Wynn v. Southward, 00-2271

• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)
• Writing for the Court: Before Diane P. Wood, Evans, and Williams; Per Curiam
• Citation: 251 F.3d 588
• Parties: (7th Cir. 2001) SYLVESTER E. WYNN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DONNA SOUTHWARD, et al., Defendants-Appellees
• Docket Number: No. 00-2271,00-2271
• Decision Date: 29 March 2001

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251 F.3d 588 (7th Cir. 2001) SYLVESTER E. WYNN, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
DONNA SOUTHWARD, et al., Defendants-Appellees. No. 00-2271 In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit Argued March 7, 2001
Decided March 29, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division. No. 3:00cv172RM--Robert L. Miller, Jr., Judge.

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Copyrighted Material Omitted

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Before Diane P. Wood, Evans, and Williams, Circuit Judges.

ORDER

Per Curiam.

Sylvester Wynn filed a complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 against the Indiana Department of Corrections, the Indiana State Prison, and two corrections officials, alleging that his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated when one of the officials deliberately misplaced his dentures and heart medication and a second official later tried to conceal the wrongdoing. The district court dismissed the complaint sua sponte for failure to state a Fourteenth Amendment claim on which relief could be granted, see 28 U.S.C. sec. 1915A, but did not consider whether Wynn's allegations were sufficient to support an Eighth Amendment claim. We affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand for further proceedings.

I. Background

During the fall of 1999, Wynn was incarcerated at Indiana State Prison at Michigan City, Indiana. On September 1, 1999, he was moved from the general prison population to the Isolation Detention Unit ("IDU"). When Wynn requested that he be allowed to take his dentures with him to the IDU, a prison official named Triggs informed Wynn that he would pack Wynn's personal property during his shift on the morning of September 2, 1999. Wynn's signature appears on a Segregation Property Form, dated September 3, 1999, indicating that he received the itemized property, including a set of dentures.

Notwithstanding his signature on the property form, Wynn claimed after his move to the IDU that he did not receive all of his personal property, including, among

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other things, his dentures and his heart medication. He promptly initiated grievance procedures. First, he filed a grievance form on September 8, 1999, requesting his heart medication, dentures, and denture adhesive. On the grievance form, Wynn stated that he needed these items "immediately" and that he had requested them from IDU officials and Sergeant Donna Southward for a week, but to no avail. As a result of not having his medication, Wynn stated further, his heart had been "fluttering" and he warned that he might begin to experience "heavy chest pains" if he did not resume taking his medication. Also on September 8, Wynn submitted an interview request form concerning his dentures and other personal hygiene items that he said he did not receive. The bottom of the interview form contains what appears to be an official notation concerning Wynn's signature on the September 3, 1999 Segregation Property Form: "To Sgt. Southward per O/C Scott: Please note the date of 9-3-99 that Mr. Wynn signed for his property."

In his form complaint,¹ Wynn alleged that he was still without his dentures, and as a result has suffered bleeding, headaches, inability to chew his food, humiliation, shame, and "disfigurement." Apparently suggesting that Southward forged his signature on the Segregation Property Form, Wynn alleged that the notation on the interview form is evidence that Southward "committed forgery" concerning his missing dentures. Wynn alleged that, as a result of the officers' deliberate misplacement of his dentures, subsequent forgeries and falsification of property records, and disregard of his requests for his dentures, he suffered cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment and was deprived of his property without due process in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Wynn focused his complaint primarily on the injuries resulting from the loss of his dentures, but he also referenced a 1998 lawsuit involving claims that prison officials were deliberately indifferent to his heart condition. In addition, Wynn attached to his complaint the interview form and grievance form describing his requests for his heart medication and the harmful effects of the lapse in medication.

The district court, addressing some but not all of Wynn's claims, dismissed the complaint sua sponte under 28 U.S.C. sec. 1915A for failure to state a claim. With regard to Wynn's Fourteenth Amendment claims, the district court found that because the Indiana Tort Claims Act, Indiana Code sec. 34-13-3-1 et seq., provided an adequate post-deprivation remedy to redress the accidental or intentional deprivation of his property, his sec. 1983 claim was barred by the United States Supreme Court's decisions in Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527 (1981), overruled in part on other grounds, Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327 (1986), and Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517 (1984). The district court dismissed the complaint without addressing Wynn's Eighth Amendment claims.

II. Analysis

This court reviews de novo the district court's dismissal of a complaint pursuant to sec. 1915A. See Sanders v. Sheahan, 198 F.3d 626, 626 (7th Cir. 1999). We accept all well-pleaded facts alleged in the complaint as true and draw all inferences

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in Wynn's favor. See DeWalt v. Carter, 224 F.3d 607, 612 (7th Cir. 2000). The district court properly dismissed Wynn's complaint for failure to state a claim only if "no relief could be granted 'under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations.'" Nance v. Vieregge, 147 F.3d 589, 590 (7th Cir. 1998) (quoting Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S. 69, 73 (1984))....