Crayton v. Graffeo
| Decision Date | 07 January 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. 12 C 7128,12 C 7128 |
| Citation | 10 F.Supp.3d 888 |
| Parties | Derrick Crayton, Plaintiff, v. Cook County Correctional Officer Graffeo, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Edward M. Fox, Jonathan R. Ksiazek, Ed Fox & Associates, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff.
Anthony E. Zecchin, Chicago, IL, for Defendants.
The plaintiff has been a pre-trial detainee in the Cook County Department of Corrections, since October 2, 2010. Claiming that he was beaten by correctional officers in two separate incidents on May 7, 2012, he has filed suit against those officers— Graffeo, Hernandez, Rodriguez, Salamone, and Irachata—charging them with excessive force and various state law violations under the court's supplemental jurisdiction. The defendants have moved for summary judgment, arguing that the plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”), 42 U.S.C.1997e(a), and that he has failed to show that Officers Hernandez, Rodriguez, Salamone, or Irachata committed any unconstitutional acts against him.
The latter claim is odd, to say the least, since the defendants explain that all of the material facts related to plaintiff's excessive force claim are in dispute, and therefore should not be included in a Local Rule 56.1 statement. (Defendants' Reply, at 4). In light of the defendants' concession, they have effectively pled themselves out of court on this aspect of their motion. Cf., Hollander v. Brown, 457 F.3d 688, 691, n. 1. (7th Cir.2006) ; U.S. ex rel. Atkinson v. Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Co., 255 F.Supp.2d 351, 367 (E.D.Pa.2002).
Summary judgment is appropriate only when “the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). On summary judgment, a court may not weigh the evidence or decide which inferences should be drawn from the facts. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). Still, “a factual dispute is ‘genuine’ only if a reasonable jury could find for either party.” Rosario v. Brawn, 670 F.3d 816, 820 (7th Cir.2012) (citation omitted). To survive summary judgment, a non-moving party must “show through specific evidence that a triable issue of fact remains on issues for which the nonmovant bears the burden of proof at trial.”Knight v. Wiseman, 590 F.3d 458, 463–64 (7th Cir.2009) (citation omitted). The evidence the nonmovant submits in support of his position must be sufficiently strong that a jury could reasonably find for the nonmovant. Id.
As always, the facts underlying this summary judgment proceeding are drawn from the parties' Local Rule 56.1 submissions. “For litigants appearing in the Northern District of Illinois, the Rule 56.1 statement is a critical, and required, component of a litigant's response to a motion for summary judgment.” Sojka v. Bovis Lend Lease, Inc., 686 F.3d 394, 398 (7th Cir.2012). Local Rule 56.1 requires a party seeking summary judgment to include with its motion “a statement of material facts as to which the ... party contends there is no genuine issue and that entitle the ... party to a judgment as a matter of law.” Local Rule 56.1(a)(3); Ciomber v. Cooperative Plus, Inc., 527 F.3d 635, 643 (7th Cir.2008). Each paragraph must refer to the “affidavits, parts of the record, and other supporting materials” that substantiate the asserted facts. Local Rule 56.1(a)(3); F.T.C. v. Bay Area Business Council, Inc., 423 F.3d 627, 633 (7th Cir.2005).
The party opposing summary judgment must then respond to the movant's statement of proposed material facts; that response must contain both “a response to each numbered paragraph in the moving party's statement,” Local Rule 56.1(b)(3)(B), and a separate statement “consisting of short numbered paragraphs, of any additional facts that require the denial of summary judgment.” Local Rule 56.1(b)(3)(C); Ciomber, 527 F.3d at 643. Again, each response and each asserted fact must be supported with a reference to the record. Local Rule 56.1(b)(3)(B); Cracco v. Vitran Exp., Inc., 559 F.3d 625, 632 (7th Cir.2009) ; Bay Area Business Council, Inc., 423 F.3d at 633.
The district court is entitled to enforce strict compliance with its local rules regarding summary judgment motions. Yancick v. Hanna Steel Corp., 653 F.3d 532, 537 (7th Cir.2011) ; Schmidt v. Eagle Waste & Recycling, Inc., 599 F.3d 626, 630 (7th Cir.2010). Responses and facts that are not set out and appropriately supported in an opponent's Rule 56.1 response need not be considered. See Shaffer v. American Medical Association, 662 F.3d 439, 442 (7th Cir.2011) ; Bay Area Business Council, 423 F.3d at 633.
The defendants argue that the plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies prior to filing his suit. The Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”) mandates that “no action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, or any other federal law, by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted.” 42 U.S.C. § 1997(e). The PLRA was a response to the fact that prisoner litigation comprises an outsized share of the filings in federal district courts. Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 94, n. 4, 126 S.Ct. 2378, 165 L.Ed.2d 368 (2006) ; Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 203, 127 S.Ct. 910, 166 L.Ed.2d 798 (2007). “Most of these cases have no merit; many are frivolous.” Jones, 549 U.S. at 203, 127 S.Ct. 910. It is nonetheless important “that the flood of nonmeritorious claims does not submerge and effectively preclude consideration of the allegations with merit.” Id. Id. at 203–204, 127 S.Ct. 910.
The Seventh Circuit has taken a “strict compliance approach to exhaustion, meaning that the prisoner must properly use the prison's grievance system.” Santiago v. Anderson, 496 Fed.Appx. 630, 636 (7th Cir.2012). See also, Dole v. Chandler, 438 F.3d 804, 809 (7th Cir.2006). But the defendants bear the burden of proving nonexhaustion. Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 216, 127 S.Ct. 910, 166 L.Ed.2d 798 (2007) ; Maddox v. Love, 655 F.3d 709, 720 (7th Cir.2011). To carry that burden, “they must do more than point to a lack of evidence in the record; rather, they must establish affirmatively that the evidence is so one-sided that no reasonable fact finder could find that the plaintiff was prevented from exhausting his administrative remedies.” Santiago, 496 Fed.Appx. at 636 ; Branham v. Snow, 392 F.3d 896, 906–07 (7th Cir.2004).
The defendants assert the following few facts in support of their motion for summary judgment.1 Plaintiff filed two grievances related to the beatings he allegedly suffered at the hands of the correctional officers on May 7, 2012. (Defendants' Statement of Facts (“Def.St. ”), ¶ 4). The grievances were processed together and given the control number of 2012 X 6980. (Def.St., ¶ 5). Plaintiff received a “response” to his grievance on June 5, 2012. (Def.St., ¶ 5). The response informed plaintiff that “a copy of [ ]his grievance [was] being forward [sic] to OP,” (Def.St., Ex. 2), which is the jails's Office of Professional Review. (Def. St., ¶ 10). The response also included a section entitled “Inmate's Request for an Appeal”, and informed the reader that “[t]o exhaust administrative remedies, appeals must be made within 14 days of the date the inmate received the response.” (Def. St., Ex. 2).
The defendants state that plaintiff did not file an appeal to this response, and argue that he had to under the jail's established grievance procedure. (Def.St., ¶¶ 8–9). They do not point to any rule requiring this, but rely on the affidavit of the jail's deputy director of inmate services, John Mueller. (Def.St., ¶ 9, Ex. 3, ¶ 4). They also—again through Mr. Mueller—explain that the OPR and the investigations it conducts are separate and distinct from the inmate grievance procedure. (Def.St., ¶ 11, Ex. 3, ¶ 6). Mr. Mueller claims this is explicitly set forth in the grievance procedures—which are available to all inmates—and quotes Section VIII, D of the procedures: “OPR investigation shall have no bearing on, and shall be separate and distinct from, the inmate grievance process.” (Def.St., Ex. 3, ¶ 6).2 This would seem fatal to the defendants' argument, but Section VIII, D, however, says no such thing. There is no mention of OPR, let alone OPR's role or lack thereof in the inmate appeals process:
(Def.St., Ex. 3, Sheriff's Order 11.14.5.0, at 10). Elsewhere, the procedures refer to the OPR, but only to say that grievances dealing...
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...for the results of the Internal Affairs investigation and, if dissatisfied, can then file suit. Id. at 46; see also Crayton v. Graffeo, 10 F.Supp.3d 888, 895 (N.D. Ill. 2014) (Worthem can be read to give the inmate a choice: he either has to appeal the response indicating that his grievance......