Mann v. Burns et al

Filing 94

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER, The Court ADOPTS the Report as MODIFIED by this order (Doc. 89 ); GRANTS the defendants' motion for summary judgment on Count 1 (Doc. 84 ); and DIRECTS the Clerk of Court to enter judgment accordingly. Signed by Judge J. Phil Gilbert on 11/20/2017. (jdh)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
JASON W. MANN,
Plaintiff,
v.

Case No. 14-cv-1358-JPG-SCW

ROBERT D. BURNS, ROBERT TELLOR,
THOMAS KUPFERER, ANTHONY
ROBERTSON, LINDSAY LEGERE, GALE
GLADSON, CRAIG HARJU, CHRIS
MORBER, MATTHEW HINES, CHARLIE
GLIDEWELL, JUSTIN GIBBS, MARK
FRENCH, TRAVIS FRED, JESSICA BEIN,
HEATH BARONE, JUSTIN BANDY,
RHONDA WALKER, MICHAEL
STRATTON, JOHN HUFFMAN, LEE
KERSTEN, DARLENE BLUDWORTH,
JEFF WHITBECK and UNKNOWN
PARTIES,
Defendants.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter comes before the Court on the Report and Recommendation (“Report”) (Doc.
89) of Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Williams recommending that the Court grant the defendants’
motion for summary judgment because no reasonable jury could find, based on the evidence in the
file, that the defendants exposed plaintiff Jason W. Mann to unconstitutional conditions of
confinement while he was a pretrial detainee at the Jackson County Jail (Doc. 84).
The Court may accept, reject or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or
recommendations of the magistrate judge in a report and recommendation. Fed. R. Civ. P.
72(b)(3). The Court must review de novo the portions of the report to which objections are made.
Id. “If no objection or only partial objection is made, the district court judge reviews those
unobjected portions for clear error.” Johnson v. Zema Sys. Corp., 170 F.3d 734, 739 (7th Cir.

1999).
The Court has received no objection to the Report. The Court has reviewed the entire file
and finds that the Report is not clearly erroneous. Nevertheless, it bears mentioning that there is a
point of uncertainty concerning the standard applicable to conditions of confinement claims for
pretrial detainees.
In the Report, Magistrate Judge Williams set forth the Eighth Amendment standard for
cruel and unusual conditions of confinement for convicted prisoners, which has historically been
applied to pretrial detainees’ conditions of confinement claims under the Fourteenth Amendment
Due Process Clause. Burton v. Downey, 805 F.3d 776, 784 (7th Cir. 2015). However, as noted
in Chief Judge Michael J. Reagan’s August 5, 2015, order reviewing this case under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1915A (Doc. 24), the Supreme Court’s ruling in Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 135 S. Ct. 2466
(2015), has created some uncertainty. In Kingsley, a pretrial detainee sued for excessive force,
and the Supreme Court held that the appropriate standard was whether the officers’ purposeful or
knowing use of force was objectively unreasonable, not whether the officers were subjectively
aware that their use of force was unreasonable. Id. at 2470. Kingsley calls into question whether
deliberate indifference is the correct standard for a pretrial detainee’s conditions of confinement
claim, but the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has suggested the Eighth Amendment standard
still applies. See Phillips v. Sheriff of Cook Cty., 828 F.3d 541, 554 n. 31 (7th Cir. 2016). But see
Mulvania v. Sheriff of Rock Island Cty., 850 F.3d 849, 856-58 (7th Cir. 2017) (applying objective
unreasonableness standard to conditions of confinement claim). However, even if the correct
standard is objective reasonableness, the Court finds that no reasonable jury hearing the facts of
this case could conclude that any defendant’s conduct was objectively unreasonable in light of the

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legitimate interest in managing the jail. Their treatment of Mann did not amount to punishment,
so they did not violate the Due Process Clause.
Accordingly, the Court hereby:


ADOPTS the Report as MODIFIED by this order (Doc. 89);



GRANTS the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on Count 1 (Doc. 84); and



DIRECTS the Clerk of Court to enter judgment accordingly.

IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: November 20, 2017
s/ J. Phil Gilbert
J. PHIL GILBERT
DISTRICT JUDGE

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