Opinion
98 C 4353.
February 5, 2003
OPINION
Johnnie Williams brought a challenge to his conditions of confinement and medical care while a detainee at the Cook County Department of Corrections ("CCDOC") under Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act. After I dismissed sua sponte his conditions of confinement claim and the claim against Sheriff Michael Sheahan, he was permitted to proceed on his remaining claim against defendant Arthur Perry that he was deliberately indifferent to Williams' medical needs. Perry now moves for summary judgment.
Summary judgment is appropriate because Williams did not exhaust his administrative remedies. The Prison Litigation Reform Act requires a prisoner to exhaust his administrative remedies prior to the commencement of suit. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e; see Booth v. Churner, 532 U.S. 731 (2001) (inmate required to exhaust all administrative process before bringing suit for money damages, even if administrative process does not allow for money damages); Smith v. Zachary, 255 F.3d 446 (7th Cir. 2001), cert. denied, 535 U.S. 906 (2002) (prisoner bringing excessive force claim must exhaust all administrative prison remedies pursuant to section 1997e(a)); Johnson v. Litscher, 260 F.3d 826 (7th Cir. 2001) (same); Larkin v. Galloway, 266 F.3d 718 (7th Cir. 2001), cert. denied, 122 S.Ct. 1551 (2002) (same). Moreover, a plaintiff's failure to file his grievance in a timely manner forecloses his lawsuit altogether. See Pozo v. McCaughtry, 286 F.3d 1022 (7th Cir. 2002), cert. denied, 123 S.Ct. 414 (2002); Hakeem v. Snyder, No. 00 C 50287, 2002 WL 1308648 (N.D.Ill. June 13, 2002).
In reference to future submissions to this court, I would invite defendant's attorney to cite, if available, the United States Reports (U.S.) for Supreme Court cases and Westlaw citations for unpublished opinions.
Here, Williams never pursued the administrative remedies available to him in connection with being deprived of medical care. It is undisputed that he filed an administrative grievance regarding an X-ray that he was supposed to receive, but he alleges that he filed another grievance regarding the claim at issue here in February 1997, when he was housed in Division 5 of Cook County Jail. This allegation is undermined, however, by the undisputed fact that he was not housed in Division 5 until April 2, 1997. As such, his allegation is not sufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact with respect to the exhaustion of administrative remedies, and, accordingly, Perry is entitled to summary judgment.
Moreover, were I to find that Williams had exhausted his administrative remedies, Perry would nonetheless be entitled to summary judgment because he was not deliberately indifferent to Williams' allegedly serious medical needs. Accepting Williams' testimony as true (including Perry's promise to "look into it"), Perry was, at most, negligent, which cannot form the basis of liability. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994).
For the aforementioned reasons, Defendant Arthur Perry's Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED.