Conwell v. Marvin

LUKE CONWELL, Plaintiff, v. MARCUS MARVIN and HOPE COOPER, Defendants.

No. 3:18-CV-131-MAB

United States District Court, S.D. Illinois

September 10, 2021

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

MARK A. BEATTY United States Magistrate Judge

This matter is before the Court on the motion for summary judgment filed by Defendant Hope Cooper (Doc. 61). For the reasons explained below, the motion is granted in part and denied in part.

Background

On January 24, 2018, Plaintiff Luke Conwell filed this civil rights lawsuit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging deprivations of his Eighth Amendment rights while incarcerated at Shawnee Correctional Center. (Doc. 1). After a threshold review of the complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C § 1915A and a round of summary judgment on the issue of exhaustion, the following claims currently remain:

Count 1 - Sergeant Marcus Marvin used excessive force against Plaintiff on March 20, 2017 when he slammed his hand into the chuckhole and stabbed it repeatedly with the chuckhole key, and Nurse Hope Cooper either failed to intervene or approved, condoned, or turned a blind eye to the conduct, in violation of the Eighth Amendment;

Count 2 - Sergeant Marvin committed an assault and/or battery against Plaintiff in violation of Illinois state law when he slammed his hand in the chuckhole and stabbed it repeatedly with the chuckhole key; and

Count 3 - Nurse Cooper was deliberately indifferent to Plaintiff's injuries after the March 20 2017 incident when Cooper refused to get him medical attention for 3 days following the events at issue, in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

(Doc. 7; Doc. 8; Doc. 43; Doc. 46).

Defendant Hope Cooper filed a motion for summary judgment as to Counts 1 and 3 on October 20, 2020 (Doc. 61; see also Doc 62). Plaintiff filed a “Declaration in Opposition” on November 5, 2020 (Doc. 64). Nurse Cooper did not file a reply brief.

Factual Background

Plaintiff Luke Conwell was an inmate in the Illinois Department of Corrections, housed at Shawnee Correctional Center during the events that gave rise to this lawsuit. He has since been released from prison and now resides in Texas (Doc. 65).

Hope Cooper is a licensed practical nurse in the State of Illinois (Doc. 62-1, p. 1). She was employed by Wexford Health Sources, Inc., as a nurse at Shawnee Correctional Center from approximately November 2016 through August 2018 (Id.).

On March 20, 2017, Plaintiff was housed in the Room Restriction area at Shawnee (Doc. 62-1, p. 1; Doc. 62-2, p. 27). Inmates housed in this area were restricted to their rooms as discipline for minor infractions of facility rules (Doc 62-1, p. 1; Doc. 62-2, p. 27). As Plaintiff explained “you have to stay in your room all day . . . but you get to keep all your possessions” (Doc. 62-2, p. 27). Inmates in Room Restriction had to have their medications brought to them by a nurse (Doc. 62-1, p. 1). This task was called “med pass” (Id.).

Plaintiff testified, and Nurse Cooper did not dispute, that during med pass, the nurse is accompanied by a correctional officer, who is responsible for opening and closing the chuckhole on the cell door (Doc. 62-2, pp. 34-36). The officer opens the chuckhole, the inmate “provide[s] their name and ID” and sticks their hand out the chuckhole, the nurse puts the medication(s) in the inmate's hand, the inmate takes the medication and then opens their mouth to show that the inmate swallowed the medication (Id.). The process is then repeated for the other inmate in the cell if they also receive medications (Id.). After both inmates have received and taken their medications, the officer closes and locks the chuckhole door, and the officer and nurse move on to the next cell (Id. at p. 37). Plaintiff testified that it takes only “mere seconds” for the nurse to dispense an inmate's medications to him, and then the nurse moves on to the next cell (Id. at pp. 39, 93).

It is undisputed that Nurse Cooper did med pass in Room Restriction on the evening of March 20, 2017 (Doc. 62-1, p. 1; Doc. 62-2, p. 31). It is also undisputed that Correctional Sergeant Marcus Marvin accompanied her (Doc. 62-1, p. 2; Doc. 62-2, p. 31). Plaintiff admits that he did not speak with Nurse Cooper or interact with her in any way, aside from her handing him medication through the chuckhole in the door to his cell (Doc. 62-2, pp. 69-70).

As Plaintiff tells it, after Nurse Cooper gave him the pills, she just stood there next to Sgt. Marvin (Doc. 62-2, pp. 40, 73). Either at the same time Nurse Cooper was dispensing his meds or immediately thereafter, Plaintiff asked Sgt. Marvin for a roll of toilet paper because he had not received one as scheduled (compare Doc. 62-2, pp. 34, 38- 39, 71 (Plaintiff's testimony that he received his medications and then asked Sgt. Marvin for toilet paper) with Id. at pp. 73, 74 (Plaintiff's testimony that he was interacting with Sgt. Marvin the entire time and asked him for toilet paper at the same time Nurse Cooper was giving him his medications)). Sgt. Marvin refused Plaintiff's request and Plaintiff then showed Marvin that he was out of toilet paper by sticking the empty cardboard roll out of the chuckhole (Id. at pp. 39, 40). Sgt. Marvin again refused, and Plaintiff then asked for a grievance form; Plaintiff's hand was still sticking out of the chuckhole holding the empty cardboard roll (Id. at pp. 40, 44, 45-46). Sgt. Marvin did not say anything and instead “instantly” “slammed” the chuckhole door down onto Plaintiff's hand (Id. at pp. 41, 42). Sgt. Marvin held the chuckhole door down and started jabbing at the top of Plaintiff's hand with the chuckhole key (Id. at pp. 42, 43). Sgt. Marvin was pushing down on the chuckhole door so hard that Plaintiff could not pull his hand back in (Id. at p. 43). Plaintiff estimated that Sgt. Marvin stabbed him with the key about three times and said it “opened up a big gash on the top of [his] hand” (Id. at pp. 43, 44; see also Id. at pp. 51, 52). Sgt. Marvin eventually eased up on the chuckhole door and Plaintiff was able to pull his hand back into his cell (Id. at p. 50). When asked how long his hand was caught in the chuckhole, Plaintiff responded, “[s]econds, maybe five or ten seconds” (Id.). Neither Plaintiff nor Sgt. Marvin said anything the entire time Plaintiff's hand was caught in the chuckhole (Id. at pp. 49-50). Sgt. Marvin then closed the chuckhole door and said “now write that up.” (Id. at pp. 50-51). Then Sgt. Marvin and Nurse Cooper walked off and went to the next cell to continue handing out medications (Id. at pp. 40, 51).

Nurse Cooper, on the other hand, says that she gave Plaintiff his medication and then moved to another cell to give another inmate his medication (Doc. 62-1, p. 2). She did not see or hear Sgt. Marvin strike Plaintiff (Id.). If she had, she would have written an incident report, as that was her practice when she witnessed a physical altercation at Shawnee (Id.).

Plaintiff testified that 30 to 40 seconds after Nurse Cooper and Sgt. Marvin walked off, his hand started bleeding (Doc. 62-2, p. 51). He estimated the gash was an inch long and one or two centimeters wide (Id. at p. 52). He ran water over it and then tore off a piece of his sheet and wrapped it around his hand (Id. at pp. 51, 53-54).

Plaintiff alleged in his complaint that he spoke with Nurse Cooper for the next three days following the incident but she denied his requests for medical care (Doc. 1, pp. 4, 5). At his deposition, Plaintiff likewise stated that the first time he spoke with Nurse Cooper was on March 21st (Doc. 62-2, pp. 90-91). He told Nurse Cooper that he was going to file a grievance and asked if she would be willing to give a statement to Internal Affairs and she said yes and gave him her name (Id. at p. 92). Plaintiff testified he talked to Nurse Cooper again each time she did med pass (Id. at pp. 96, 97). He said he asked for a band-aid and she said she did not have any (Id.). He also asked her to go to the health care unit and she told him to fill out a sick call request (Id.).

For her part, Nurse Cooper stated in a declaration that she did not do med pass during the three days following the incident-March 21, 22, and 23, (Doc. 62-1, p. 3), which is what Plaintiff's Medication Administration Records also reflect (Doc. 62-3, p. 4). Rather, she did not do med pass again until the evening of March 26 and the evening of March 27 (Doc. 62-1, p. 3; Doc. 62-3, p. 4). Nurse Cooper said in her declaration that she recalls Plaintiff speaking to her during the week of March 20, 2017, and asking for her name because, he said, she had witnessed Sgt. Marvin strike his hand (Doc. 62-1, p. 2). Nurse Cooper said she told Plaintiff that she “did not witness any such event” (Id.). Nurse Cooper also stated in her declaration that she did not see Plaintiff with an open or otherwise untreated wound on his hand during the week including March 20, 2017 (Id.). If she had, she would have arranged for him to be sent to the Health Care Unit as soon as permitted by security in order to receive treatment for the wound (Id. at p. 3).

With respect to the medical care that Plaintiff received, Nurse Cooper submitted a very limited portion of Plaintiff's medical records; five pages to be exact (Doc. 62-3). She discussed only a sick call appointment on March 21st regarding back pain and an encounter with a social worker on March 23rd (Doc. 62). However, it is clear from Plaintiff's testimony and other documents previously submitted in this case that there is much more to the story than what Nurse Cooper portrayed.^[1] The following recounts the information from the various sources in chronological order.

Nurse Cooper submitted a record showing that Plaintiff attended an appointment with Nurse Practitioner Tammy Pittayathikhun on...