Latrona Renee Moore v. Western Illinois Correctional Center

89 F.4th 582
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedDecember 20, 2023
Docket22-1929
StatusPublished
Cited by31 cases

This text of 89 F.4th 582 (Latrona Renee Moore v. Western Illinois Correctional Center) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Latrona Renee Moore v. Western Illinois Correctional Center, 89 F.4th 582 (7th Cir. 2023).

Opinion

In the

United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 22-1929 LATRONA RENEE MOORE, Administrator of the Estate of Lamont Deshawn Moore, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

WESTERN ILLINOIS CORRECTIONAL CENTER, et al., Defendants-Appellees. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. No. 3:16-cv-03289-CSB — Colin S. Bruce, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 8, 2023 — DECIDED DECEMBER 20, 2023 ____________________

Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and ROVNER and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges. ROVNER, Circuit Judge. When he was an inmate at Vandalia Correctional Center, Lamont Moore suffered a ghastly injury at the hands of a fellow prisoner, Kaleel Sample. Moore sued the guard on duty under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, for failing to protect him, and the prison to which he was subsequently sent for 2 No. 22-1929

violating his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. § 12101, et seq. He also filed a conspiracy claim against the Vandalia officers who investigated the event that led to this injury, asserting that they conspired to falsify the official report in order to avoid liability for failing to pro- tect him, instead blaming him for instigating the incident. Moore filed additional federal claims that are not part of the appeal, and also filed state law claims. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on Moore’s federal claims and relinquished jurisdiction over his state law claims. We affirm. I. In June 2015, Moore was a prisoner at Vandalia Correc- tional Center, a minimum-security prison where inmates are housed in open-dorm settings. Moore’s dorm housed approx- imately eighty-six inmates, including Sample. The dorm con- tained approximately forty-four bunkbeds lined up in four rows in a large room that was open like a large pole barn. Un- der the bunks were lockboxes for each inmate to store his per- sonal property. Each inmate was issued a key to his lockbox. Moore’s bunkbed was “a couple bunks down” from Sample’s bunkbed. At the back of the dorm was a shower room and bathroom. A single guard sat at the front, overseeing the en- tire dorm. Jason Gatewood was the guard on duty during the day shift when Moore’s injury occurred, and in the days lead- ing up to the attack. Approximately four days before the attack, Moore was in the dorm bathroom at the same time as Sample. Sample was “pouring water,” “playing around and he was throwing and splashing water.” Moore was brushing his teeth in a nearby stall as Sample did this, and Moore told Sample to stop No. 22-1929 3

splashing water. A few days later, Moore complained about Sample to Gatewood and asked to be moved to another part of the dorm, away from Sample, but Gatewood did nothing. On June 14, 2015, at approximately 10 a.m., shortly before lunch, Sample said something to Moore that Moore could not specifically recall later, but Moore “brushed it off and walked it off.” Moore then asked Gatewood to move him to the other side of the dorm so that he could stay away from Sample and a “bunch of young guys” in the area where his bunk was lo- cated. According to Moore, he could not sleep in his assigned area because of the activities of the younger inmates. Gate- wood declined to move his bunk assignment. When Moore came back from lunch at approximately 11 a.m., he returned to his bunk and watched television with some of the other men located nearby. Around noon, Moore went back to Gatewood and asked again to be “move[d] off this side to get me away from these guys.” Gatewood re- sponded that he could not move Moore because he was not a lieutenant, and that he had conveyed Moore’s request to a lieutenant. Moore then went back to his bunk, where he sat with some of the other men for a few hours. At some point, Sample came into Moore’s area and Moore asked him to leave. Sample and another inmate were engaged in “horseplay.” They were “falling all over [the] bunks.” Moore then went to the bath- room. When he returned to his bunk, Sample and the other man were still there, “tussling around” in Moore’s area. They had moved some of the bunks. Moore again told them to leave, and Sample replied by “mouthing off.” Moore then “went and hollered at the officer again,” to no avail. 4 No. 22-1929

When Moore returned from talking to Gatewood, Sample said something else to him, and Moore again “brushed it off,” and “walked off from it.” Moore did not recall what Sample said because he was not paying attention to him. According to Moore, Sample then suddenly punched Moore in the face. Sample was aiming for Moore’s neck, but Moore turned and took the blow in his left eye. Sample had the key to his lockbox intertwined in his fingers, and the key pierced Moore’s eye- ball. When Sample pulled back from the punch, Moore’s eye- ball came out of its socket with the key. By this time, the 3 p.m. shift change had begun, and Gatewood was no longer pre- sent. Fellow prisoners immediately alerted the officer on duty, who notified the healthcare unit. Within minutes, Moore was rushed to the healthcare unit in a wheelchair and then sent to the emergency room of an outside hospital. He was in the hospital for a few days. A doctor there pushed the eyeball back into the socket and treated Moore for his injuries. Moore returned to the healthcare unit at Vandalia where he continued to receive treatment for his injuries. On July 15, 2015, Moore was transferred to the healthcare unit at Western Illinois Correctional Center. After spending two weeks in the healthcare unit at West- ern Illinois, Moore was placed in the general population against his wishes. He expressed that he felt safer in the healthcare unit than in the general population where he might be attacked again. Moore was never able to see from his left eye again. Moore’s doctor recommended removing the dam- aged left eye in order to preserve the vision in his right eye. In September 2015, Moore was moved to a hospital in Spring- field, Illinois for the operation and was then returned to the healthcare unit at Western Illinois. After a week in the healthcare unit, Moore was sent to the general population No. 22-1929 5

again. He was placed in a part of the prison that was a great distance from the healthcare unit, where he needed to walk each day for continued care. With monocular vision, Moore had balance problems, blurry vision in his remaining eye, and no depth perception. Although he had no problems with “physically walking,” these conditions nevertheless made walking difficult and slow. He was issued a low bunk permit and a slow walk permit. It took him thirty to forty minutes to get to the healthcare unit from the unit where he was housed. Asked whether other inmates helped him, he answered, “Yeah, a couple sometimes.” R. 55-1, at 40. Moore took medi- cation three times a day. Prison staff brought his medication to him in the morning and the evening, but once a day, he had to walk to the healthcare unit for medication and to get his bandage changed. During lockdowns, prison staff came to Moore’s housing unit three times a day to deliver medication and change his bandage. The chow hall was approximately five minutes from the healthcare unit and when the prison was not on lockdown, Moore generally went from his healthcare visit directly to lunch. He asked a few officers, a lieutenant, someone in internal affairs, a nurse, a doctor, and his counselor to be placed closer to the healthcare unit but was not moved closer until shortly before he was transferred out of Western Illinois to Graham Correctional Center.

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