On June 26, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit partially vacated a summary judgment dismissal of a Wisconsin prisoner’s civil rights suit alleging that prison officials left him in a cell contaminated with feces and other incapacitating agents. The prisoner also alleged that medical staff ignored his serious medical needs stemming from dehydration because the cell water was off.

For his suicidal ideation, Raynard Jackson was held at Wisconsin Secure Program Facility (WSPF) in an observation cell with one clear glass wall that enabled guards or medical staff to monitor each prisoner every 15 minutes or twice per day respectively. Additionally, surveillance cameras provided a live feed to guards in a control room, and intercoms enabled prisoners to reach them there. Any prisoner no longer at risk for self-harming was transferred back to a regular cell. (If noncompliant, the prisoner may be “extracted” by guards, who sometimes shut off water to the cell.)

On May 22, 2013, Jackson told guard Sgt. Daniel Suthers that he was experiencing suicidal ideation. Guard Cpt. James Boisen had subordinate guards Michael Cockcroft and Timothy Jones place Jackson in observation cell A404. It was disgusting. Five days earlier, guards had extracted another prisoner after he had a mental breakdown and smeared feces over the walls. They had turned off the water to the cell and sprayed incapacitating agents in it to extract the prisoner. Jackson complained of the smell and claimed that he told numerous guards how the water did not work.

Specifically, Jackson said he reported the water outage on May 22 and 23, 2013, but guards did nothing. He also claimed that on May 24, 2013, he notified guard Lt. Dane Esser, too, though Esser disputed this. On May 27, 2013, Jackson complained of chest pain, and Nurse Beth Edge was dispatched. Jackson said that Edge failed to notice his dehydration until he screamed at her that the water was not working, showing her that no water came out of the faucet. Edge called a guard, who contacted Esser, and the water was immediately restored. Jackson began drinking as soon as the water was turned on. Edge cautioned him to drink slowly at first, but she provided no additional treatment for dehydration.

After Jackson was returned to regular housing, he filed grievances over staff’s failure to turn on the water in A404 for five days, as well as Nurse Edge’s failure to treat his dehydration. The grievances were denied, and Jackson eventually filed suit in federal court for the Western District of Wisconsin. In addition to his water shut-off and dehydration claims, Jackson also alleged that prison staff failed to provide him with nasal spray and an inhaler, and he further claimed that they violated his rights by confining him in a cell covered in feces and chemical agents. Prison officials responded that he had not filed grievances over the new claims, but he insisted otherwise and accused staff of failing to keep track of any missing grievances.

The district court disregarded this accusation, relying only on grievances that the prison acknowledged receiving and processing. Most of Jackson’s claims were then dismissed for failing to exhaust his grievances over the denied nasal spray and inhaler, as well as the contamination of his cell. His claim that Nurse Edge denied treatment for dehydration was also dismissed because the reliable evidence showed that Jackson refused treatment. Jackson’s claim against Esser for depriving him of water then proceeded to trial, and the jury returned a verdict in favor of Esser. Jackson timely appealed.

Seventh Circuit Weighs In

The Seventh Circuit first addressed exhaustion, noting that a prisoner is required to exhaust only those administrative remedies that are “available” to him, per Hacker v. Dart, 62 F.4th 1073, 1078 (7th Cir. 2023). If prison staff refused to process grievances, this can make their administrative remedy unavailable, as held in Pyles v. Nwaobasi, 829 F.3d 860 (7th Cir. 2016). So the district court should typically hold an evidentiary hearing to resolve factual disputes concerning the availability of administrative remedies, as laid out in Smallwood v. Williams, 59 F.4th 306, 318 (7th Cir. 2023). The hearing itself is called a Pavey hearing for the case that established such rules, Pavey v. Conley, 544 F.3d 739 (7th Cir. 2008).

Jackson presented kites and other documents showing that he complained to prison staff about their refusal to acknowledge and process his grievances, arguing that the district court erred by not holding a Pavey hearing to resolve the dispute. Although his evidence and argument were not a model of clarity, the Seventh Circuit agreed and vacated that part of the district court’s order.

In his five grievances that the prison acknowledged and processed, Jackson also contended that he had complained about other staff besides Esser and for reasons beyond leaving the water shut off. But the Court rejected this contention, noting that all five grievances named only Esser, with no mention of any other staff member. While Jackson was not required to name each individual involved at the grievance stage, per Maddox v. Love, 655 F.3d 709 (7th Cir. 2011), his grievances must nonetheless place prison officials on notice of what and who he is complaining about, the Court said, citing Williams v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., 957 F.3d 828 (7th Cir. 2020). By focusing on only Esser, Jackson’s grievances failed to meet this standard.

Next, Jackson argued that the district court erred in dismissing his failure-to-treat claim against Edge. In reply, the Seventh Circuit said that “deliberate indifference” barred by the Eighth Amendment is not the same as simple medical negligence, citing both Johnson v. Dominguez, 5 F.4th 818 (7th Cir. 2021), and Stewart v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., 14 F.4th 757 (7th Cir. 2021). Although the Court agreed with Jackson that it was an error for the district court to determine that Jackson refused treatment because he disputed that claim, the lower court’s decision was nonetheless affirmed regarding Edge because Jackson failed to show “that Nurse Edge’s treatment of him was outside of what a minimally competent nurse in her position would have done”—meaning that because she saw no obvious sign of dehydration and watched him drink “no jury could conclude that she was deliberately indifferent.”

During a trial of Jackson’s claims against Esser, the district court made three evidentiary rulings that Jackson challenged: (1) excluding evidence of another prisoner’s lawsuit alleging that Esser failed to turn on the prisoner’s water; (2) excluding evidence that Esser used racist language against him; and (3) admitting evidence that Jackson engaged in hunger strikes. The Seventh Circuit said that the district court did not err in excluding the prior lawsuit because the facts it alleged were much different than those in Jackson’s case. The Court also found no error in excluding racial animus evidence because its prejudicial effect far outweighed any probative value. Admission of evidence about Jackson’s participation in hunger strikes was also harmless error, the Court said, in light of overwhelming evidence suggesting that Jackson did not notify anyone his water was turned off until Edge evaluated him.

Accordingly, the Court ordered a Pavey hearing on the exhaustion dispute at the district court but otherwise affirmed its decision. Jackson was represented on appeal by attorneys Michael H. McGinley, Carla Graff and Bina M. Peltz of Dechert LLP, in Philadelphia. See: Jackson v. Esser, 105 F.4th 948 (7th Cir. 2024).  

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