The opinion
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
HARLEY M. BRADY, # R13122, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
vs. ) Case No. 23-cv-00295-SMY
)
ILLINOIS DEPT. of CORRECTIONS, )
DANIEL MONTI (Warden, Centralia CC, )
Official Capacity Only), )
LANA NALEWAJKA, )
PAM WARD (Nurse, Lawrence CC), )
RICK HUBLER (C/O Centralia CC), )
CLAY WHEELAN (Bureau of Identification )
Officer, Centralia CC), and )
SEAN BALLANTINI (Bureau of )
Identification Officer, Centralia CC), )
)
Defendants. )
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
YANDLE, District Judge:
This matter is before the Court on the motion for summary judgment on the issue of
exhaustion of administrative remedies filed by Defendant Pam Ward (Doc. 65).1 For the
following reasons, Ward’s motion is GRANTED.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff filed this this pro se civil action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for alleged violations
of his constitutional rights during his incarceration at Lawrence Correctional Center and
subsequently at Centralia Correctional Center, where he is still confined. He makes the following
allegations relevant to the pending motion in the First Amended Complaint (Doc. 47): Plaintiff is
hearing impaired and relies on hearing aids in both ears. His medically necessary hearing aids
1 Plaintiff did not file a separate response to the motion, but portions of his response to the summary judgment motion
filed by Defendants Ballantini, Hubler, and Wheelan (Doc. 61) are relevant to this motion (Doc. 70).
were rendered inoperable at Lawrence because Defendant Ward2 failed to provide replacement
batteries. Hearing aid batteries were issued at Lawrence only on Saturdays between 7:00am-
3:00pm (Doc. 47, p. 5). Plaintiff’s hearing aid batteries ran out while he was at his job assignment
overnight on July 21-22, 2021. Ward made the decision not to run the weekly call line to issue
new hearing aid batteries on Saturday, July 24, 2021. Id. Plaintiff was transferred to Centralia on
July 28, 2021. He never got replacement batteries before the transfer, so he packed the inoperable
hearing aids with his other property to be transferred. After the transfer, the hearing aids were
misplaced and Plaintiff did not receive them back for some weeks.
Following threshold review, Plaintiff is proceeding on the following claims involving
Defendant Ward3 (Doc. 13; Doc. 46, pp. 4-5):
Count 1: Eighth Amendment deliberate indifference to serious medical needs
claim against Pam Ward (Lawrence Nurse) for failing to run the
hearing aid battery call line on July 24, 2021, depriving Plaintiff of
his ability to use his medically necessary hearing aids.
Count 6: Illinois state law medical negligence claim against Pam Ward and
Lana Nalewajka for breaching their duty of care to Plaintiff when
they deprived him of functioning hearing aids, his ADA watch, and
a tactile pager watch.
Count 7: Illinois state law negligence claim against Pam Ward, Rick Hubler,
Clay Wheelan and Sean Ballantini (Bureau of Identification
Officers), and Lana Nalewajka for breaching their duty of care to
Plaintiff, causing him injury.
DISCUSSION
Summary judgment is proper if there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the
movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. FED. R. CIV. P. 56(a). A genuine issue of
material fact exists when “the evidence is such that a reasonable [factfinder] could [find] for the
2 Plaintiff originally identified Defendant Ward as “Unknown Nurse 1” (Docs. 1, 13).
3 Plaintiff is also proceeding on Counts 2 and 5 against other defendants (Doc. 46, pp. 4-5).
nonmoving party.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986).
Pursuant to the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”), a prisoner may not file a lawsuit
about prison conditions unless and until he has exhausted all available administrative remedies.
42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a); Pavey v. Conley, 544 F.3d 739, 740 (7th Cir. 2008). “The exhaustion
requirement is an affirmative defense, which the defendants bear the burden of proving.” Pavey
v. Conley, 663 F.3d 899, 903 (7th Cir. 2011); see also Crouch v. Brown, 27 F.4th 1315, 1320 (7th
Cir. 2022).
For a prisoner to properly exhaust his administrative remedies, he or she must “file
complaints and appeals in the place, and at the time, the prison’s administrative rules require.”
Pozo v. McCaughtry, 286 F.3d 1022, 1025 (7th Cir. 2002). “[A] prisoner who does not properly
take each step within the administrative process has failed to exhaust state remedies.” Id. at 1024.
Exhaustion must be fully completed before the prisoner files suit; a case filed while a grievance
appeal is still ongoing is premature and must be dismissed without prejudice. Chambers v. Sood,
956 F.3d 979, 984 (7th Cir. 2020); see also Dole v. Chandler, 438 F.3d 804, 809 (7th Cir. 2006).
Because Plaintiff was an IDOC inmate when he filed this action, he was required to follow
the grievance process set forth in the Illinois Administrative Code. 20 ILL. ADMIN. CODE
§ 504.800, et seq. (2017). Under IDOC’s procedure, an inmate initiates a grievance with his
counselor, and he may then submit his grievance to a grievance officer at his facility, and to the
CAO at his facility. “A grievance must be filed...within 60 days after the discovery of the incident,
occurrence or problem that gives rise to the grievance.” 20 ILL. ADMIN. CODE § 504.810(a). A
grievance must “contain factual details regarding each aspect of the offender’s complaint,
including what happened, when, where, and the name of each person who is the subject of or who
is otherwise involved in the complaint.” 20 ILL. ADMIN. CODE § 504.810(c). If the prisoner does
not know a person’s name, he “must include as much descriptive information about the individual
as possible.” Id.
If an inmate is unsatisfied with the outcome at the facility, he must appeal to the
Administrative Review Board (“ARB”) within 30 days. 20 ILL. ADMIN. CODE § 504.850(a). The
grievance procedures further allow for an inmate to file an emergency grievance; to do so, the
inmate must forward the grievance directly to the CAO who may “[determine] that there is a
substantial risk of imminent personal injury or other serious or irreparable harm to the offender.”
20 ILL. ADMIN. CODE § 504.840(a). After such a determination, processing of the grievance is
expedited, as is any appeal. 20 ILL. ADMIN. CODE § 504.840(b); § 504.850(f).
An inmate is required to exhaust only those administrative remedies that are available to
him. See Ross v. Blake, 578 U.S. 632, 642 (2016). Administrative remedies become “unavailable”
when prison officials fail to respond to a properly filed inmate grievance or when prison employees
thwart a prisoner from exhausting. Lewis v. Washington, 300 F.3d 829, 833 (7th Cir. 2002); Dole,
438 F.3d at 809.
Defendant Ward identifies one grievance filed by Plaintiff relevant to his claims: No. E-
21-8-19. In this grievance, filed after Plaintiff’s transfer to Centralia, he complained that his
hearing aids were taken out of his property upon his July 28, 2021 transfer and were not returned
to him (Doc. 66-1, p. 64; Doc. 66-2, p. 4). While Plaintiff was still at Lawrence, the batteries in
his hearing aids died. “Lawrence C.C. did not run hearing aid battery replacement line the
weekend before [Plaintiff] transferred” (Doc. 66-1, p. 64; Doc. 66-2, p. 4). Plaintiff packed the
hearing aids with dead batteries in his property for transfer along with his ADA watch and a cross
necklace. When Plaintiff’s property was returned on July 29, 2021, his hearing aids were not given
back to him. He missed meals, dayroom, and yard because he could not hear when they were
called.
The grievance was received on August 4, 2021, and deemed an emergency (Doc. 66-1, p.
64; Doc. 66-2, p. 4). On August 23, 2021, the hearing aids were found and returned to Plaintiff
(Doc. 66-1, p. 62; Doc. 66-2, p. 2). The grievance was “partially upheld.” Id. Plaintiff timely
appealed the grievance to the ARB, which deemed it moot because the hearing aids and ADA
watch had been returned and his cross necklace was under review (Doc. 66-1, p. 61; Doc. 66-2, p.
1).
Ward argues that Grievance No. E-21-8-19 was insufficient to exhaust Plaintiff’s claims
against her because it did not name or describe her. Further, while Plaintiff alleged in the First
Amended Complaint that a nurse (Ward) chose not to run the hearing aid battery replacement line
at Lawrence, the grievance did not include this allegation (Doc. 66, pp. 7-8). Additionally,
Plaintiff’s grievance stated that the issue arose at Centralia, not at Lawrence. Because of these
omissions, Grievance No. E-21-8-19 did not put officials at Lawrence or Centralia on notice of
Ward’s alleged conduct or provide them an opportunity to address his complaint about the
batteries.
Plaintiff argues that his grievance “addressed Lawrence’s culpability, as the issue started
there,” noting the injury suffered at Centralia – the loss of his hearing aids – “was only possible
due to actions undertaken at Lawrence.” (Doc. 70, p. 3). He notes that his “hearing aids were
useless without batteries from the midnight shift of 07/21/22-2021, until they were seized on 07-
28-2021.” (Doc. 70, p. 4). This explains why he packed them with his property rather than wore
them for his transfer.
Defendant Ward’s arguments are persuasive. While Grievance No. E-21-8-19 includes the
information that Plaintiff’s hearing aid batteries ran out and were not replaced at Lawrence, it does
not identify or describe a nurse or any individual who Plaintiff alleges was responsible for the
failure to provide replacement batteries. As such, it fails to include as much descriptive
information as possible about the responsible person. See 20 ILL. ADMIN. CODE § 504.810(c).
Additionally, by identifying Centralia as the place of occurrence, Plaintiff did not alert Lawrence
officials of the problem or the need to address it.
When Plaintiff filed Grievance No. E-21-8-19 on August 2, 2021, he was still within the
60-day time limit to file a grievance directed to the Lawrence staff who failed to run the hearing
aid battery line on July 24, 2021, had he wished to do so; he did not. As such, Grievance No. E-
21-8-19 does not provide sufficient information to exhaust Plaintiff’s claims against Defendant
Ward.
DISPOSITION
The Motion for Summary Judgment filed by Defendant Ward (Doc. 65) is GRANTED.
Defendant Pam Ward and the claims against her in Counts 1, 6, and 7 are DISMISSED without
prejudice for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: February 5, 2025
s/ Staci M. Yandle_________
STACI M. YANDLE
United States District Judge