Sibley v. Dart
| Decision Date | 18 March 2019 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 17-cv-6298 |
| Citation | 435 F.Supp.3d 920 |
| Parties | Moirsche Terrell SIBLEY (M21315), Plaintiff, v. Thomas J. DART, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Bradley J. Smith, Keefe, Campbell, Biery and Associates, LLC, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff.
Danielle Mikhail, John Power, Cook County State's Attorney Office, Chicago, IL, for Defendants.
For the reasons stated below, Defendants' motion to dismiss Plaintiff's third amended complaint for failure to state a claim [51] is granted. Given that Plaintiff now has had four opportunities to state a claim, the dismissal will be with prejudice and the Court will enter a Rule 58 judgment in favor of Defendants and against Plaintiff. The Court thanks Attorney Bradley Smith for his exemplary service to the Court and the Trial Bar as recruited counsel for Plaintiff in this case. Civil case terminated.
Plaintiff Moirsche Terrell Sibley brings this civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Defendants violated his constitutional rights by subjecting him to unconstitutional conditions of confinement and failing to provide medical care for his serious medical condition. At all relevant times, Plaintiff has been in the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections ("IDOC") and all Defendants (with the exception of Cook County and Sheriff Thomas J. Dart) were correctional officers at the Cook County Department of Corrections, also known as the Cook County Jail. [48 at ¶¶ 5-27.] Although Plaintiff currently resides at the Stateville Correctional Center [id. , at 5], this lawsuit relates to an incident that occurred on February 26, 2017, while Plaintiff was detained at the Cook County Jail pending trial. [Id. at ¶ 34.]
At approximately 11:20 p.m. on February 26, 2017, a fire in the vents of Division 10 of the Cook County Jail created a thick chemical smelling smoke in Tier 2A (Plaintiff's tier) and the other tiers of Division 10. [Id. at ¶ 35.] There was no watchman present in tier 2A at the time smoke first was observed, as Defendant Jonetta Jefferson had left her post. [Id. at ¶ 36.] Plaintiff claims that Jefferson had knowledge of previous fires in Cook County Jail. [Id. at ¶ 37.] Plaintiff and other detainees began screaming for help as Tier 2A filled with smoke. [Id. at ¶ 38.] Nobody came for approximately 20 to 30 minutes. During that time, Plaintiff lost consciousness, experienced severe chest pains, and had difficulty breathing. [Id. ]
Jefferson returned to her post approximately 20 minutes after smoke was first observed in Tier 2A. [Id. at ¶ 36.] After seeing smoke in the tier, Jefferson again left the tier to call her supervisors. [Id. at ¶ 39.] Approximately 10 to 15 minutes later, officers began to evacuate detainees from Tier 2A into the chapel area of the jail. [Id. at ¶ 40.] After being evacuated into the chapel area, Plaintiff approached Defendant E. Velez to inform him that he has asthma and needed to see a doctor or nurse due to smoke inhalation, which made Plaintiff light-headed and dizzy. [Id. at ¶ 41.] Velez told Plaintiff that there was no medical staff available and walked away. [Id. ] Plaintiff waited in the chapel for two hours without receiving any medical attention. [Id. at ¶ 42.] Plaintiff alleges that he became lightheaded and dizzy during that time. [Id. at ¶ 43.] He was vomiting, had chest pains, and even lost consciousness for a period of time. [Id. ] Plaintiff asserts that these symptoms "were within the vision of every Defendant Officer." [Id. ]
Plaintiff alleges that all Defendants forced Plaintiff and other detainees back to Tier 2A, even though Plaintiff told Defendants that he did not want to return to the smoke-filled tier. [Id. at ¶¶ 45, 47.] Defendant B. Judge even threatened to spray Plaintiff and the other detainees with mace if they did not hurry onto the smoke-filled tier. [Id. at ¶ 49.] While the detainees were being transferred back to Tier 2A, Plaintiff observed Defendant John Brown choking and gasping for breath from the smoke and then vomiting into a toilet. [Id. at ¶ 45.] When detainees were forced to return to Tier 2A, multiple Defendant officers refused to return to the tier because there still was too much smoke. [Id. at ¶ 48.] The smoke (which had a chemical smell) remained in Tier 2A for at least six hours after Plaintiff was forced to return. [Id. at ¶ 44.] Plaintiff continued to suffer from "smoke inhalation" after returning to the tier, but he does not allege any long-term physical injuries suffered because of this incident. [Id. at ¶ 51.]
To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, the complaint first must comply with Rule 8(a) by providing "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief," Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), such that the defendant is given "fair notice of what the * * * claim is and the grounds upon which it rests." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) (quoting Conley v. Gibson , 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957) ) (alteration in original). Second, the factual allegations in the complaint must be sufficient to raise the possibility of relief above the "speculative level." E.E.O.C. v. Concentra Health Servs., Inc. , 496 F.3d 773, 776 (7th Cir. 2007) (quoting Twombly , 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ). "A pleading that offers ‘labels and conclusions’ or a ‘formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.’ " Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Twombly , 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ). Dismissal for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) is proper "when the allegations in a complaint, however true, could not raise a claim of entitlement to relief." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 558, 127 S.Ct. 1955. In reviewing a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), the Court accepts as true all of Plaintiff's well-pleaded factual allegations and draws all reasonable inferences in Plaintiff's favor. Killingsworth v. HSBC Bank Nevada, N.A. , 507 F.3d 614, 618 (7th Cir. 2007).
Plaintiff brings individual capacity claims against numerous Defendants for alleged unconstitutional conditions of confinement and for deliberate indifference to Plaintiff's serious medical needs. Because Plaintiff had not yet been tried when he was detained at Cook County Jail, his conditions of confinement claims arise under the Fourteenth Amendment and not the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause, which applies only to prisoners who have been convicted and sentenced. Lewis v. Downey , 581 F.3d 467, 474 (7th Cir. 2009) (). Although the Seventh Circuit had long assessed pretrial detainees' due process rights under Eighth Amendment standards, that changed after the Supreme Court's decision in Kingsley v. Hendrickson , 576 U.S. 389, 135 S. Ct. 2466, 192 L.Ed.2d 416 (2015), "which held the due process standard for excessive force claims by pretrial detainees is less demanding than the Eighth Amendment standard for excessive force claims by convicted inmates." McWilliams v. Cook Cty. , 2018 WL 3970145, at *5 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 20, 2018) (summarizing Kingsley ). Specifically, the Supreme Court held that the applicable standard is objective reasonableness. Kingsley , 135 S. Ct. at 2473.
In Miranda v. Cty. of Lake , the Seventh Circuit extended Kingsley 's holding to medical-care claims brought by pretrial detainees. 900 F.3d 335, 352 (7th Cir. 2018) (). Since Miranda , district courts have applied Kingsley 's holding to conditions of confinement claims brought under the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e.g., McWilliams , 2018 WL 3970145, at *5. Thus, after Kingsley , to state a valid claim that his constitutional rights were violated under the Fourteenth Amendment, a plaintiff must show that: (1) the defendant "acted purposefully, knowingly, or perhaps even recklessly;" and (2) the defendant's conduct was objectively unreasonable. Miranda , 900 F.3d at 353-54. Whether the defendant's conduct was objectively unreasonable "turns on the facts and circumstances of each particular case." Kingsley , 135 S. Ct. at 2473 (internal quotation marks omitted). A pretrial detainee cannot prevail by showing that the defendant was merely negligent. McCann , 909 F. 3d at 887.
The Supreme Court has also acknowledged the difficulty of managing a correctional facility and directed courts to take that difficulty into account when assessing whether a defendant's actions were objectively reasonable:
"[r]unning a prison is an inordinately difficult undertaking," and * * * "safety and order at these institutions requires the expertise of correctional officials, who must have substantial discretion to devise reasonable solutions to the problems they face." Officers facing disturbances "are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving." For these reasons, we have stressed that a court must judge the reasonableness of the force used from the perspective and with the knowledge of the defendant officer. We have also explained that a court must take account of the legitimate interests in managing a jail, acknowledging as part of the objective reasonableness analysis that deference to policies and practices needed to maintain order and institutional security is appropriate.
Kingsley , 135 S. Ct. at 2474 (citations omitted).
Plaintiff brings an unconstitutional conditions of confinement claim ...
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