Henderson v. Ill. Dep't of Corr.

ELROY HENDERSON, #M20461, Plaintiff, v. ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, LT. BEBOUT,JONATHAN WEBB, DONALD ROUNDTREE, BRYAN EISENHOUER,AIMEE LANG, REVA EMGELAGE,A. WILLIAMS, and JOHN DOES, Defendants.

Case No. 19-cv-00432-NJR

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

July 16, 2019

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

ROSENSTENGEL, Chief Judge:

Plaintiff Elroy Henderson, an inmate of the Illinois Department of Corrections ("IDOC") who is currently incarcerated at Pontiac Correctional Center, brings this civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for deprivations of his constitutional rights. Plaintiff claims that while he was housed at Menard Correctional Center ("Menard"), officials used excessive force upon him, failed to intervene, and were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs. He seeks monetary damages and injunctive relief. (Doc. 1, pp. 11-12).¹

Plaintiff's Complaint is now before the Court for preliminary review pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. Under Section 1915A, the Court is required to screen prisoner complaints to filter out non-meritorious claims. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(a). Any portion of a complaint that is legally frivolous, malicious, fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, or asks for money damages from a defendant who by law is immune from such relief must be dismissed. 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b). At this juncture, the factual allegations of the pro se complaint are to be liberally construed. Rodriquez v. Plymouth Ambulance Serv., 577 F.3d 816, 821 (7th Cir. 2009).

THE COMPLAINT

According to the allegations in the Complaint, on April 23, 2017, Plaintiff was involved in a physical altercation with several correctional officers and prisoners. (Doc. 1, p. 2). He was sprayed with oleoresin capsicum (O.C.) spray and placed in restraints. Id., pp. 2-3. As he was being escorted by several unknown correctional officers and Defendant Webb to the Healthcare Unit ("HCU") to be decontaminated, they assaulted him. Id., pp. 2-3, 6. They then finished escorting him to the HCU.

Defendants Williams and Emgelage, nurses at the HCU, took him to an exam room, where they were met by another nurse, Defendant Lang. Id., p. 3. Williams left the room as Lang filled out paperwork, and Emgelage rinsed the O.C. spray off Plaintiff. Id. An unknown corrections officer (John Doe #1) asked the nurses to leave the room, which they did. Id., pp. 3-4. Defendants Bebout, Roundtree, Webb, Eisenhouer, and Doe #1 then severely beat Plaintiff, including spraying O.C. into a plastic bag and then placing it over his head. Id., pp. 4-5. He sustained severe injuries which required him to be rushed to the hospital. Id., p. 5. Plaintiff sustained significant permanent physical and mental injuries. Id., pp. 5-6. Williams later wrote a falsified incident report to cover up the circumstances of the assault in the examination room. Id., pp. 9-10.

DISCUSSION

Based on the allegations in the Complaint, the Court finds it convenient to divide the claims in this case into the following five Counts:

Count 1: Eighth Amendment excessive force claim against Webb, Roundtree, Bebout, Eisenhouer, John Doe #1, and the other John Doe defendants, as well as a failure to intervene claim against Williams, Lang, and Emgelage.

Count 2: Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claim against all Defendants.

Count 3: Eighth Amendment deliberate indifference to a serious medical need claim against Lang, Williams, and Emgelage.

Count 4: Eighth Amendment failure to protect claim against Lang, Williams, and Emgelage.

Count 5: Conspiracy claim against all Defendants

The parties and the Court will use these designations in all future pleadings and orders, unless otherwise directed by a judicial officer of this Court. Any claim that is mentioned in the Complaint but not addressed in this Order is considered dismissed without prejudice as inadequately pled under the Twombly² pleading standard.

As an initial matter, IDOC is dismissed as a party. Although Plaintiff names IDOC in the caption of his complaint, he fails to list it elsewhere in his complaint, so the Court is unable to ascertain what claims, if any, Plaintiff has against it. Merely invoking the name of a potential defendant is not sufficient to state a claim against that individual. See Collins v. Kibort, 143 F.3d 331, 334 (7th Cir. 1998) ("A plaintiff cannot state a claim against a defendant by including thedefendant's name in the caption."). Further, IDOC is not a "person" subject to suit under Section 1983. Owens v. Evans, 878 F.3d 559, 563 (7th Cir. 2017). As such, it will be dismissed.

Count 1

Plaintiff alleges that the beating on the way to the HCU and the assault in the HCU examination room were uses of excessive force. The intentional use of excessive force by prison guards against an inmate without penological justification constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment and is actionable under Section 1983. See Wilkins v. Gaddy, 559 U.S. 34 (2010); DeWalt v. Carter, 224 F.3d 607, 619 (7th Cir. 2000). Plaintiff has adequately alleged that Defendants Bebout, Roundtree, Webb, Eisenhouer, John Doe #1, and the other John Doe defendants assaulted him and that the assaults were malicious and sadistic.³

Plaintiff has also adequately stated a claim for failure to intervene in the examination room beating against Lang and Emgelage, though not Williams. Technically, "failure to intervene" is not a stand-alone claim, but rather a theory of personal involvement when someone other than the defendant actually committed the wrong. A defendant in a Section 1983 claim may be liable for failure to intervene if they (1) knew that a constitutional violation was committed; and (2) had a realistic opportunity to prevent it. Gill v. City of Milwaukee, 850 F.3d 335, 342 (7th Cir. 2017).

The Court is unaware of any authority touching on whether prison healthcare staff have a duty to intervene if they observe one or more corrections officers beating a prisoner. A state officer's conduct does not constitute acting under color of state law unless it is "related in some way to the performance of the duties of the state office." Honaker v. Smith, 256 F.3d 477, 484-85 (7th Cir.2001) (internal quotations omitted). At least one other court in this circuit has found that a failure-to-intervene claim can extend to state actors in an arguably similar context, where firefighters who see another firefighter assault a bystander and fail to act. Ali v. Vill. of Tinley Park, 79 F. Supp. 3d 772, 778 (N.D. Ill. 2015). In a case where a paramedic allegedly assaulted a patient, however, a court dismissed a failure-to-intervene theory against other paramedics who stood by and watched because they were not actively performing paramedic duties at the time and were therefore not acting under color of state law. Cole v. City of Chicago, 2008 WL 68687, at *4 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 4, 2008). At this stage of the case the Court will allow Plaintiff to proceed (as limited below) on this theory, although it would welcome briefing on the subject if the parties feel it appropriate.

Presuming that prison nurses may be liable for failure to intervene, Plaintiff has adequately stated a claim against Emgelage and Lang. Plaintiff claims that Emgelage and Lang knew when John Doe #1 told them to leave the room that he was going to beat Plaintiff. While Plaintiff does not suggest what Emgelage and Lang could have done to prevent the beating, the Seventh Circuit has taken a broad view of what a "realistic opportunity to intervene" may be, including calling for help or "at least caution[ing] the excessive force defendant to stop." Abdullahi v. City of Madison, 423 F.3d 763, 774 (7th Cir. 2005) (citing Yang v. Hardin, 37 F.3d 282 (7th Cir. 1994)). Plaintiff has not pled any facts, however, to support a claim that Williams knew that a constitutional violation was (or was about to be) committed in the examination room in real time. Plaintiff statesthat Williams had already left the examination room by the time John Doe #1 entered and asked the nurses to leave. Plaintiff does not plead anything to suggest Williams had the requisite knowledge before or during the examination room assault. As such, Plaintiff's claim against Emgelage and Lang on Count 1 shall proceed but is dismissed without prejudice as to Williams.

Count 2

Plaintiff claims that he was singled out for disparate treatment due to his involvement by the in the preceding physical altercation with prisoners and corrections officials. Specifically, he alleges that the correctional officer Defendants beat him because of it, and that the HCU Defendants (Williams, Lang, and Emgelage), failed to fully treat his injuries. The Equal Protection Clause "prohibits the singling out of a person for different treatment for no rational reason." Swanson v. City of Chetek, 719 F.3d 780, 783-84 (7th Cir. 2013) (citing Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564 (2000)). "To state a class-of-one equal protection claim, an individual must allege that he was intentionally treated differently from others similarly situated and that there is no rational basis for the difference in treatment." Id.

Here, Plaintiff has failed to adequately plead an equal protection claim. As to the HCU Defendants, Plaintiff has not suggested that the HCU staff intentionally treated him differently from another inmate when a corrections officer orders them out of a room or that being ordered out of the examination room was not a rational basis for their behavior. Similarly, Plaintiff has not pled that he was treated differently from other similarly situated inmates by the corrections officer Defendants. As horrifying as it may be, such treatment may not be unique to Plaintiff, who has not stated anything more than a bare legal conclusion. As such, Count 2 is dismissed without prejudice.

Count 3

Plaintiff states a claim deliberate indifference to a serious medical need against Lang and Emgelage,...