Henderson v. Sheahan & Fairman, 98-2964

• Citation: 196 F.3d 839
• Decision Date: 02 February 2000
• Docket Number: No. 98-2964,98-2964
• Parties: (7th Cir. 1999) Ellis Henderson, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Michael F. Sheahan and J.W. Fairman, Defendants-Appellees
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Page 839

196 F.3d 839 (7th Cir. 1999)

Ellis Henderson, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Michael F. Sheahan and J.W. Fairman, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 98-2964

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit

Argued January 11, 1999

Decided November 16, 1999

Rehearing Denied February 2, 2000^*

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 94 C 2621--George M. Marovich, Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Before Fairchild, Manion and Kanne, Circuit Judges.

Kanne, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Ellis Henderson was a pretrial detainee at the Cook County jail for approximately four-and-one-half years. He entered the jail in January 1990 and, except for a one month period in which he was housed in another facility during his murder trial, remained incarcerated in the jail until he was transferred to an Illinois state prison facility in June 1994. The Defendants in this case are Michael F. Sheahan, Sheriff of Cook County, and J.W. Fairman, the former Executive Director of the Cook County Department of Corrections.

While detained at the Cook County jail, Henderson was housed in or had access to a non- smoking tier of the facility. Despite the tier's non-smoking designation, Henderson claimed that inmates routinely violated the non-smoking policy causing him to be exposed to excessive levels of second-hand smoke throughout his detention. According to Henderson's complaint, the Defendants made no meaningful effort to separate non-smoking detainees from smoking detainees. As a result, there was no significant difference in the amount of second-hand smoke present between the smoking and non-smoking tiers. Henderson further alleged in his complaint that jail officials forced him to share a cell with smokers for the majority of his stay, and, therefore, he could not escape the smoke that permeated his tier by remaining in his cell.

Henderson's complaint charged that his continuous exposure to excessive levels of second-hand smoke caused him to experience difficulty in breathing, chest pains, dizziness, drowsiness, sinus problems, burning sensations in his throat and headaches. Henderson also alleged that he may experience significant health problems in the future as a result of being forced to breathe cancer-causing second-hand smoke throughout his four-and-one-half year detention.

According to Henderson's complaint, the Defendants have dealt with his physical and medical problems in an indifferent and callous manner. Henderson claimed that he complained to jail authorities on several occasions about his exposure to excessive levels of second-hand smoke and filed a number of grievances requesting that the Defendants either reduce the levels of smoke in his tier or transfer him to a tier where inmates were not allowed to smoke--all to no avail. He believes the Defendants' treatment of him reflected a jail policy to place non-smokers in housing environments with smokers regardless of any adverse health consequences and to prohibit transfers of non-smoking detainees to compliant non-smoking tiers.

The Defendants denied Henderson's assertion regarding the conditions of his confinement. The Defendants also denied that they had received any notice from Henderson that he was suffering any negative health effects due to his exposure to second-hand smoke. Although Henderson indicated that he made multiple trips to Cook County hospital because of an unrelated digestive problem, the Defendants asserted that there was no indication Henderson complained to health workers of excessive levels of smoke in either his tier or cell or that the Defendants were made aware of any such complaints. The Defendants further maintained that it was jail policy to review and act upon any request from a non- smoking detainee seeking a transfer to a non- smoking tier subject to safety and security concerns. In addition, the Defendants claimed that it was jail policy to transfer an inmate or detainee to a non-smoking tier if medical personnel indicated that such a transfer was medically necessary.

In 1994, Henderson filed this pro se suit against the Defendants under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983, alleging that his continuous exposure to excessive levels of second-hand smoke during his detention at the Cook County jail violated his constitutional rights afforded under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. In addition to declaratory and injunctive relief,¹ Henderson sought monetary damages for both the actual injuries he had suffered, and for the increased risk that he might incur harm in the future, as a result of the Defendants' alleged deliberate indifference to his exposure to second-hand smoke. The Defendants moved to dismiss Henderson's complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The district court granted the Defendants' motion in part, dismissing Henderson's claim to the extent it sought monetary damages for the alleged actual, present injuries he had suffered, but denied the Defendants' motion with respect to Henderson's claim for any increased risk of future injury caused by his exposure to second-hand smoke at the Cook County jail.

With regard to Henderson's present injury claim, the district court determined that the current ailments of which Henderson complained were too minor to create a valid constitutional claim. With respect to Henderson's future injury claim, the court concluded that Henderson had adequately stated a claim under Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25 (1993), by alleging that his prolonged involuntary exposure to excessive levels of second-hand smoke (also known as "environmental tobacco smoke" or "ETS") during his incarceration at the Cook County jail posed an unreasonable risk of serious damage to his future health.

By 1995, Henderson had obtained appointed counsel and the Defendants filed their first motion for summary judgment with respect to Henderson's future injury claim. The district court limited its consideration of the Defendants' motion to the issue of qualified immunity, which the court granted in part and denied in part. Although the court held that the Defendants were entitled to qualified immunity from liability in their individual capacities, it concluded that the qualified immunity doctrine did not shield the Defendants from potential liability in their official capacities and allowed Henderson's future injury claim to proceed against the Defendants on that basis. Neither party appeals this decision.

In 1996, the Defendants filed a second motion for summary judgment on Henderson's future injury claim. The district court allowed Henderson a limited time to conduct discovery, during which the court entered a default judgment against the Defendants as a sanction for their failure to comply with Henderson's discovery requests. The default judgment was eventually vacated and the Defendants' pending motion for summary judgment was stricken without prejudice and with leave to refile upon completion of discovery.

In 1997, the Defendants filed a third motion for summary judgment. The court first found that genuine issues of material fact remained as to whether Henderson was exposed against his will to excessive levels of second-hand smoke during his stay at the Cook County jail and whether the jail officials were deliberately indifferent to the risk of future serious injury from this exposure- -the two prima facie elements of Henderson's future injury claim. However, the court found that there was no genuine issue of material fact as to the issue of whether Henderson could actually prove that he has suffered an increased compensable risk of future serious health problems that was proximately caused by the Defendants' actions. Based on this reasoning, the district court granted the Defendants' motion for summary judgment.

On appeal, Henderson challenges the district court's dismissal of his present injury claim and the court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the Defendants as to his future injury claim.

I. Analysis

A. Present Injury Claim

The Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment imposes upon jail officials the duty to "provide humane conditions of confinement" for prisoners. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832 (1994). This duty includes the obligation to "ensure that inmates receive adequate food, clothing, shelter, protection, and medical care." Oliver v. Deen, 77 F.3d 156, 159 (7th Cir. 1996); see also Farmer, 511 U.S. at 832. However, not every injury or deprivation suffered by a prisoner translates into constitutional liability for prison officials responsible for the prisoner's health and well- being. See Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834; see also Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 105 (1976); Oliver, 77 F.3d at 159. Instead, only a jail official's "deliberate indifference to a prisoner's serious illness or injury states a cause of action" under the Eighth Amendment.² Estelle, 429 U.S. 105; see also Payne for Hicks v. Churchich, 161 F.3d 1030, 1041 (7th Cir. 1998) ("A detainee establishes a sec. 1983 claim by demonstrating that the defendants were aware of a substantial risk of serious injury to the detainee but nevertheless failed to take appropriate steps to protect him from a known danger."), cert. denied, 119 S. Ct. 2339 (1999).

The Supreme Court has recently made clear that a viable Eighth Amendment claim must contain both an objective and subjective component. See Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834; see also Oliver, 77 F.3d at 159. To satisfy the objective component, "the deprivation alleged must be, objectively, 'sufficiently serious.'" Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834 (quoting Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 298 (1991)); see also Langston v. Peters, 100 F.3d 1235, 1240 (7th Cir. 1996) (indicating that "for liability to exist the medical need must be objectively serious"). As the Supreme Court explained in Farmer, to be sufficiently...