Holliday v. Lakin et al

Filing 81

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER, The Court ADOPTS the Report in its entirety (Doc. 72 )OVERRULES Holliday's objections (Doc. 77 ), GRANTS in part and DENIES in part the defendants' motion for summary judgment (Doc. 60 ). The Court DENIES Holliday 's motion for summary judgment (Doc. 64 ), and DIRECTS the Clerk of Court to enter judgment accordingly at the close of the case.Defendants Lakin, Bost and Rushing are terminated from this case. The only claim remaining for trial is Count 1 ag ainst McNaughton, Tassone and Dover based on the December 2014 sewer backups. The Court further ORDERS the parties to submit a proposed final pretrial order to Magistrate Judge Williamss chambers on or before May 1, 2018. Signed by Judge J. Phil Gilbert on 3/14/2018. (jdh)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
GEORGE HOLLIDAY, SR.,
Plaintiff,
v.

Case No. 15-cv-290-JPG-SCW

SHERIFF LAKIN, ROBERT HERTZ, GARY
BOST, DON McNAUGHTON, MIKE
TASSONE, MATTHEW DOVER, ALISIA
RUSHING and BARBARA UNFRIED,
Defendants.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter comes before the Court on the Report and Recommendation (“Report”) (Doc.
72) of Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Williams recommending that the Court grant in part and
deny in part the defendants’ motion for summary judgment (Doc. 60) and deny plaintiff George
Holliday Sr.’s motion for summary judgment (Doc. 64). Holliday has objected to the Report
(Doc. 77).
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).
I.

The Report and Objections
Magistrate Judge Williams recounts in the Report that at all relevant times Holliday was

a pretrial detainee at the Madison County Jail (“Jail”). During his detention, the Jail sewer

experienced a problem, and raw sewage backed up from drains and toilets into Holliday’s cell.
The back-ups occurred on two occasions, first around December 27-28, 2014, and again around
March 17-18, 2015. Holliday filed this lawsuit alleging the defendants violated his Fourteenth
Amendment due process rights by subjecting him to unsafe and unsanitary conditions of
confinement (Count 1) and by failing to provide needed medical care following his exposure to
those conditions (Counts 2 and 3).
The Report recommended that the Court deny summary judgment as to defendants
McNaughton, Tassone and Dover based on their failure to provide Holliday with cleaning
supplies and water during the December 2014 sewer backups but grant summary judgment to
those defendants as to the March 2015 backups. It further recommends the Court grant summary
judgment for defendants Lakin, the sheriff of Madison County, and Bost, the jail administrator,
with respect to both the December 2014 and March 2015 sewer backups, and for defendants
Rushing and Bost on Holliday’s medical care claims.
No party has objected to Magistrate Judge Williams’s recommendation to deny summary
judgment to McNaughton, Tassone and Dover for their December 2014 conduct or to grant
summary judgment for Rushing and Bost based on medical care. The Court has reviewed the
portion of the Report making those recommendations for clear error and finds none.
Accordingly, the Court will adopt those portions of the Report and will deny summary judgment
to McNaughton, Tassone and Dover based on the December 2014 sewer backups (part of Count
1) and will grant summary judgment for Rushing and Bost based on medical care (Counts 2 and
3).
Holliday objects to the Report to the extent it recommends granting summary judgment
for McNaughton, Tassone and Dover based on their conduct in connection with the March 2015

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sewer backups and to the extent it recommends granting summary judgment for Lakin and Bost
in connection with both sewer backups. The Court reviews those aspects of the Report de novo.
II.

Analysis
A.

March 2015 Sewer Backups: McNaughton, Tassone and Dover

In his objection, Holliday argues that the Report failed to address whether the March
2015 backups were objectively serious, analyzing only the subjective component of an Eighth
Amendment conditions of confinement claim. Such a claim required proof of both an objective
component – conditions that deny the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities – and a
subjective component – a sufficiently culpable state of mind. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825,
834 (1994).
It is true that Magistrate Judge Williams did not address the objective component of
Holliday’s conditions of confinement claim based on the March 2015 sewer backups. Instead, he
based his recommendation on the fact that no jury could find the defendants had a sufficiently
culpable state of mind—that is, that they were deliberately indifferent to the sewer backup—
where they “responded to the backup by calling maintenance, the backup was remedied quickly
as Plaintiff testified to, and Plaintiff had an ability to get away from the sewage during the
backup and was provided with cleaning supplies afterwards.” Report at 20. Magistrate Judge
Williams did not need to discuss the objective component of the claim because he found that
Holliday could not prove the other essential component of the claim, subjective deliberate
indifference. Where Holliday cannot prove the defendants were deliberately indifferent, whether
the conditions posed a serious risk to Holliday’s health or safety does not matter.
Holliday has not objected to Magistrate Judge Williams’s findings that no reasonable jury
could find the defendants deliberately indifferent, and the Court finds no clear error in those

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findings. Accordingly, the Court will adopt the portion of the Report recommending summary
judgment for McNaughton, Tassone and Dover on Count 1 to the extent it was based on the
March 2015 backups.
B.

Sewer Backups: Lakin and Bost

In his objection, Holliday argues that Magistrate Judge Williams does not sufficiently
grapple with whether Lakin and Bost were deliberately indifferent to the sewer backups that
occurred at the jail. Holliday argues that Bost’s and Lakin’s response to the sewer backups was
to do nothing to prevent further backups and to fail to suggest solutions to the Madison County
Board, which was responsible for the jail building.
It is clear that both Bost and Lakin, to different degrees, understood that there were
problems with the jail’s sewer. However, the Madison County Board was the entity responsible
for the physical jail building, including the sewer system. It generally was not part of the
sheriff’s job to make recommendations to the Board, and neither Lakin nor Bost had the
authority to make changes to the sewer system on his own. Holliday acknowledges that prison
officials are not liable for harm caused by matters beyond their control. See Moore v.
Winebrenner, 927 F.2d 1312, 1317 n.1 (4th Cir. 1991) (citing Cortes-Quinones v. JimenezNettleship, 842 F.2d 556, 561 (1st Cir. 1988)). Thus, Lakin and Bost are not deliberately
indifferent because the condition of the sewer was not under their control and was not their
responsibility.
Additionally, at the time of the sewer backups at issue in this case, the Board was already
aware of the sewer problem and had a renovation plan that included installing grinders in the
sewer system to break down items that might otherwise cause backups. Neither Lakin nor Bost
can be found to be deliberately indifferent for failing to recommend an improvement the Board

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had already proposed to deal with a problem it already knew about.
Holliday also claims there were lesser preventive measures than installing grinders that
Lakin and Bost could have done on their own without Board approval. It is true that a defendant
may be liable for not doing something within his control, see Moore, 927 F.2d at 1317 n.1, but
Holliday has not even hinted at what those measures might have been. The bottom line is that
Lakin delegated the matter to Bost, who administered the jail on a day-to-day basis, and that Bost
implemented a policy to call on maintenance to fix backups as expeditiously as possible and to
provide inmates with appropriate cleaning supplies afterward. No reasonable jury could find this
amounted to deliberate indifference.
For these reasons, the Court will adopt the portion of the Report recommending summary
judgment for Bost and Lakin on Count 1. The Court is dismayed, however, by Madison
County’s apparent failure to remedy a known problem that seems to have regularly exposed
detainees at the jail to inhumane conditions. It is only a matter of time before a detainee exposed
to those conditions sues the responsible defendant, who may then be held liable for the
deplorable conditions. The Court is heartened that it appears Madison County has received bids
for a massive jail renovation project. Scott Cousins, Prospective contractors for Madison
County Jail renovation tour facility: Bids due March 7 on $9 million project, The Telegraph,
Feb. 14, 2018, https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/Prospective-contractors-for-MadisonCounty-Jail-12712480.php (visited Mar. 8, 2018). The Court sincerely hopes the renovation
project, including improvements to the sewer system, proceeds expeditiously.
III.

Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the Court hereby:


ADOPTS the Report in its entirety (Doc. 72);

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

OVERRULES Holliday’s objections (Doc. 77);



GRANTS in part and DENIES in part the defendants’ motion for summary judgment
(Doc. 60). The motion is granted to the extent it seeks summary judgment:
o in favor of McNaughton, Tassone and Dover on Count 1 based on the March
2015 sewer backups;
o in favor of Lakin and Bost, in their individual and official capacities, on Count 1;
o in favor of Rushing on Count 2; and
o in favor of Bost Count 3.
The motion is denied in all other respects;



DENIES Holliday’s motion for summary judgment (Doc. 64); and



DIRECTS the Clerk of Court to enter judgment accordingly at the close of the case.

Defendants Lakin, Bost and Rushing are terminated from this case. The only claim remaining
for trial is Count 1 against McNaughton, Tassone and Dover based on the December 2014 sewer
backups. The Court further ORDERS the parties to submit a proposed final pretrial order to
Magistrate Judge Williams’s chambers on or before May 1, 2018.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: March 14, 2018
s/ J. Phil Gilbert
J. PHIL GILBERT
DISTRICT JUDGE

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