Ajaj v. Roal
| Decision Date | 23 June 2020 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 14-CV-01245-JPG |
| Parties | AHMAD M. AJAJ, Plaintiff, v. WENDY ROAL, JEFF BANEY, JOHN PARENT, JEFF IRVIN, GARRETT FOZZARD, DAVID SZOKE, and MIKE WINKLMEIER, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Illinois |
This is a prisoner civil-rights case. Before the Court is Defendants Wendy Roal, Jeff Baney, John Parent, Jeff Irvin, Garrett Fozzard, David Szoke, and Mike Winklmeier's Motion for Summary Judgment. (Defs.' Mot., ECF No. 204). Magistrate Judge Reona Daly submitted a Report and Recommendation ( ) suggesting that the Court grant the Motion in part and deny it in part. (R. & R., ECF No. 247). Plaintiff Ahmad M. Ajaj objected. (Obj., ECF No. 249). For the reasons below, the Court ADOPTS Magistrate Judge Daly's R. & R. The defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment is therefore GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART.
I. PROCEDURAL & FACTUAL HISTORY
In 1994, Ajaj received 240-year prison sentence in the Southern District of New York. United States v. Salameh, 856 F. Supp. 781, 782 (S.D.N.Y. 1994). Since then, he has been housed in several correctional facilities across the country. Relevant here is the time he spent at the federal penitentiaries in Florence, Colorado (1994-1998) and Marion, Illinois (2010-2012).
According to the Complaint, Ajaj first met Fozzard while incarcerated in Florence. (Fourth Am. Compl. 4, ECF No. 221). Fozzard was a member of a "rogue" group of correctional officers—"the Cowboys"—with a reputation for "depriving inmates . . . of their constitutional rights and physically assaulting them." (Id.). While escorting Ajaj to Missouri for cancer treatment in 1997, Fozzard and other members of the Cowboys subjected him to "abusive strip searches," "excessively painful restraints," and other "physical and verbal abuses." (Id. at 4-5).
In 2010, Ajaj was transferred to the federal penitentiary in Marion. (Id. at 6). Fozzard followed soon after and again worked as a corrections officer in Ajaj's unit. (Id.). The abuses continued. (Id.). Ajaj made several verbal complaints to other correctional officers, including Roal, Parent, and Baney, but they failed to act. (Id. at 7). And in 2011, "Fozzard struck [Ajaj] several times using a combination lock, a shoe, and other objects in [his] cell." (Id.).
Two weeks later, Ajaj submitted an Administrative Remedy Request ("Request 664231") to the warden, titled "Assault by Staff," where he described the attack. (Defs.' Mot., Ex. D, at 87, ECF No. 204-5). Although he mentioned that he first met Fozzard in Florence, he did not allege other abuses while in Marion; nor did he reference Roal, Parent, or Baney; nor did he suggest that he complained about Fozzard to prison staff before the attack. (See id.).
While in Marion, Ajaj suffered from "severe back pain, lower extremity pain, leg cramping, insomnia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and several gastro-intestinal disorders." (Fourth Am. Compl. 11). Skoke, the penitentiary's clinical director, "accused [Ajaj] of faking his symptoms" and refused to provide medical treatment. (Id.). Skoke also denied Ajaj's request to be placed in an air-conditioned unit: since losing a lung to cancer, Ajaj has trouble breathing in hightemperatures. (Id. at 12). Again, Skoke "accused [Ajaj] of faking his symptoms and offered no assistance." (Id. at 13). Ajaj complained to Roal and Winklmeier, Skoke's supervisors, but they too failed to act. (Id. at 12). Roal, Winklmeier, and Irwin also refused to place Ajaj on a special medical diet to remedy his gastrointestinal disorders. (Id. at 13). Diagnostic testing later revealed that Ajaj "had been suffering from severe spinal stenosis and several other serious medical conditions." (Id. at 12).
Ajaj sued in this Court in 2014. With the aid of counsel, he amended his complaint to include 12 counts against 17 defendants. (Third Am. Compl. 17-23, ECF No. 185). Now, only three counts remain against seven defendants:
(Mem. & Order 5, ECF No. 230; see Fourth Am. Compl. 17-19).1
The defendants moved for summary judgment on all counts, and Magistrate Judge Daly recommended that the Court deny summary judgment on Count 1 and grant it on Counts 2 and 5. (R. & R. 11, 13). Ajaj objected to Magistrate Judge Daly's findings that he failed to fully exhaust all administrative remedies on Count 2; and that Count 5 is barred by the two-year statute of limitations. (Obj. 1, 6).
B. LAW & ANALYSIS
The Court agrees with Magistrate Judge Daly's R. & R. After de novo review of the parts objected to by Ajaj, the Court finds that he failed to fully exhaust all administrative remedies on Count 2: Request 664231 did not refer to any failure to protect, either explicitly or impliedly. Count 5 is also barred by the two-year statute of limitations: continuing violations apply to unlawful acts, not ill effects. Finally, the unobjected portions of the R. & R. are not clearly erroneous.
When a district court refers a dispositive motion to a magistrate judge, "[t]he magistrate judge must enter a recommended disposition, including, if appropriate, proposed findings of fact." Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b). Within 14 days of the magistrate judge issuing an R. & R., a party may "serve and file specific written objections to the proposed findings and recommendations." Id. The district judge must then "determine de novo any part of the magistrate judge's disposition that has been properly objected to" and either "accept, reject, or modify the recommended disposition . . . ." Id. "If no objection or only partial objection is made, the district court judge reviews those unobjected portions for clear error." Johnson v. Zema Sys. Corp., 170 F.3d 734, 739 (7th Cir. 1999).
"[S]ummary judgment is the 'put up or shut up' moment in the life of a case." AA Sales & Assocs. v. Coni-Seal, Inc., 550 F.3d 605, 612 (7th Cir. 2008). It is only appropriate "if 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. The movant can support his or her motion by "citing to particular parts of materials in the record, including depositions, documents, . . . or other materials . . . ." Id. That said, the district judge must construe the evidence in the light mostfavorable to the non-movant, "and all justifiable inferences are to be drawn in his favor." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986).
The Prisoner Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA") prohibits prisoners from suing in federal court "with respect to prison conditions . . . or any other Federal law . . . until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted." 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). But the PLRA "does not delineate the procedures prisoners must follow." Strong v. David, 297 F.3d 646, 649 (7th Cir. 2002). As it turns out, it depends: "the rules come from the prison grievance systems themselves—state law for state prisons, federal administrative law for federal prisoners." Id. In other words, "[t]he level of detail necessary in a grievance to comply with the grievance procedures will vary from system and claim to claim, but it is the prison's requirements, and not the PLRA, that define the boundaries of proper exhaustion." Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 218 (2007).
For federal prisoners to exhaust their administrative remedies, federal administrative regulations require them to submit "a formal written Administrative Remedy Request" containing "a single complaint or a reasonable number of closely related issues . . . ." 28 C.F.R. § 542.14(c). That said, the regulations do not state what level of detail is required in a Request. And "[w]hen the applicable regulations provide little guidance regarding the required contents of a prison administrative complaint, . . . an inmate's complaint will suffice for exhaustion purposes if it provides notice to the prison of 'the nature of the wrong for which redress is sought.' " Schillinger v. Kiley, 954 F.3d 990, 995 (7th Cir. 2020) (quoting Strong, 297 F.3d at 650).
Ajaj argues that because federal administrative law does "not require any degree of factual particularity," Request 664231 was enough to put "[t]he prison administration . . . on notice" of his failure-to-protect claim. For support, he cites Riccardo v. Rausch, 375 F.3d 521, 624 (7th Cir.2004). There, the Seventh Circuit found that a statement in an inmate's Administrative Remedy Request ("The administration don't [sic] do their [sic] job.") put the defendant-officials on notice of a failure-to-protect claim. Id. Similarly, Ajaj cites Judge Crabb's decision in McKinnie v. Heisz, No. 09-CV-199-BBC, 2009 WL 3245410, at *2 (W.D. Wis. Oct. 7, 2009). There too, the court found that statements in an inmate's Administrative Remedy Request—about how certain inmates "should not have been allowed on the tier . . . in order to protect [him] from potential harm" and that he "want[s] all those responsible to be held accountable"—put the defendant-officials on notice of a failure-to-protect claim. Id. Ajaj suggests that this case is like Riccardo and McKinnie. The Court disagrees.
In Schillinger, the Seventh Circuit found that a state prisoner failed to exhaust all available administrative remedies because the complaint that he submitted to the prison was not specific enough. 954 F.3d at 996. The prisoner sued several prison officials for not protecting him from an attack by another inmate. Id. The applicable state law stated that "a prisoner must 'clearly identify the issue' in an inmate complaint," but it did not specify "what it takes...
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