainly
plausible that the numerous allegedly inadequate conditions, including unsanitary cooking and
living quarters, the constant presence of vermin, and failure to adequately provide basic cleaning
items, taken all together, would amount to an unconstitutional condition of confinement. Dixon
v. Godinez, 114 F.3d 640, 644 (7th Cir. 1997) (providing that a condition that may not ordinarily
violate the Eighth Amendment may nonetheless do so if in combination with other factors).
Further, the Court rejects any contention that the harm Karim suffered – including gallstones,
asthma, and aggravated diabetes (see Dkt. No. 46 at 2) – does not amount to a constitutional
harm. See, e.g., Garvin v. Armstrong, 236 F.3d 896, 898 (7th Cir.2001) (Court assuming that
plaintiff’s asthmatic condition was sufficiently serious); Morris v. Ghosh, No. 08 C 4518, 2012
WL 394191, at *1 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 6, 2012) (parties not disputing that plaintiff diagnosed with
asthma and diabetes, among other conditions, met the objective prong analysis). In addition, at
this stage of the proceeding, the Court finds that it is plausible that Defendants’ failure to address
the inadequate conditions and delay in providing medicine could have exacerbated the harm that
Karim suffered.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth above, the Court denies Defendants Regina Beattie, Royce Brown-Reed,
and Quinten Tanner’s Motion to Dismiss. (Dkt. No. 33.)

________________________________________
Virginia M. Kendall
United States District Court Judge
Northern District of Illinois
Date: 3/10/2016

2

The sufficiently serious harm analysis is part of the larger Eighth Amendment inquiry regarding deliberate
indifference. See, e.g., Pyles v. Fahim, 771 F.3d 403, 408 (7th Cir. 2014). While the general analysis has both
objective and subjective prongs, the Defendants here only challenge the objective prong, i.e. whether, from an
objective standpoint, the alleged harm was sufficiently serious under the Constitution. Id.

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