Holt, Maurice v. Does, John et al

Filing 15

ORDER dismissing plaintiff Maurice Holt's amended complaint, dkt. # 14 , for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) and 1915A(b)(1). Plaintiff is assessed a strike under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). The clerk of court is directed to enter judgment in favor of defendants and to close this case. Signed by District Judge Barbara B. Crabb on 1/6/2017. (jef),(ps)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MAURICE HOLT,

OPINION and ORDER

Plaintiff,

16-cv-388-bbc

v.
JOHN DOE #1, JOHN DOE #2, JOHN DOE #3,
JOHN DOE #4, JOHN DOE #5, JANE DOE #1
and JANE DOE #2,
Defendants.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Pro se plaintiff Maurice Holt, a prisoner at the Green Bay Correctional Institution,
brought this lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against seven unnamed Lincoln County Jail
correctional officers. In his original complaint, plaintiff alleged that five John Doe and two
Jane Doe defendants failed to protect him from a violent attack by a fellow inmate. I
screened the complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A and dismissed it without prejudice
for plaintiff’s failure to provide fair notice of his claims in accordance with Fed. R. Civ. P.
8. Dkt. #11. I also gave plaintiff the opportunity to file an amended complaint that
complies with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Plaintiff has filed a proposed amended
complaint, dkt. ##12 and 14, which I will now evaluate under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A.
The amended complaint provides few new details, but plaintiff now generally alleges
that four unnamed county jail officials violated his rights. First, he alleges that three
defendants exposed him to danger from other inmates in the general jail population.

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Second, he alleges that one defendant failed to provide adequate medical attention for the
injury he sustained after an attack by a fellow inmate.
After reviewing and screening the amended complaint, I find that it fails to state a
claim upon which relief may be granted. Plaintiff has not put forth sufficient allegations to
show that any of the Doe defendants violated his constitutional rights. I am therefore
dismissing plaintiff’s claims and assessing him a “strike” in accordance with 28 U.S.C. §
1915(g).
Plaintiff’s amended complaint contains the following allegations, which at this stage,
I must accept as true and read in the light most favorable to him. Perez v. Fenoglio, 792
F.3d 768,. 774 (7th Cir. 2015).

ALLEGATIONS OF FACT
On April 14, 2016, plaintiff Maurice Holt was transferred from Green Bay
Correctional Institution to the Lincoln County jail. During the intake process he was
questioned by defendants John Doe #1 and Jane Doe #1, to whom “it was known” that he
was a state prisoner. Plaintiff was placed into a general population unit of the jail. Once
there, plaintiff was approached by another inmate named Adam Radak, who wanted to fight
him. Radak “was removed,” but soon after, plaintiff was attacked by another inmate,
Matthew White. Defendants John Doe #2 and Jane Doe #1 broke up the altercation and
placed plaintiff in a holding cell. A nurse, Jane Doe #2, came to look at plaintiff’s eye, which
was now “cross eyed.” Plaintiff said he needed to go to a hospital, but defendant Jane Doe

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#2 said he looked fine, she could not feel anything broken and his “eye could have been
crossed before.” An hour later, an unnamed officer came to take a statement. Plaintiff asked
to be taken to the hospital, and the officer did so. At the hospital, plaintiff discovered that
he had broken bones in his face around his left eye.

OPINION
In the court’s prior screening order, I gave plaintiff the opportunity to file an
amended complaint that provided fair notice of his claims in accordance with Fed. R. Civ.
P. 8, and otherwise complied with the federal rules. Dkt. #11, at 4-5. The amended
complaint, consisting of a single handwritten page, sets out the factual allegations described
above. It then summarizes plaintiff’s claims as follows: “My rights were violated by being
housed with county inmates and me being a state prisoner we should not have been housed
together and I would not have been injured, as well as inadequate medical attention. I was
place[d] in harm’s way by Lincoln County Jail.” Am. Cpt., dkt. #14. Thus, I understand
plaintiff to be raising two claims under the Eighth Amendment: claims against defendants
John Doe #1, John Doe #2 and Jane Doe #1 for failure to protect him from an assault by
a fellow inmate, and a claim against defendant Jane Doe #2 for failure to provide him
adequate medical care. Both claims are governed by the same general standard: whether a
defendant acted (or failed to act) with “deliberate indifference,” meaning that he or she
“kn[ew] of and disregard[ed] an excessive risk to inmate health or safety.” Farmer v.
Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837 (1994).

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As I informed plaintiff in the court’s prior order, “[i]n and of itself, the fact that he
was beat up us not a sufficient ground on which to state a claim against the prison or its
personnel.” I further explained that if plaintiff wished to bring claims against particular jail
officials, “he must set forth allegations in his complaint describing what those individuals did
and how their actions contributed to plaintiff’s injuries. . . . A prison official’s failure to
prevent an assault violates the Constitution only when the official ‘knows of and disregards
an excessive risk’ that the prisoner might be harmed.” Dkt. #11, at 3-4 (citing Gevas v.
McLaughlin, 798 F.3d 475, 482 (7th Cir. 2015); Collins v. Kibort, 143 F.3d 331, 332 (7th
Cir. 1998)). In many cases, prisoners may demonstrate such knowledge by alleging that they
complained to an official in advance to warn that they were at risk. But even in such a case,
“a generalized, vague, or stale concern about one’s safety typically will not support an
inference that a prison official had actual knowledge that the prisoner was in danger,”
whereas “a complaint that identifies a specific, credible, and imminent risk of serious harm
and identifies the prospective assailant typically will support an inference that the official
to whom the complaint was communicated had actual knowledge of the risk.” Gevas, 792
F.3d at 480-81.
With respect to the alleged assault and failure-to-protect claims, the amended
complaint provides fewer relevant details than the original complaint did. Plaintiff does not
allege that any of the defendants knew of a specific risk that White, Radak or any other
inmate at the jail would attack him. Of one officer (John Doe #2), nothing at all is known
except that he broke up the fight and placed plaintiff in a separate holding cell away from

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his assailant. Of the two others (John Doe #1 and Jane Doe #1) who questioned him during
the jail intake process, plaintiff alleges only that “it was known” that he was a state prisoner.
However, plaintiff does not explain why his status as a state prisoner would show that any
of the defendants knew of and disregarded an excessive risk that plaintiff would be harmed
if placed in a general population with county inmates. Cf. Gevas, 792 F.3d at 482; Dale v.
Poston, 548 F.3d 563, 569 (7th Cir. 2008); Brown v. Budz, 398 F.3d 904, 915-16 (7th Cir.
2005); Butera v. Cottey, 285 F.3d 601, 606 (7th Cir. 2002). Plaintiff also does not allege
that there was anything defendants could have done to stop the fight sooner than they did.
In the absence of any such facts or allegations, plaintiff’s purported failure-to-protect claims
cannot be sustained, and I will not allow them to proceed.
Plaintiff’s claim for “inadequate medical attention” against the nurse, defendant Jane
Doe #2, also falls short, though it is a closer call. A nurse or other correctional official may
be liable for violating an inmate’s Eighth Amendment rights by acting with “deliberate
indifference to serious medical needs.” Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104-05 (1976). This
standard has two elements: plaintiff must show that the defendant (1) caused a medical
deprivation that is “objectively, ‘sufficiently serious,’” and (2) acted with a “sufficiently
culpable state of mind” constituting “subjective recklessness.” Vance v. Peters, 97 F.3d 987,
991 (7th Cir. 1996) (quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834)).
Plaintiff alleges that as a result of the assault by White he suffered broken bones
around his left eye, which no doubt constitutes a “serious” medical injury. This presumably
would have been painful, although plaintiff does not say anything about how much pain he

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suffered or what he told the nurse who came to see him, besides “I need to go to the
hospital.” Plaintiff alleges that his eye was now “cross eyed,” but states no other facts that
might have made it “obvious” to defendant Jane Doe #2 that he would face a “substantial
risk” of serious harm without immediate medical attention. Estate of Cole by Pardue v.
Fromm, 94 F.3d 254, 259 (7th Cir. 1996) (quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 842). Because
plaintiff says that only an hour later an officer took him to the hospital where he was
properly diagnosed, that one-hour delay in treatment becomes the key issue.
A “significant” delay in receiving medical treatment may support a claim of deliberate
indifference, “especially where the result is prolonged and unnecessary pain.” Berry v.
Peterman, 604 F.3d 435, 441 (7th Cir. 2010) (citing Grieveson v. Anderson, 538 F.3d 763,
779 (7th Cir.2008) (guards could be liable for delaying treatment of inmate’s painful broken
nose for nearly two days); Gutierrez v. Peters, 111 F.3d 1364, 1371-72 & n. 6 (7th
Cir.1997) (collecting cases)). “To show that a delay in providing treatment is actionable
under the Eighth Amendment, a plaintiff must also provide independent evidence that the
delay exacerbated the injury or unnecessarily prolonged pain.” Petties v. Carter, 836 F.3d
722, 730–31 (7th Cir. 2016) (citing Williams v. Liefer, 491 F.3d 710, 716 (7th Cir. 2007);
Gil v. Reed, 381 F.3d 649, 662 (7th Cir. 2004) (hours of needless suffering can constitute
sufficient harm to sustain claim)).
However, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has been unwilling to
recognize a delay of only an hour or two in receiving needed medical care as the basis for a
deliberate indifference claim––particularly without facts showing that the delay caused

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significant additional harm or pain and suffering. Langston v. Peters, 100 F.3d 1235, 124041 (7th Cir. 1996) (“We have held in the past that a two-hour delay is not an unreasonably
long wait for an x-ray, an examination, and possibly a set of a fracture.”) (citing Murphy v.
Walker, 51 F.3d 714, 717 (7th Cir.1995)). In Langston, a guard’s failure to respond to a
prisoner’s complaint that he had been raped resulted in a one-hour delay before the prisoner
received medical attention. The court of appeals concluded that although “clearly a severe
injury” was alleged, a one-hour delay in providing medical care did not rise to the level of a
constitutional violation, noting that “the public often waits longer at hospital emergency
rooms.” Id. at 1240-41.
Like the serious injury at issue in Langston, plaintiff Holt had already been injured
by the time defendant Jane Doe #2 came to examine him, and the subsequent delay in
receiving medical attention was no more than an hour. Even though plaintiff’s amended
complaint does present a serious injury, he has “failed to present any [allegations] of a
detrimental effect caused by the one hour between the time” when he asked the nurse
(defendant Jane Doe #2) to take him to the hospital, and when the unnamed officer actually
did so. Id. at 1241. Moreover, as already noted, plaintiff has not alleged facts showing that
it would have been so obvious to the attending nurse that plaintiff was in immediate need
of medical attention that her failure to take him to the hospital at that time would subject
him to a substantial risk of serious harm. Given this, and given plaintiff’s failure to point
to any additional harm caused by the one-hour delay, his allegations do not show that
defendant Jane Doe #2 recklessly caused him a deprivation of his rights in violation of the

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Eighth Amendment.
This conclusion does not suggest (nor depend on any notion) that an official can
ignore a serious injury and yet always evade liability, as long as the inmate ultimately obtains
medical attention within an hour or two. I simply conclude, on the basis of the facts alleged
in this amended complaint, that plaintiff has failed to show that defendant Jane Doe #2
either (1) recklessly ignored an obvious risk of harm by declining to take plaintiff to the
hospital or (2) actually caused him any additional harm by the one-hour delay that resulted.
If this were plaintiff’s first attempt to state a claim, I would give him an opportunity to
replead and to try again to file an amended complaint that provides fair notice of any claim
and otherwise complies with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. But plaintiff has already
been given that opportunity, and after dismissing his initial complaint without prejudice I
explained his obligation to “set forth allegations in his complaint describing what [particular
defendants] did and how their actions contributed to plaintiff’s injuries.”

Dkt. #11, at 3

(emphasis added). Thus, I assume that plaintiff’s amended complaint now represents his
best effort to state a claim based on the facts at his disposal. Even if its deficiencies are in
part a matter of mere insufficient factual detail to support the allegations pleaded, the claims
cannot proceed in any event.
The amended complaint will therefore be dismissed in its entirely because it fails to
state a claim under either theory of deliberate indifference, either for failure to protect from
violent assault or for inadequate medical care.

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ORDER
IT IS ORDERED that
1. Plaintiff Maurice Holt’s amended complaint, dkt. #14, is DISMISSED for failure
to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§
1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) and 1915A(b)(1).
2. Accordingly, I will assess plaintiff a “strike” under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g).
3. The clerk of court is directed to enter judgment in favor of defendants and to close
this case.

Entered this 6th day of January, 2017.

BY THE COURT:
/s/
BARBARA B. CRABB
District Judge

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