Santiago v. Anderson

• Decision Date: 06 August 2012
• Docket Number: No. 11-1230,11-1230
• Citation: Santiago v. Anderson, No. 11-1230 (7th Cir. Aug 06, 2012)
• Parties: FABIAN SANTIAGO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. JEREMY ANDERSON, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

FABIAN SANTIAGO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. JEREMY ANDERSON, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 11-1230

United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Submitted July 26, 2012^*

Decided August 6, 2012

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

Before

RICHARD A. POSNER, Circuit Judge

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

JOHN DANIEL TINDER, Circuit Judge

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Southern District of Illinois.

No. 05-CV-00512

Michael J. Reagan, District Judge, and

Donald G. Wilkerson, Magistrate Judge.

ORDER

Fabian Santiago, an Illinois prisoner, filed this lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 seven years ago. His July 2005 complaint joins defendants and claims related only by speculation of a grand conspiracy to harass him, and is the archetype of unwieldy prisoner litigation that should be met either by dismissing improperly joined defendants or carving the case into separate lawsuits. See Wheeler v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., — F.3d —, 2012 WL 2999967, at *2 (7th Cir. July 23, 2012); Owens v. Hensley, 635 F.3d 950, 952 (7th Cir. 2011);George v. Smith, 507 F.3d 603, 606–07 (7th Cir. 2007). The district court instead parsed eight claims from Santiago's pro se complaint. He has never contested that reading, which we accept as well. All the defendants but one were dismissed before trial, some at initial screening, see 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, and others at summary judgment. The last defendant prevailed at trial. (A magistrate judge conducted that trial by consent, see 28 U.S.C. § 636(c), though a district judge had issued the rulings at screening and summary judgment. For simplicity, we use "district court" throughout.) Santiago challenges the jury's verdict as well as the earlier dismissals of his claims against the other defendants. With two exceptions, we uphold the district court's judgment.

The first two counts of Santiago's complaint derive from an alleged assault at Menard Correctional Center on July 18, 2003. Santiago claims in Count I that Sergeant David Childers branded him a "trouble maker" and punched and kicked him in the head and torso because he asked not to be housed with an enemy. This assault, Santiago alleged, left him with severe head injuries, cuts, and bruising. Another guard, Jeffrey Mitchell, not only failed to intervene, but aided Childers by cuffing Santiago's hands mid-assault and then stepping aside as the sergeant resumed throwing punches. Santiago's wounds were cleaned by medical personnel, first at Menard and then again at Pontiac Correctional Center where Santiago was transferred the same day. But he claims in Count II that doctors and infirmary staff gave him no pain medication at Menard and, although he experienced excruciating pain and sleeplessness for a month, dispensed only Tylenol twice daily for four days at Pontiac. At screening the district court allowed the claim against Childers and Mitchell to proceed but concluded that Santiago's allegations of callous indifference to his pain do not state a claim for deliberate indifference to a serious medical need. We are skeptical of the latter conclusion, see Gomez v. Randle, 680 F.3d 859, 865–66 (7th Cir. 2012); Smith v. Knox County Jail, 666 F.3d 1037, 1040 (7th Cir. 2012), but we need not discuss this claim further because Santiago named as defendants only a pair of never-identified "John Doe" physicians, which did nothing to forestall the running of the two-year statute of limitations long before the judge screened his complaint in September 2006, see 735 ILCS 5/13–202; Gomez, 680 F.3d at 864 n.1; Jackson v. Kotter, 541 F.3d 688, 698–99 (7th Cir. 2008).

The third count of Santiago's complaint accuses three other guards, Robert Smithson, Jeremy Anderson and Joel Starkey, of assaulting him at Pontiac on July 24 and 25, shortly after his transfer. According to Santiago, on the first of those days Smithson—a friend of Sergeant Childers—pushed his face and body into the cement floor of his cell while Anderson twisted his ankles. He was then locked in his cell with his hands still cuffed behind his back. When he followed orders and extended his arms through the "chuckhole" so the cuffs could be removed, Smithson and Anderson instead pulled on his hands and arms. The two laughed while Santiago screamed in pain and Starkey stood watching. The next day, after Santiago had reported the incident to the warden, Starkey allegedly returnedto his cell, again gratuitously yanked his hands and arms through the chuckhole while placing Santiago in handcuffs, and later threw him to the floor of his cell after parading him around the cellblock and warning him to stop complaining. The district court also allowed this count to proceed past initial screening.

Count IV of Santiago's complaint relates to the initial assault at Menard. After that incident Sergeant Childers and Correctional Officer Mitchell had each written what Santiago says is a trumped-up disciplinary report; Childers accused Santiago of punching him in the face, and Mitchell said that Santiago had disobeyed a direct order to "cuff up." On July 28, 2003, an Adjustment Committee at Pontiac conducted a disciplinary hearing on Childers' assault allegation. The committee, which afterward reported that Santiago had refused to attend, substantiated the accusation and, in addition to imposing lesser sanctions, revoked a year of good time. Santiago contends that Lieutenant Benjamin Dallas, the committee chairman, denied him due process by conducting the hearing without notice; Santiago insists he first learned about the proceeding on July 30 when he defended Mitchell's separate disciplinary report alleging disobedience. Lieutenant Dallas also presided over that second hearing, and Santiago claims he was denied due process again, this time because Dallas wouldn't allow him to speak, question witnesses, or otherwise present a defense. For the disobedience violation Santiago was confined to segregation, demoted to "C Grade" status, and stripped of privileges, all for three months.

At screening the district court dismissed this count with prejudice for failure to state a claim. The court apparently accepted as true that Santiago had declined to attend the first disciplinary hearing and, on that basis, concluded he was not denied due process. As for the second disciplinary hearing, the court reasoned that Santiago did not have a constitutionally protected liberty interest in avoiding three months of segregation or in retaining the lost privileges, and thus could not have been deprived of due process. See Marion v. Radtke, 641 F.3d 874, 875–76 (7th Cir. 2011); Lekas v. Briley, 405 F.3d 602, 612 (7th Cir. 2005); Hoskins v. Lenear, 395 F.3d 372, 374–75 (7th Cir. 2005); Thomas v. Ramos, 130 F.3d 754, 762 n.8 (7th Cir. 1997); Whitford v. Boglino, 63 F.3d 527, 533 & n.7 (7th Cir. 1995). Sanctions imposed for separate disciplinary charges must be evaluated independently, Pearson v. Ramos, 237 F.3d 881, 886 (7th Cir. 2001), and Santiago does not contest the district court's conclusion that the second hearing did not implicate a liberty interest. On the other hand, the court should not have credited the committee's representation that Santiago declined to attend the first disciplinary hearing; Santiago has disputed, not endorsed, that representation. See Carroll v. Yates, 362 F.3d 984, 986 (7th Cir. 2004); Powers v. Snyder, 484 F.3d 929, 932 (7th Cir. 2007). Yet that error has little significance because, as the defendants argued in the district court, the loss of good time must be challenged in an action under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, not a suit under § 1983, Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641, 648 (1997). (Edwards and Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), wouldn't necessarily stop Santiago from pressing his excessive-force claim evenwhile the disciplinary committee's finding that he assaulted Childers remains intact, see Moore v. Mahone, 652 F.3d 722, 723–25 (7th Cir. 2011); Gilbert v. Cook, 512 F.3d 899, 901–02 (7th Cir. 2008), but Edwards and Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475 (1973), do preclude Santiago from using § 1983 to raise a due process challenge to the committee's decision, which is the premise of Count IV, see Edwards, 520 U.S. at 643–48.) A dismissal under Edwards is without prejudice, so we modify the judgment accordingly and dispatch Santiago's due process claim against Lieutenant Dallas.

The fifth count of Santiago's complaint alleges that Correctional Officer Anderson—the same Anderson named in Count III—violated the Eighth Amendment by deliberately confining him in a cell furnished with a urine-drenched mattress and covered in excrement. Santiago lived in these conditions for two months because Anderson allegedly refused his requests to change cells and would not provide a substitute mattress or cleaning supplies. This claim likewise survived screening.

Count VI alleges that on September 18, 2003, Smithson and another guard ransacked his cell during a general search of the cellblock, and that Smithson—Sergeant Childers' friend—warned that assaulting "one of mine" would be met in kind. This conduct, Santiago claims, constituted an illegal search. At screening the district court rightly rejected this theory, since prisoners have no expectation of privacy in their cells. Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 526 (1984).

Count VII reflects Santiago's accusation that the warden and other administrators at Pontiac mishandled or ruled incorrectly on grievances he submitted on August 13 and 29, 2003. Those grievances concern the alleged assaults at both Menard and Pontiac, and Santiago speculates that he did not receive favorable decisions because the named decision makers want to thwart future litigation. Santiago concludes that he was denied due process, but the district court properly rejected that theory and dismissed this count at screening for failure to state a claim. See Grievson v. Anderson, 538 F.3d 763, 772 (7th Cir. 2008); Antonelli v. Sheehan,...