Brengettcy v. Horton

• Decision Date: 08 September 2005
• Docket Number: No. 03-3813.,03-3813.
• Citation: 423 F.3d 674
• Parties: David BRENGETTCY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. William HORTON, John Daley, Officer Farrow, John Does I-X, and the County of Cook, Illinois, Defendant-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

423 F.3d 674

David BRENGETTCY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. William HORTON, John Daley, Officer Farrow, John Does I-X, and the County of Cook, Illinois, Defendant-Appellees.

No. 03-3813.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued December 10, 2004.

Decided September 8, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Jerold S. Solovy, John H. Ray, III (argued), Jenner & Block, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

John M. Allegretti (argued), Office of the Cook County State's Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellee William Horton.

Before RIPPLE, MANION, and WOOD, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Circuit Judge.

While he was awaiting trial at the Cook County Department of Corrections (CCDOC), David Brengettcy became embroiled in a physical altercation with Officer William Horton that resulted in Brengettcy's spending two days in the hospital. Later, a jury convicted him of aggravated battery on a peace officer in violation of 720 ILCS 5/12-4(b)(6), for which he received a sentence of three years' imprisonment. Meanwhile, Brengettcy claims that he filed a grievance against Officer Horton and the other officers involved in the incident with the CCDOC on August 23, 2000, the day he was released from the hospital. The grievance asserted that Horton attacked him, hitting him while he was handcuffed; after that, someone kicked him down a nearby staircase.

After failing to receive a response to his initial grievance, Brengettcy filed several others in November and December 2000. In January 2001, Brengettcy brought a civil rights suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in federal court against the defendants, alleging violations of his federal constitutional rights and state law. Judge Bucklo initially presided over his case. The defendants filed two motions to dismiss, one based on Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994), and the second on Brengettcy's alleged failure to exhaust his administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). After Judge Bucklo denied both motions, Brengettcy's case was transferred for administrative reasons to Judge St. Eve. Defendants presented their Heck and exhaustion arguments to her in the form of a motion for summary judgment; ruling only on the exhaustion point, she entered judgment in their favor. We conclude that this action was premature and that the defendants' other arguments in support of the judgment are unavailing, and thus we remand to the district court for further proceedings.

I

Our account of the facts takes them in the light most favorable to Brengettcy. Rooney v. Koch Air, LLC, 410 F.3d 376, 380 (7th Cir.2005). On August 21, 2000, Brengettcy attended a Bible study meeting held in the mess hall on the first floor of the CCDOC. After the meeting concluded, he left the mess hall and started to walk up the stairs to the second floor. When he reached the second floor landing, he realized that he had forgotten to mail a letter. He went back down the stairs to the first floor, mailed his letter, encountered a correctional officer without incident, and returned to the second floor.

Observing Brengettcy's return to the second floor, Officer Horton asked him why he had gone back downstairs. Brengettcy described what happened next as follows:

After the first time when he said, mother fucker, who told you to go downstairs, I told him I went to go mail my letter, officer, and I set the bible down on his desk. He continued talking with verbal assaults with mother fuckers in it. I silenced myself. I didn't say nothing. I just looked him in the eye. He struck me. I fell back. I didn't—I looked at Halbert, Officer Halbert. He didn't say anything. So he proceeded to striking [sic] me.

Brengettcy testified that he broke Horton's attack by backing up toward the other officers and then punching Horton several times. The other officers called for assistance and within two minutes, reinforcements were on the scene. Brengettcy claims that he was then repeatedly beaten and kicked by the officers. He tried to defend himself by assuming the fetal position and covering his head until he was handcuffed. After he was handcuffed, the officers continued to beat him and he was taken to the stairwell where someone kicked him down the stairs. The next thing he recalls is regaining consciousness that evening in the hospital. His medical reports indicate that he was experiencing pain in his throat, shoulder, wrist, back, leg, and that he received sutures in his bottom lip and chipped his front teeth.

Brengettcy was released from the Cook County Hospital on August 22, 2000. In his verified complaints, he alleged that he filed a grievance with the CCDOC the following day, on August 23, 2000, which was within fifteen days of the incident as required by CCDOC's grievance policy. He did not receive a reply within 30 days as specified in the CCDOC's grievance policy nor did he get a notification that his grievance would take longer than 30 days to resolve. In October, Brengettcy inquired about the status of his grievance with Officer McCullen, who told him that sometimes the grievances get torn up. On November 27, 2000, he filed another grievance. Again, the CCDOC failed to respond to his grievance with either a decision or a notification that it would take longer than 30 days to resolve.

On January 9, 2001, the clerk's office for the Northern District of Illinois received Brengettcy's pro se verified complaint alleging that Officer Horton had violated his civil rights by using excessive force during the incident. The clerk's office filed his complaint on March 13, 2001.

On May 3, 2001, the defendants moved to dismiss Brengettcy's complaint on the grounds that Heck barred his civil rights claims. On June 19, 2001, Brengettcy filed a pro se amended verified complaint adding defendant John Daley and alleging the same underlying facts. Judge Bucklo denied the defendants' motion to dismiss in an order dated July 24, 2001, explaining that:

Brengettcy's conviction necessarily implies that he struck Horton, that he knew Horton was a peace officer, and that his striking Horton was not legally justified. It by no means necessarily implies that Horton's use of force against Brengettcy was lawful. In this action, Brengettcy cannot dispute the legitimacy of the state's sentencing him to three years in prison for striking Horton, but he can dispute the legitimacy of the alleged extrajudicial "punishment" inflicted by Horton and the other deputies.

After the court's decision, it appointed counsel for Brengettcy, and counsel filed a second amended complaint on February 21, 2002, adding defendants Officer Farrow (to whom we refer below as Pharaoh Halbert, his real name), John Does I-X, and Cook County, and withdrawing Defendant Sheahan. The defendants filed a second motion to dismiss arguing that Brengettcy failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. Brengettcy responded with a memorandum, to which he attached copies of his grievance forms dated November 27, November 31, December 5, and December 7.

On July 10, 2002, Judge Bucklo denied the defendants' second motion to dismiss. She reasoned that "[p]laintiff's grievance was filed in the year 2000. Defendants do not dispute that plaintiff never received a response . . . A plaintiff is not requir[ed] to wait an unreasonable length of time—during which evidence, witnesses, and memories may be lost—for a decision before he can go forward with his federal suit." She did not explain whether she was relying on Brengettcy's alleged August 23, 2000, filing, or a later filing. On September 6, 2002, Brengettcy's case was transferred to Judge St. Eve.

On August 13, 2003, defendant Horton moved for summary judgment for essentially the same two reasons that Judge Bucklo had considered: failure to exhaust and the Heck bar. In addition, Horton raised a collateral estoppel defense, claiming that the excessive force issue essential to Brengettcy's claim had been resolved adversely to him in the state criminal proceeding. Horton claimed that Brengettcy had admitted "that the only grievance form that he filed pertaining to the underlying incident is the grievance dated November 27, 2000." Horton also alleged that Brengettcy did not file an appeal, but he never mentioned that the CCDOC had not responded to Brengettcy's grievances, nor did he note that Brengettcy had inquired about the status of his grievance in the fall of 2000 (taking the facts favorably to Brengettcy, at a time before the November 27 grievance).

Unfortunately, Brengettcy's counsel did not respond to Horton's motion for summary judgment in the manner required by Local Rule 56.1(b)(3), which requires the nonmoving party to file "a response to each numbered paragraph in the moving party's statement . . ." and "a statement, consisting of short numbered paragraphs, of any additional facts that require the denial of summary judgment. . . ." N.D. Ill. L.R. 56.1(b)(3)(A) & (B). Instead, counsel filed a motion styled "Plaintiff's Response to Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment." Because this motion did not comply with the Local Rules, the district court adopted Horton's statement of facts. In doing so, the court concluded that:

Plaintiff filed a single grievance on November 27, 2000, three months after the date of the incident. Cook County Department of Corrections procedure requires inmates to file grievances with fifteen days of the underlying incident. The facts also show that Plaintiff did not file an appeal in connection within his untimely-filed grievance, and that Plaintiff was not prevented by Defendant from filing an appeal . . . . Because he has not raised an issue of material fact in connection with the exhaustion of administrative remedies, Plaintiff is barred by 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) from pursuing this lawsuit.

In this appeal, Brengettcy's new counsel argues that the portion of the deposition testimony on which Horton relied does not...