Henderson v. Vallabhaneni

WILLIE HENDERSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NAGESWARARAO VALLABHANENI, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 16-3416

United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

May 12, 2017

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

Submitted May 12, 2017^*

Before DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois.

No. 14-3027

Sue E. Myerscough, Judge.

ORDER

Willie Henderson is a civil detainee at the Rushville Treatment and Detention Facility under Illinois's Sexually Violent Persons Act, 725 ILCS § 207/40. He asserts that Dr. Nageswararao Vallabhaneni, a Rushville psychiatrist, was deliberately indifferent tohis serious medical needs because he prescribed him a psychotropic drug (Lamictal) in 2013 that, Henderson believes, was not medically necessary. The district court granted summary judgment for Dr. Vallabhaneni because the undisputed medical evidence establishes that the drug was reasonably appropriate. For the same reason, we affirm.

Henderson did not oppose Dr. Vallabhaneni's summary-judgment motion, so we take its statement of facts as admitted. See Gerhartz v. Richert, 779 F.3d 682, 685 (7th Cir. 2015) (citing Flynn v. Sandahl, 58 F.3d 283, 288 (7th Cir. 1995)). Henderson was committed to Rushville in 2003 and has been diagnosed with anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, and depression. A Rushville psychiatrist first prescribed him Lamictal in 2007 for his mood swings, and Henderson consented to the medication. The prescription, from which he reported no negative side effects, was renewed several times before Henderson stopped taking the drug in 2011. He believes that as of May 2011, he no longer needed any psychiatric medication and does not recall being prescribed any. But Dr. Vallabhaneni prescribed an antidepressant to Henderson for his increased stress and mood swings from August 2012 until January 2013. And after April 2013, when Henderson reported increased anxiety in advance of his conditional-release hearing, Dr. Vallabhaneni prescribed Lamictal to treat Henderson's mood swings.

Henderson believes that Dr. Vallabhaneni prescribed Lamictal in 2013, not for medical reasons, but because the assistant state's attorney and judge involved in his conditional-release proceedings asked that he be medicated before his release. But nothing in Henderson's plan for conditional release or the circuit court's order granting conditional release required that Henderson be placed on psychiatric medication. Henderson also believes that the drug causes him adverse side effects, including sexually deviant dreams, which he thinks is the reason that the judge revoked his conditional release. But the state's petition for revocation relied on other problems as well: Henderson's unauthorized possession of photographs of children and his inappropriate contact with a neighbor.

After Dr. Vallabhaneni filed his unopposed motion for summary judgment, Henderson moved for sanctions because Dr. Vallabhaneni had not produced the state court's transcript from his conditional-release proceedings. The district court denied the motion for sanctions because Dr. Vallabhaneni wasn't in possession of the transcripts, and Henderson could have requested the transcripts directly from the Cook County courts but had not. It also granted summary judgment to Dr. Vallabhaneni. It first reasoned that Henderson presented no evidence suggesting that Dr. Vallabhaneni was aware that prescribing Lamictal would pose a substantial risk of harm to Henderson. See Farmer...