Travis Williams v. Simeon Ortiz

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
• Decided: August 26, 2019
• Docket: 18-1404
• Status: Published

Opinion

In the

United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 18-1404 TRAVIS DELANEY WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.

SIMEON ORTIZ, et al., Defendants-Appellees. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. No. 14-C-792 — William C. Griesbach, Chief Judge. ____________________

ARGUED MAY 21, 2019 — DECIDED AUGUST 26, 2019 ____________________

Before FLAUM, KANNE, and SYKES, Circuit Judges. KANNE, Circuit Judge. Travis Williams appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of several correc- tional employees. Because he failed to exhaust his administra- tive remedies and because the defendants did not provide him with objectively unreasonable medical care, we affirm. 2 No. 18-1404

I. BACKGROUND Travis Williams entered Racine County Jail in Wisconsin as a pre-trial detainee on May 8, 2013. He suffers from osteo- arthritis, a condition for which he has received Social Security disability insurance since 1982. When Williams was admitted to the jail after his arrest, he had been recently using a walker and a cane to get around. Although the Racine County Jail typically provides its in- mates with a single mattress to sleep on at night, when the jail places inmates on disciplinary-segregation status it does not allow them to keep their mattresses in their cells during the daytime hours. In late 2013, the medical staff provided Wil- liams with double mattresses to sleep on as an accommoda- tion for his osteoarthritis. The jail allowed Williams to have double mattresses at night for sleeping, and allowed him to keep a single mattress in his cell during the day. By February 2014, the medical staff concluded that Williams’s medical con- dition no longer required a second mattress, but the staff ini- tially allowed him to keep his double mattresses. Like other correctional facilities, the Racine County Jail has an administrative grievance and appeal procedure for its inmates. The procedures for appealing an adverse adminis- trative action at the Racine County Jail are included in a jail handbook that is accessible in the jail’s common areas. Essen- tially, the Racine County Jail follows a two-step appeal proce- dure. The jail handbook provides that the hearing supervisor may impose a sanction or penalty based on the findings of a disciplinary proceeding. The hearing supervisor can impose up to ten days of segregation for each rule violation. An in- mate can execute his first appeal of the disciplinary finding and imposed sanctions to the Assistant Jail Administrator No. 18-1404 3

(Lieutenant Bradley Friend) or to the Lieutenant in Charge of Jail Operations. Once the first appeal is returned, the inmate can execute his second appeal of an adverse finding to the Jail Administrator (Captain Douglas Wearing). The inmate must write this second appeal on an inmate request form and sub- mit it to a staff member within 24 hours of the finding deci- sion. The jail administrator’s appeal decision is final. Williams’s troubles, at least as they are relevant to this case, began on June 3, 2014. That day he used the shower out- side of the authorized timeframe and was consequently writ- ten up and placed on 24-hour lockdown. When a guard, Of- ficer Robert Hernandez, handed him the write-up, Williams grew angry and threatened and yelled abusive insults at Her- nandez. Hernandez wrote a disciplinary ticket that recom- mended twelve days of segregation for Williams. That same day, Doctor Simeon Ortiz examined Williams because he complained of pain when walking. Ortiz noted that Williams showed no signs of pain upon palpitation of his heels during examination and that he had joint mobility, but Ortiz also or- dered an x-ray. On June 5, the medical staff performed an x-ray, which re- vealed that Williams had bone spurs. Williams also found himself involved in other disciplinary incidents that day: Wil- liams yelled verbally abusive comments at Hernandez in the morning. Later on, Officer Austin Isferding responded to Wil- liams’s complaint about his lunch. Williams claims he re- ceived a plate of stuffing that he described as “contaminated” with a long strand of hair and a “crunchy material.” He ate all the other food on his plate and then complained about the contamination and asked for new food. Although Isferding provided a new serving of stuffing, Williams alleges that 4 No. 18-1404

Isferding just piled the new stuffing on top of the contami- nated stuffing. Williams grew angry in reaction to this slight. Isferding consequently ordered Williams to lock up in his cell. As Isferding attempted to shut Williams’s cell door, Williams shoved rolls of toilet paper in between the bars to prevent the door from closing. Then Williams attempted to tie the bars to- gether with a bed sheet. Isferding wrote up Williams for the incident and recommended six days of segregation. On that day, after Williams was written up, he submitted a written grievance to Friend about the stuffing situation. Also on that day, Sergeant Patrick Noonan went to Williams’s cell to con- duct a hearing on Williams’s conduct, but Williams claims that he was incapacitated by medication he took earlier in the day and that the hearing never occurred. In the following days, Williams submitted additional stuffing-situation griev- ances to Friend. On June 8, the jail staff conducted a hearing to evaluate Williams’s write ups for the incidents on June 3 and 5. Wil- liams alleges that the hearing never happened, but the officers claim that Williams refused to participate. The hearing officer determined that Williams would serve twenty days of segre- gation as a result of his behavior during these incidents. Sep- arately, the guards found Williams with contraband that day and wrote him up, recommending an additional three days in segregation. Williams began serving his 20-day term in segregation the evening of June 8. The jail—pursuant to its standard segrega- tion policy—allowed him to keep only one mattress for sleep- ing and no mattress during the daytime. Williams objected that he needed the mattress on account of his osteoarthritis. No. 18-1404 5

Over the weeks that followed, the jail’s medical staff contin- ued to address Williams’s medical complaints and Williams continued to correspond with Lieutenant Friend and Captain Wearing concerning his grievances. We provide a brief over- view of these events to better illustrate the grounds of the par- ties’ arguments. On June 9, Williams submitted a third grievance to Friend about the stuffing situation. The district court determined that this was a separate, stand-alone complaint. Williams argues on appeal that this grievance was an appeal of the segregation term imposed on him the day before. On June 10, Williams wrote a grievance directly to Wear- ing, complaining that the disciplinary hearing was conducted when he was medicated on mind-altering drugs. On June 12, Doctor Ortiz examined Williams for hip pain and to evaluate whether Williams needed his requested mat- tress accommodation. Ortiz determined that Williams’s con- dition did not require a mattress accommodation at that time. That same day, Williams yelled sexually explicit remarks at and exposed himself to Hernandez. Hernandez wrote Wil- liams up and recommended six days of segregation. On June 13, Williams wrote to Friend and claimed that Ortiz had ordered him a mattress. Williams iterated his desire for a mattress accommodation. On June 15, the hearing officer attempted to have an ad- ministrative hearing on the incidents that occurred on June 8 and 12. Williams did not participate in the hearing and the hearing officer imposed an additional nine days of segrega- tion. Williams also wrote a grievance to Friend that day, com- plaining that his osteoarthritis required a mattress. 6 No. 18-1404

On June 16, Friend replied to Williams’s June 9 appeal re- garding the stuffing situation. That day Wearing also replied to Williams’s June 10 grievance, which concerned his com- plaint that he was deprived of a hearing. On June 17, Friend responded to Williams’s June 13 and 15 grievances. Friend advised Williams that the medical staff informed him that they had not ordered a mattress for Wil- liams. Further, Friend told Williams that the nursing staff in- formed him that there was no medical reason for a mattress accommodation. But Friend also advised Williams that he would be provided a mattress if the medical staff authorized one. On June 18, Williams appealed to Wearing the nine-day discipline imposed on June 15. The grievance almost exclu- sively discusses the nine additional days of disciplinary time, but Williams closed by stating, “my due process has been vi- olated twice now for a total of a[n] unjust 35 days segregation time.” On June 20, Williams appealed Friend’s June 17 denial to Wearing, who replied to it on June 26. On June 20th and 26, Wearing responded to grievances that Williams sent to him about the mattress, advising him that medical issues should be filed as requests with the medi- cal staff. On July 1, Ortiz examined Williams for pain reported in his left arm and shin. On July 9, a nurse practitioner exam- ined Williams for leg pain, but found that he had no swelling, bruising, or tenderness. On July 10, Ortiz examined Williams again after he com- plained of swelling, but Ortiz found no evidence of swelling and noted that Williams could stand, walk, and move around No. 18-1404 7

without issue. As a result, Ortiz did not believe that Williams needed a mattress as a medical accommodation. Williams filed suit, pro se, in the Eastern District of Wiscon- sin. The district court screened Williams’s complaint to deter- mine if he raised any viable issues for trial. The court deter- mined that four of Williams’s claims against six defendants could proceed. The court allowed Williams to bring 1) a claim alleging that Officer Isferding retaliated against him by refus- ing to provide him with proper hygiene kits because Williams had filed grievances, 2) Fourteenth Amendment claims against Officers Isferding and Hernandez alleging harass- ment, 3) a Fourteenth Amendment claim against Officers Isferding and Hernandez for their alleged conspiracy to fab- ricate disciplinary tickets to keep him locked up and to de- prive him of the jail’s administrative process, 4) a deliberate indifference claim against Lieutenant Friend, Doctor Ortiz, Nurse Olstinske, and Nurse Coe. The parties eventually filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The case was later reassigned to another district court judge, who granted summary judgment—in two sepa- rate orders—for all defendants and denied summary judg- ment for Williams. Relevant to this appeal, in the first order, the court granted summary judgment on Williams’s deliber- ate indifference claim for defendants Dr. Ortiz, Lieutenant Friend, Nurse Olstinske, and Nurse Coe. In the second order, the court granted summary judgment for Officers Hernandez and Isferding on Williams’s Fourteenth Amendment Due Pro- cess claims because the court determined Williams failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. 8 No. 18-1404

II. ANALYSIS Williams appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of all defendants. First, he argues that the district court erred when it determined that he failed to ex- haust his administrative remedies for his claims against Offic- ers Hernandez and Isferding. Second, Williams argues that the district court erred by granting summary judgment for Dr. Ortiz, Lieutenant Friend, Nurse Olstinske, and Nurse Coe on his deliberate indifference claims. Summary judgment is appropriate only when there is no dispute of material fact, and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). We review de novo a dismissal for failure to exhaust, construing the facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Lanaghan v. Koch, 902 F.3d 683, 688 (7th Cir. 2018) (citing Pyles v. Nwaobasi, 829 F.3d 860, 864 (7th Cir. 2016)). However, “[e]ven on summary judgment, district courts are not required to draw every requested inference; they must only draw reason- able ones that are supported by the record.” Omnicare, Inc. v. UnitedHealth Grp., Inc., 629 F.3d 697, 704 (7th Cir. 2011) (citing Omosegbon v. Wells, 335 F.3d 668, 677 (7th Cir. 2003)). A. Williams Failed to Exhaust His Administrative Remedies Because exhaustion is an affirmative defense, the defend- ants bear the burden to show Williams’s failure to exhaust. Davis v. Mason, 881 F.3d 982, 985 (7th Cir. 2018) (citing Pyles, 829 F.3d at 864). Because Williams was incarcerated when he filed this action, his claims are governed by the Prison Litiga- tion Reform Act (“PLRA”). Under the PLRA, a prisoner must exhaust “such administrative remedies as are available” be- fore bringing a suit “with respect to prison conditions under No. 18-1404 9

section 1983 ... or any other federal law.” 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). The exhaustion requirement is interpreted strictly; thus, a “prisoner must comply with the specific procedures and deadlines established by the prison’s policy.” King v. McCarty, 781 F.3d 889, 893 (7th Cir. 2015). Unexhausted claims are pro- cedurally barred from consideration. Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 93 (2006); Pyles, 829 F.3d at 864. The district court determined that Williams failed to ex- haust his administrative remedies because he never success- fully appealed the discipline imposed on him through the Jail’s grievance process. As we explained above, to success- fully exhaust his administrative remedies under the jail’s rule- book, Williams needed to first appeal an adverse disciplinary finding and the imposed sanctions to the assistant jail admin- istrator. If the first appeal was unsuccessful, then Williams had to submit a written appeal to the jail administrator within 24 hours. The district court concluded that Williams never successfully completed a timely first appeal to Lieutenant Friend, and that he improperly attempted to bypass this step by sending grievances directly to Captain Wearing. Williams argues that the district court misinterpreted the record concerning his grievances and erred as a result. Specif- ically, Williams believes that the district court erroneously concluded that his June 9 appeal related back to the discipli- nary hearing that Sergeant Noonan attempted to conduct on June 5. Because the jail rulebook requires that all adverse dis- ciplinary determinations be appealed in writing within 24 hours, the district court determined that Williams’s June 9 ap- peal to Friend was untimely. But on appeal Williams urges that his disciplinary segregation was not actually imposed on 10 No. 18-1404

him until June 8, making his June 9 appeal of that imposed discipline timely. Without conceding that Williams ever successfully com- pleted the first step in the process, the defendants argue that even if Williams’s characterization of the first appeal is cor- rect, he still failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. The defendants reason that Williams never successfully com- pleted the second step in the appeal process—an appeal to Wearing within twenty-four hours of the first appeal’s rejec- tion. We find the defendants’ argument persuasive. Summary judgment for the defendants was appropriate because Wil- liams did not file a timely appeal and, in fact, seemed to ap- peal regarding discipline imposed much earlier. First, even accepting that Williams successfully submitted his appeal of the discipline to Friend on June 9, he received Friend’s rejec- tion of his appeal on June 16. The record clearly shows that Williams submitted his only potentially relevant appeal to Wearing on June 18—a day later than required under the jail’s rulebook. Second, as noted above, the June 18 appeal appears to relate to a different set of imposed discipline, not to the dis- cipline imposed on June 8. We therefore conclude that Wil- liams never made a timely appeal to Wearing and accordingly never exhausted his administrative remedies. Williams alternatively argues that the appeal process was not available to him and the district court therefore errantly granted summary judgment. Williams argues that the jail ef- fectively deprived him of access to the administrative process, because it placed him in segregation almost immediately after the alleged violation occurred, leaving him almost no time to file a grievance or appeal. He relies on cases where we have No. 18-1404 11

held that defendants were deprived of due process when the administrative remedy process was not available to them or when the prison made the process virtually impossible. See, e.g., King v. McCarty, 781 F.3d 889, 895 (7th Cir. 2015). Even though Williams makes this argument, he fails to explain why he could not still take advantage of the administrative process after he had been placed in segregation. In fact, he continued to file grievances during his segregation. Accordingly, we conclude that the district court correctly granted summary judgment for failure to exhaust remedies. B. The Medical Staff’s Denial of Williams’s Requested Mattress Accommodation Was Not Objectively Unreasonable Williams also charges that the district court erred by grant- ing summary judgment for Dr. Ortiz, Lieutenant Friend, and Nurse Olstinke. The district court issued its order and judg- ment before we issued our decision in Miranda v. County of Lake, 900 F.3d 335 (7th Cir. 2018). In Miranda, we distinguished § 1983 claims raised by pre-trial detainees under the Four- teenth Amendment from convicted prisoners’ claims raised under the Eighth Amendment. Id. at 350. We concluded that pre-trial detainees must show only that the defendants’ chal- lenged conduct was “objectively unreasonable.” Id. at 351. Under the Miranda standard, we apply a two-part test when “assessing a due process challenge to a pretrial de- tainee’s medical care[.]” McCann v. Ogle Cty., 909 F.3d 881, 886 (7th Cir. 2018). The first step “‘asks whether the medical de- fendants acted purposefully, knowingly, or perhaps even recklessly when they considered the consequences of their handling of [Williams’s] case.’” Id. (quoting Miranda, 900 F.3d at 353). Negligence or gross negligence does not meet this standard. McCann, 909 F.3d at 886. For the second step, “we 12 No. 18-1404

ask whether the challenged conduct was objectively reasona- ble.” Id. “This standard requires courts to focus on the totality of facts and circumstances faced by the individual alleged to have provided inadequate medical care and to gauge objec- tively—without regard to any subjective belief held by the in- dividual—whether the response was reasonable.” Id. Said more succinctly, Williams must demonstrate that genuine is- sues of material fact exist on two questions: (1) whether he suffered from an objectively serious medical condition and (2) whether the medical staff’s response to it was objectively un- reasonable. Id. In his reply brief, Williams refocuses his arguments under the Miranda standard and states that it was objectively unrea- sonable for the defendants to make a man with osteoarthritis sit in a cell for 12 hours a day without a mattress. He main- tains that, setting aside whether it was unreasonable to deny the extra mattress for sleeping, the record provides no evi- dence that Doctor Ortiz ever determined that Williams did not medically require a single mattress during the daytime hours. Williams’s argument effectively centers on the theory that it was impossible for Ortiz, Olstinke, and Friend to rely on a medical judgment that Ortiz never actually made. Wil- liams also claims that the non-medical jail staff inappropri- ately influenced Ortiz’s decisions. For the sake of argument, we set aside the issue of whether Williams showed that he suffered from an objectively serious medical condition. We nonetheless believe Williams construes the record too narrowly and—looking at the totality of the facts and circumstances—we cannot agree that the defend- ants provided Williams with objectively unreasonable medi- cal treatment. No. 18-1404 13

The record shows that the medical staff diligently at- tended to Williams’s needs. They examined Williams regu- larly and promptly to address his complaints about pain in his joints and feet. And these examinations never revealed swelling or bruising in Williams’s legs or joints. Nor did Wil- liams report tenderness in his calves during examination. Ad- ditionally, Ortiz noted in his examination reports that Wil- liams was able to walk, to stand, and to extend and move his joints. By examining Williams and ordering x-ray testing, Ortiz discovered Williams’s modest bone spurs and began a treatment plan. Ortiz initially prescribed over-the-counter medicines to treat Williams’s pain. The record also reflects that Ortiz adjusted his treatment plan in response to Wil- liams’s complaints: he added other pain medication when Williams complained of lingering arthritic pain. He also pre- scribed a knee support brace and Williams received a band- age wrap to help alleviate joint pain. The medical staff also encouraged Williams to engage in physical exercise as a pro- active measure to mitigate his chronic pain. Looking at Wil- liams’s medical records, we cannot agree that the medical staff provided Williams objectively unreasonable care. We believe the record provides no support for Williams’s argument that Ortiz never made a medical decision about whether he required a single mattress during the daytime hours. Williams relies on language in Ortiz’s statement ex- plaining that he never determined that Williams required an “extra mattress.” Williams argues this shows that Ortiz only deemed an extra mattress during the nighttime hours medi- cally unnecessary. But as the defendants point out, a daytime mattress while in segregation would have, in fact, been an ex- 14 No. 18-1404

tra mattress. And Williams’s repeated grievances and interac- tions with medical staff show that he made his desire for a mattress known. We also find no support in the record for Williams’s claim that Ortiz’s medical judgment was compromised or inappro- priately influenced by non-medical jail staff. To the contrary, Ortiz emphasized that he exercised his medical judgment in all cases, and he wrote in a statement that in the wake of the Williams’s many medical examinations and repeated requests for an extra mattress, he and other medical staff members came to believe that Williams was likely trying to take ad- vantage of the medical system to garner special privileges. Certainly, Williams disagreed with the course of treatment chosen by the jail’s medical staff. But just because the staff de- clined to provide him with his desired prescription pain med- icine or the comfort of an extra mattress does not mean that the course of treatment was objectively unreasonable. Cf. John- son v. Doughty, 433 F.3d 1001, 1012–13 (7th Cir. 2006) (“Mere dissatisfaction or disagreement with a doctor’s course of treat- ment is generally insufficient [to show deliberate indiffer- ence].”). Indeed, the conclusion that Williams did not require a special mattress accommodation was later validated outside of the Racine County Jail: the Wisconsin Department of Cor- rections similarly denied his request for a thick mattress after it conducted its own medical examination. Williams failed to demonstrate a genuine issue of fact regarding whether, de- spite the persistent and reasoned medical attention given to him, he was provided with objectively unreasonable medical care. No. 18-1404 15

III. CONCLUSION Williams failed to exhaust his administrative remedies be- cause he never completed the necessary second internal ap- peal to Captain Wearing. As for his claim that the jail’s medi- cal staff and guards treated him in an objectively unreasona- ble manner, the record does not support Williams’s argu- ments. We therefore AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.