Riley El v. Rauner

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EASTERN DIVISION

WILLIAM D. RILEY EL,

Plaintiff, No. 19 C 2002

v. Judge Thomas M. Durkin

DAVID GOMEZ; QUINTIN TANNER; AND

WEXFORD HEALTH SOURCES, INC.,

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Plaintiff William D. Riley El (“Riley El”), who is currently incarcerated at the

Stateville Correctional Center (“Stateville”), filed his Second Amended Complaint

against Stateville’s former warden, David Gomez, and head of food services, Quintin

Tanner, as well as Wexford Health Sources, Inc., under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for failing

to provide him a renal diet to manage his kidney disease. R. 99. Defendant Gomez

(“Gomez”) has moved to dismiss the claims against him for failure to state a claim

under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). R. 103. For the reasons stated below,

the motion is denied.

Legal Standard

A Rule 12(b)(6) motion challenges the “sufficiency of the complaint.” Berger v.

Nat. Collegiate Athletic Assoc., 843 F.3d 285, 289 (7th Cir. 2016). A complaint must

provide “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled

to relief,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), sufficient to provide defendant with “fair notice” of

the claim and the basis for it. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007).

This standard “demands more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-

harmed-me accusation.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). While “detailed

factual allegations” are not required, “labels and conclusions, and a formulaic

recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555.

The complaint must “contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a

claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (quoting Twombly,

550 U.S. at 570). “‘A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual

content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is

liable for the misconduct alleged.’” Boucher v. Fin. Sys. of Green Bay, Inc., 880 F.3d

362, 366 (7th Cir. 2018) (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678). In applying this standard,

the Court accepts all well-pleaded facts as true and draws all reasonable inferences

in favor of the non-moving party. Tobey v. Chibucos, 890 F.3d 634, 646 (7th Cir. 2018).

Background

Riley El suffers from kidney disease. R. 99 ¶ 7. His condition requires him to

receive hemodialysis three times per week. Id. ¶ 12. As a result, Riley El’s doctors

recommend that he follow a “renal diet” that is high in protein and low in sodium,

potassium, and phosphorus. Id. ¶¶ 12–16; 21–24. According to Riley El, despite

numerous dietary orders from his medical professionals, IDOC has failed to provide

him with a renal diet by consistently refusing to give him extra servings of meat and

instead giving him peanut butter twice per day, which is high in phosphorus. Id. ¶¶

19, 22–23, 25, 32.

Riley El filed numerous internal grievances from 2017 to 2020, complaining

that the Stateville staff were not serving him a renal diet as prescribed by his doctors.

Id. ¶¶ 26–37. The Illinois Administrative Code requires inmate grievances to be

reviewed by a Grievance Officer, who reports his or her findings to the Chief

Administrative Officer, who, in this case, was allegedly Gomez. Id. ¶¶ 39–40.

According to Riley El, Gomez reviewed at least ten grievances Riley El filed indicating

that he was not being served a renal diet, such that Gomez knew or should have

known that Riley El was not receiving the renal diet prescribed for him. Id. ¶ 40.

In response to his grievances, prison officials, including Gomez, told Riley El

that his dietary restrictions were being followed. Id. ¶¶ 29–30, 35, 37. The

Administrative Review Board, in response to a September 2019 grievance, requested

Riley El provide the Board a copy of the Grievance Officer’s and Chief Administrative

Officer’s responses to the grievance. Id. ¶ 35. However, Riley El never received a

response other than the Chief Administrative Officer’s indication in a checkbox that

the grievance was not an emergency. Id. In response to the numerous grievances,

Gomez allegedly concurred with the recommendation of the Grievance Counselor to

refer Riley El’s complaints to the Dietary Manager. Id. ¶ 101. On September 17, 2019,

Riley El wrote a letter to the Illinois Department of Corrections (“IDOC”) Director,

Rob Jeffreys, in which he complained of IDOC’s failure to comply with his dietary

restrictions. Id. ¶ 80. Gomez wrote a letter in reply that insisted that Riley El’s

dietary restrictions were being observed. Id. ¶ 81. Gomez also signed a June 2020

grievance in which Riley El alleged his renal diet was not being followed. Id. ¶ 102.

Riley El alleges that, as a result of not receiving a renal diet, his condition has

deteriorated, requiring frequent hospitalizations, and he has a high level of

phosphorus in his blood. Id. ¶¶ 75–77, 82. He initially brought this lawsuit, alleging

that, by failing to provide him with a renal diet, Gomez, Jeffreys, Illinois Governor

Pritzker, and various other officials violated his Eighth Amendment right to receive

constitutionally adequate medical treatment while incarcerated. R. 1. The Court

subsequently dismissed Riley El’s individual capacity claims in his First Amended

Complaint against Gomez, Jeffreys, and Pritzker because Riley El had not adequately

pleaded their personal involvement in his constitutional deprivations—he alleged

only that he sent them a single letter and they did nothing. R. 94 at 3–6. The Court

also dismissed Riley El’s official capacity claims against Jeffreys and Pritzker as

duplicative of his official capacity claim against Gomez. Id. at 6–8. Riley El now brings

his Second Amended Complaint against Gomez (in his official and individual

capacities), Quintin Tanner, and Wexford Health Sources, Inc., seeking injunctive

and compensatory relief. R. 99 ¶¶ 8–10. Gomez moves once again to dismiss the

claims against him for failure to state a claim. R. 103.

Analysis

In his Second Amended Complaint, Riley El reasserts that Gomez was

deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs in violation of his Eighth

Amendment rights. He alleges that Gomez knew he was not receiving his medically

prescribed diet and turned a blind eye to it because Gomez not only received and

responded to Riley El’s September 2019 letter, but also personally reviewed ten

grievances, signed off on one, put a checkmark on another, and concurred with the

Grievance Counselor’s recommendations. Nonetheless, he asserts that Gomez did

nothing but assert that Riley El’s dietary restrictions were being followed. Gomez

once again moves to dismiss the claims against him, arguing that Riley El did not

cure the deficiencies identified by the Court in the First Amended Complaint.

Specifically, Gomez again asserts that Riley El has not alleged sufficient facts of his

personal involvement, and in any case, qualified immunity protects him from

liability.

I. Gomez’s Personal Involvement

To state an Eighth Amendment claim for deprivation of medical treatment, a

plaintiff “must demonstrate two elements: 1) an objectively serious medical condition;

and 2) an official’s deliberate indifference to that condition.” Arnett v. Webster, 658

F.3d 742, 750 (7th Cir. 2011). For an official’s actions to reach the level of deliberate

indifference, he or she must “know of and disregard an excessive risk to inmate health

or safety.” Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837 (1994). That knowledge must be

subjective, that is, the official must both know of facts from which he can infer “that

a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the inference.” Id.

There is no vicarious liability in § 1983 actions, so defendants are “responsible for

their own misdeeds but not for anyone else’s.” Burks v. Raemisch, 555 F.3d 592, 594

(7th Cir. 2009); Gentry v. Duckworth, 65 F.3d 555, 561 (7th Cir. 1995). Thus, a

supervisory prison official may be personally liable only “if the conduct causing the

constitutional deprivation occurs at the official’s direction or with his or her

knowledge and consent.” Williams v. Shah, 927 F.3d 476, 482 (7th Cir. 2019) (quoting

Gentry, 65 F.3d at 561). This means, in practice, that a supervisor must “know about

the conduct and facilitate it, approve it, condone it, or turn a blind eye.” Gentry, 65

F.3d at 561.

Gomez first argues that Riley El’s allegations that Gomez personally reviewed

ten of Riley El’s grievances are conclusory and not entitled to a presumption of truth

under Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 680. But these allegations are not the sort of “legal

conclusions” or mere recitations of “the elements of a claim that are not entitled to

the presumption of truth” as described in Iqbal. McCauley v. City of Chicago, 671 F.3d

611, 616 (7th Cir. 2011) (citing Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 680). It would be one thing for Riley

El to simply allege, without supporting factual detail, that Gomez had knowledge of

the deprivation of his renal diet or was personally involved in the deprivation. But

here, Riley El provides details regarding at least five of the grievances, including the

date they were filed, what they contained, and the outcome of each. See R. 99 at ¶¶

26–36 (“Plaintiff filed a grievance . . . dated March 8, 2017, indicating he was not

receiving the renal diet he needed and, as a result, his health was continuously

declining. Plaintiff requested that IDOC provide a proper diet in accordance with the

guidelines provided by the National Kidney Foundation for hemodialysis patients . .

. . Plaintiff’s March 8, 2017 grievance was denied by the Administrative Review Board

because it found the issue with Plaintiff’s diet was appropriately addressed by the

Stateville administration.”). Riley El also infers that Gomez reviewed the grievances

because he was required to do so under the Illinois Administrative Code. Id. ¶¶ 38–

40. He further alleges that Gomez’s signature and check mark on two separate

grievances, as well as his concurrence with the Grievance Counselor, demonstrate

that he reviewed the grievances. Id. ¶¶ 35, 90–91, 101–02. These are not mere

conclusory statements of the elements of a cause of action, and the Court should

therefore consider them as true. Tobey, 890 F.3d at 646.

Gomez next argues that, even if the allegations contained in the Second

Amended Complaint are true, they suffer from the same deficiencies that the Court

identified in the First Amended Complaint. Specifically, Gomez argues that he is

entitled to delegate decisions related to nutrition and medical care to nutrition and

medical staff in the prison. It is true that “a warden is generally entitled to relegate

to the prison’s medical staff the provision of good medical care.” Burks, 555 F.3d at

595 (holding that a grievance counselor was not deliberately indifferent in refusing

to consider a prisoner’s untimely grievance); Arnett, 658 F.3d at 755. But a non-

medical prison official “cannot simply ignore an inmate’s plight.” Id. (citing Greeno v.

Daley, 414 F.3d 645, 656 (7th Cir. 2005)). The Seventh Circuit has made clear that

when a prison official continuously ignores or denies numerous detailed letters and

grievances regarding a constitutional deprivation, such that it rises to the level of

“turning a blind eye,” he may become personally liable for that deprivation. Gentry,

65 F.3d at 561 (reversing dismissal of claims against Prison Superintendent that

received and denied numerous complaints of lack of access to scribe materials); Perez

v. Fenoglio, 792 F.3d 768, 782 (7th Cir. 2015) (reversing the dismissal of a prisoner’s

deliberate indifference claims against prison officials who received numerous highly

detailed complaints about the refusal of medical care); Hayes v. Snyder, 546 F.3d 516,

525 (7th Cir. 2008) (“[N]onmedical officials can be chargeable with . . . deliberate

indifference where they have a reason to believe (or actual knowledge) that prison

doctors or their assistants are mistreating (or not treating) a prisoner,”) (cleaned up).

Riley El’s new allegations against Gomez are like those alleged against the

prison officials in Perez. 792 F.3d at 781–82. In that case, a prisoner fractured his

arm while playing basketball, and prison officials refused to provide him proper

medical treatment. Id. The prisoner alleged that he wrote numerous grievances and

letters, which were reviewed and ignored by higher-level prison officials. Id. The

Seventh Circuit ultimately held that the allegations that the officials had reviewed

the prisoner’s “coherent and highly detailed grievances and other correspondences”

showed that the officials had requisite “actual knowledge of Perez’s objectively

serious medical condition and inadequate medical care” and failed to exercise their

authority to intervene. Id. at 782.

And here, Riley El has pleaded additional facts which, if true, lead to the

reasonable inference that Gomez knew about the failure of prison staff to provide

Riley El his medically-prescribed renal diet, had the power to do something about it,

and, at the very least, turned a blind eye to it. According to the Second Amended

Complaint, Gomez received a letter and numerous grievances (over ten) that

specifically enumerated Riley El’s complaint—that Stateville staff was depriving him

of his medically-required renal diet because he was not receiving enough meat and

was being served peanut butter, which is detrimental to his condition.1 He further

1 The Court noted, in its Memorandum Opinion and Order granting in part the first

motion to dismiss, that Riley El could adequately plead that Gomez actually knew

alleges facts which imply Gomez’s personal involvement in the grievance process—

for example, that Gomez was allegedly the “Chief Administrative Officer,” who, under

Illinois law, is required to review grievances; that Gomez reviewed his complaints

because he signed at least one and indicated that another was not an “emergency;”

and that Gomez ultimately concurred with the Grievance Counselor’s

recommendations to refer the issue to the Dietary Manager.2 At this point, these

allegations are enough to state a plausible claim that Gomez is personally liable for

deliberate indifference to Riley El’s medical needs.

II. Qualified Immunity

Gomez next argues that he is immune from suit under the doctrine of qualified

immunity. Qualified immunity shields government officials from liability “arising

from actions within the scope of their employment unless their conduct violated

‘clearly established . . . constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have

known.’” Bd. v. Farnham, 394 F.3d 469, 476 (7th Cir. 2005) (quoting Harlow v.

Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). In determining whether qualified immunity

applies, the Court determines whether the allegations, taken as true, show the

official’s conduct violated Riley El’s constitutional rights, and if so, whether that right

about the constitutional deprivation by, for example, including details regarding the

contents of his letters and grievances. R. 94 at 8 n.2 (quoting Gentry, 65 F.3d at 561).

The Second Amended Complaint does just that.

2 Gomez, however, cannot be held liable if the record shows that Gomez acted to

remediate the situation by directing the Dietary Manager to alleviate Riley El’s

complaints, and the Dietary Manager failed to follow Gomez’s directives. Burks, 555

F.3d at 595 (grievance counselor could not be held liable for medical staff’s failure to

heed her memorandum directing them to follow medical orders).

was “clearly established.” Farnham, 394 F.3d at 477. “Government officials are

considered ‘on notice’ that conduct is violative of established law if the state of the

law at the time gave them ‘fair warning’ that their conduct would be

unconstitutional.” Id. (quoting Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741 (2002)).

Contrary to Gomez’s contentions, it is well-settled in this Circuit that “once an

official is alerted to an excessive risk to inmate safety or health through a prisoner’s

correspondence, ‘refusal or declination to exercise the authority of his or her office

may reflect deliberate disregard.’ In other words, prisoner requests for relief that fall

on ‘deaf ears’ may evidence deliberate indifference.” Perez, 792 F.3d at 782 (citing

Dixon v. Godinez, 114 F.3d 640, 645 (7th Cir. 1997)); see also Arnett, 658 F.3d at 755;

Hayes, 546 F.3d at 525; Gentry, 65 F.3d at 561. Gomez’s qualified immunity argument

also stems from the assertion that the current Seventh Circuit case law that a prison

official can be liable for turning a blind eye to prisoner grievances relating to failures

of medical care is wrong. He argues that this line of cases is at odds with the Supreme

Court’s uncontroversial statement in Iqbal that an official “cannot be held liable

unless they themselves acted.” 556 U.S. at 683. But this statement does not actually

contradict Seventh Circuit case law, which also requires a prison official to have

personally acted (or refused to act) with deliberate indifference. Indeed, the Supreme

Court itself has noted that “it is enough that the official acted or failed to act despite

his knowledge of a substantial risk of serious harm.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 842.

Gomez’s qualified immunity defense fails.

Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, Gomez’s motion to dismiss the claims against him

is denied.

ENTERED:

Honorable Thomas M. Durkin

United States District Judge

Dated: April 28, 2023

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