Roop v. Squadrito, 1:98-CV-257.

• Decision Date: 21 September 1999
• Docket Number: No. 1:98-CV-257.,1:98-CV-257.
• Citation: 70 F.Supp.2d 868
• Parties: Edward L. ROOP, Plaintiff, v. Joseph M. SQUADRITO, (Past Allen County Sheriff in His Individual Capacity); Sheriff James Herman (Sheriff of Allen County in His Official Capacity; Wanda Evans; Roger Compton; Russell Wood; Scott Stodddard) (Confinement Officers/Individual Capacity); and Kelly Wendling (Jail Nurse), Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana

70 F.Supp.2d 868

Edward L. ROOP, Plaintiff, v. Joseph M. SQUADRITO, (Past Allen County Sheriff in His Individual Capacity); Sheriff James Herman (Sheriff of Allen County in His Official Capacity; Wanda Evans; Roger Compton; Russell Wood; Scott Stodddard) (Confinement Officers/Individual Capacity); and Kelly Wendling (Jail Nurse), Defendants.

No. 1:98-CV-257.

United States District Court, N.D. Indiana, Fort Wayne Division.

September 21, 1999.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Christopher C. Myers, Myers and Geisleman, Fort Wayne, IN, for plaintiff.

John O. Feighner, Robert W. Eherenman, Haller and Colvin, Fort Wayne, IN, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER

WILLIAM C. LEE, Chief Judge.

This matter is before the Court on a motion for summary judgment filed by the defendants on June 1, 1999. Plaintiff responded to that motion on July 26, 1999 to which defendants filed a reply on August 10, 1999.¹ For the following reasons, the motion for summary judgment will be denied.

Factual Background and Procedural Posture

The parties set forth a litany of facts in favor or their respective positions. Those facts, however, can be parred down and, construed in plaintiff's favor, are as follows.

On May 15, 1998, plaintiff attended a concert at the Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana with his mother and others. At some point his mother and stepfather got into a spat with persons sitting behind them and all involved were escorted out of the seating area. Plaintiff followed the entourage into the hallway of the arena where he was told to leave by Dan Edenfield, an Allen County Deputy Sheriff.² An altercation ensued and plaintiff was taken to the lock-up area of the Coliseum where it was learned that there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest. He was then transported to the Allen County Lock-up and subsequently to the Allen County Jail.

Plaintiff's jailers were informed by him that he was HIV-positive. Upon his arrival at the jail, plaintiff was given an initial medical assessment. Plaintiff claims that he was told by Sergeant Wanda Evans that he was placed there because of "your medical condition, and you having AIDS, you're going to be locked down."

Plaintiff was initially housed by himself in the old shower room — a room that had a working shower but no flushable toilet.³ While there, he was served three meals a day but had to ask for drinking water which he got albeit, in his view, not as fast as he wanted. He was given a mattress and two blankets. He had telephone and commissary privileges. He was allowed reading material, but not that which he preferred. He claims that the room was very unsanitary and he was not given Inmate Request Forms to complain about his location and housing conditions.

After about five days in the old shower room, plaintiff was moved to cell H-3. Here again he was housed alone in a cell on the main floor, located close to the command module. Again he had a mattress, a couple of blankets, and commissary and telephone privileges. There was no toilet or shower in the cell so he would have to get a guard's attention in order to get a drink of water or to go to the bathroom. After four days there he was allowed to take a shower.⁴ Again it is his position that the cell was filthy and he further asserts while in that cell he was refused restroom privileges and running water.

Four days later plaintiff was moved to cell R-7 in the same general area as his prior locations and, as before, he was housed alone. There he had a steel bunk (with mattress and two blankets), a toilet, a wash basin, and running water. He had access to the telephone and commissary, access to medication, and access to a shower every three or four days. He was also given clean clothes and the opportunity to clean his cell. When he complained of an infected toe, he was placed on sick call and prescribed antibiotics the next day.⁵

During the course of his stay at the jail, plaintiff was given medication for his HIV condition. He claims, however, that the medication was not prescribed correctly in that he was not given enough or that it was not given to him at the right time. There is no medical evidence that he suffered any deterioration in his condition as a result of his confinement.

Quite apart from the foregoing, plaintiff alleges that during his stay he suffered sleep deprivation at the hands of the defendants. This was so because during his first two weeks at the jail, someone would bang on his cell door to check on him every 15 minutes causing him to be awake for much of the night. On June 1, 1998, the checks became less frequent — once an hour. Additionally, prior to being moved to cell R-7 plaintiff had to rely on the defendants to fetch him drinking water and to take him to the bathroom, a situation which sometimes was quite uncomfortable because his medical condition often gave him diarrhea.

For their part, defendants do not dispute a lot of the foregoing. They claim that the conditions of confinement were based upon legitimate governmental objectives for two reasons. First, plaintiff's medical condition required frequent monitoring and medication and there was some concern that plaintiff may have been suicidal. Second, segregation was considered to be a more secure situation for plaintiff in light of Deputy Edenfield's death. That is, he was housed as a "safekeeper" meaning that he would be accompanied by at least two officers whenever he left his cell so that no harm would come to him.

Application of Law

Based upon his incarceration in the Allen County Jail, plaintiff filed suit in this Court against the above-named defendants alleging violations of his civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the American with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12132. After a review of the standards governing summary judgment, those claims will be considered in turn.

A. Summary Judgment Standards

"Summary judgment is proper only if `the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.'" Gonzalez v. Ingersoll Milling Machine Co., 133 F.3d 1025, 1031 (7th Cir.1998) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c)). While the moving party "always bears the initial responsibility of informing the district court of the basis for its motion and identifying those portions of the record, if any, which it believes demonstrate the absence of a [genuine issue of] material fact, there is nothing in Rule 56 that requires a moving party to negate an essential element of an opponent's claim for which the opponent will bear the ultimate burden at trial." Bank of Illinois v. Allied Signal Safety Restraint Sys., 75 F.3d 1162, 1168 (7th Cir.1996) (citing Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2552-53, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986)). Rather, the standard for granting summary judgment, which mirrors the "directed verdict" standard under Rule 50(a), Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2511, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986), requires the district court to grant summary judgment if the record before us "could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the non-moving party." McClendon v. Indiana Sugars, Inc., 108 F.3d 789, 796 (7th Cir.1997) (quoting Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1356, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986)).

The burden is therefore on the non-movant to set forth "specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial." Eiland v. Trinity Hosp., 150 F.3d 747, 750 (7th Cir.1998) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e)). "In determining whether a genuine issue of material fact exists, courts must construe all facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and draw all reasonable and justifiable inferences in favor of that party." Debs v. Northeastern Illinois Univ., 153 F.3d 390, 394 (7th Cir. 1998) (citing Anderson, 477 U.S. at 255, 106 S.Ct. at 2513).

The nonmoving party may not rest on the allegations of the pleadings in opposing a motion for summary judgment. Crim v. Bd. of Educ. of Cairo Sch. Dist. No. 1, 147 F.3d 535, 540 (7th Cir.1998); Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e). "Furthermore, a `party needs more than a scintilla of evidence ... to defeat summary judgment.'" Adusumilli v. City of Chicago, 164 F.3d 353, 361 (7th Cir. 1998) (quoting Senner v. Northcentral Technical College, 113 F.3d 750, 757 (7th Cir.1997)); see also Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252, 106 S.Ct. at 2512. Moreover, "neither `the mere existence of some alleged factual dispute between the parties,' Anderson, 477 U.S. at 247, 106 S.Ct. at 2505, nor the existence of `some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts,' Matsushita Elec. Indus., 475 U.S. at 586, 106 S.Ct. at 1356, is sufficient to defeat a motion for summary judgment." Tesch v. County of Green Lake, 157 F.3d 465, 471 (7th Cir. 1998). Thus, a summary judgment determination is essentially an inquiry as to "whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law." Essex, 111 F.3d at 1308 (quoting Anderson, 477 U.S. at 251-252, 106 S.Ct. at 2512).

B. Section 1983

To state a claim under § 1983, the plaintiff must (1) allege facts that show that the Defendants acted under color of state law, and (2) that the defendants deprived him of some right under the United States Constitution. Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922, 931, 102 S.Ct. 2744, 2750, 73 L.Ed.2d 482 (1982) (citing Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 150, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 26 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970)). Moreover, "[s]ection 1983 creates a cause of action based upon personal liability and predicated upon fault. An individual cannot be held liable in a § 1983 action unless he caused or participated in an alleged constitutional deprivation." Jenkins v. Keating, 147 F.3d 577, 583 (7th Cir.1...