Justia U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Cobb, an Indiana prisoner, brought a state-court negligence action against Aramark for failing to clean up a spill in the kitchen at the Pendleton Correctional Facility on December 15, 2014, causing him to slip and fracture his ankle. Cobb claims, and the counselor affirmed, that on December 9, 2016, he handed his notarized complaint to a prison counselor, who delivered this complaint to the mailroom on the same day. The complaint was not actually mailed until December 19. Aramark removed the case to federal court, then asserted that the complaint was untimely under Indiana’s two-year limitations period; the district court agreed. The Seventh Circuit reversed. The district court misinterpreted Indiana’s prison mailbox rule. The complaint should be deemed “filed” under the prison mailbox rule on the date he handed it to his counselor for mailing. The Indiana Supreme Court has held that a court shall deem a court filing timely if a pro se prisoner litigant submits the filing to prison officials for mailing on or before its due date, and the prisoner “provide[s] reasonable, legitimate, and verifiable documentation supporting a claim that a document was timely submitted to prison officials for mailing.” View "Cobb v. Aramark Correctional Services LLC" on Justia Law

Cook County residents brought a Second Amendment challenge to Cook County’s ban on assault rifles and large-capacity magazines. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the complaint, noting that in 2015 it upheld a materially indistinguishable ordinance against a Second Amendment challenge. The court rejected an argument that its precedent was wrongly decided and that this claim should be evaluated under a test that tracks more closely the language that the Supreme Court employed in its 2008 Heller decision. View "Wilson v. Cook County" on Justia Law

Lockett has been housed at the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility since November 2014. He has a significant medical history, having been diagnosed with sickle cell disease, a chronic condition that causes pain, sometimes acutely. During certain periods called sickle cell crises, the pain becomes so severe that it requires immediate emergency medical treatment. Lockett sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983 to recover for alleged violations of his Eighth Amendment rights. He alleged that he received inadequate medical care while incarcerated at WSPF and that two prison medical staff members were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, concluding that the record would not support a jury determination that the WSPF nurse practitioner was deliberately indifferent to Lockett’s needs in prescribing medication. The decision to prescribe non-narcotic pain medication was within the bounds of professional judgment. Lockett did not exhaust his administrative remedies on his claim against a nurse. View "Lockett v. Bonson" on Justia Law

Green was walking through the parking lot of a Chicago gas station. An unmarked police vehicle turned into the lot. Green began to run as the vehicle approached, arousing the suspicion of the four officers inside. One officer chased him on foot and saw him drop and pick up a handgun. Green fled into a residential neighborhood, where another officer caught up with him in the backyard of a home. The officer claims Green began to raise a gun in his direction; the officer fired five shots, wounding Green in the hand and chest. Green denied that he had a gun at any time on the night in question. Green was on probation for a felony drug conviction. A state judge revoked his probation, finding that Green possessed a gun during this encounter. Green sued the officers and the city under 42 U.S.C. 1983. A Fourth Amendment excessive‐force claim against the officer who shot him was submitted to the jury, which returned a verdict for the officer. Green argued that the district judge improperly instructed the jury that the state court’s gun‐possession finding was conclusive. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Green’s excessive‐force claim was premised on his contention that he was unarmed during this encounter but the state judge found that he had a gun; that finding has preclusive effect. View "Green v. Junious" on Justia Law

Indiana statutes provided a fast and confidential judicial bypass procedure that is supposed to allow a small fraction of pregnant, unemancipated minors seeking abortions to obtain them without the consent of or notice to their parents, guardians, or custodians, Ind. Code 16-34-2-4(b). In 2017, Act 404 added a parental notification requirement: Parents must be given prior notice of the planned abortion unless the judge also finds such notice is not in the minor’s “best interests” unlike the judicial bypass of parental consent, which may be based on either maturity or best interests. The district court issued a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the new notice requirements, finding it likely to “create an undue burden for a sufficiently large fraction of mature, abortion-seeking minors in Indiana.” The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Indiana’s notice law creates a substantial risk of a practical veto over a mature yet unemancipated minor’s right to an abortion. This practical veto appears likely to impose an undue burden for the unemancipated minors who seek to obtain an abortion without parental involvement via the judicial bypass. Indiana has made no effort to support with evidence its claimed justifications or to undermine with evidence Planned Parenthood’s showing about the likely effects of the law. View "Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc. v. Adams" on Justia Law

Indiana Senate Enrolled Act 442, Indiana Code 3-7- 38.2-5(d)–(e), allowed Indiana immediately to remove a voter based on information received from a third-party database rather than in response to direct contact with the voter. The database aggregates voter data from multiple states to identify potential duplicate voter registrations. Act 442 allows Indiana automatically to remove a voter from the rolls if the voter was identified as a database “match” with a certain level of confidence without provision for contacting the voter or confirming her wish permanently to change domicile and cancel her Indiana registration. Organizations challenged Act 442, asserting that it violates the National Voter Registration Act, 52 U.S.C. §§ 20501–11. . Finding that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits and that they would suffer irreparable injury if the law were to take effect immediately, the district court issued preliminary injunctions “prohibiting the Defendants from taking any actions to implement [Act 442]” until the cases are concluded. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, concluding that the plaintiff organizations adequately demonstrated their standing to bring these actions. Indiana equates double registration with double voting. But the two are quite different. Registering to vote in another state is not the same as a request for removal from Indiana’s voting rolls. View "Common Cause Indiana v. Lawson" on Justia Law

Williams, a Racine County Jail pre-trial detainee, suffers from osteoarthritis, for which he has received Social Security disability insurance since 1982. Although the Jail typically provides inmates with a single mattress to sleep on, when the jail places inmates in disciplinary segregation it does not allow them to keep their mattresses in their cells during the daytime hours. Medical staff provided Williams with double mattresses to sleep on as an accommodation for his osteoarthritis and allowed him to keep a single mattress in his cell during the day. Months later, the medical staff concluded that Williams’s medical condition no longer required a second mattress. During the following months, Williams had several disciplinary issues and served time in segregation without a mattress accommodation. The jail staff conducted hearings to evaluate Williams’s write-ups. Williams refused to participate. The jail’s medical staff continued to address Williams’s medical complaints and Williams continued to correspond with officers concerning his grievances. Williams appealed one of the disciplinary determinations. The district court screened Williams’s 42 U.S.C. 1983 complaint and allowed claims alleging retaliation, harassment, conspiracy to fabricate disciplinary tickets, and medical deliberate indifference to proceed but later granted the defendants summary judgment, finding that Williams failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Williams never made a timely appeal of his grievances; the defendants did not provide him with objectively unreasonable medical care. View "Williams v. Ortiz" on Justia Law

Janusiak called 911 to report that Payten, a friend’s baby in her care, was not breathing. Paramedics took Payten to the hospital while officers talked to Janusiak. The police returned about eight hours later, and Janusiak, then eight months pregnant, agreed to go to the police station for an interview. Police questioned her about Payten’s death for about seven hours. Toward the end of the interrogation, Janusiak made statements about what happened to Payten that were used to impeach her testimony at trial. After Peyten died Janusiak was convicted of first‐degree intentional homicide. On direct appeal, Wisconsin courts rejected her argument that statements she made during the interrogation were involuntary and should have been suppressed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of her petition for habeas corpus relief, 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court rejected Janusiak’s arguments that her statements were coerced by comments that law enforcement made to her about keeping access to her children, the length and other features of the interrogation, and her vulnerability as a pregnant woman and mother. The state appellate court reasonably applied the correct standard to determine that Janusiak’s statements were voluntary. View "Janusiak v. Cooper" on Justia Law

For two years, Alliance was unable to obtain a license from the Indiana State Department of Health to open a South Bend clinic to provide medication abortion care. After two unsuccessful applications, a statutory amendment, and a “moving target of wide-ranging requests for information,” Alliance concluded that its attempts were futile and sought a preliminary injunction. The district court granted preliminary relief, holding that Alliance has shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its claim that Indiana’s requirement of licensure for clinics that provide only medication abortions (induced exclusively by taking pills), as applied to Alliance's clinic, violates the Due Process and the Equal Protection Clauses.The Seventh Circuit held that the district court’s broad condemnation of Indiana’s licensing scheme runs contrary to Supreme Court precedent. While this litigation is pending, the state may, for the most part, administer that system. The court expressed concerns about the handling of Alliance’s application. Indiana may use licensing as a legitimate means of vetting and monitoring providers, but, to the extent that Indiana is using its licensing scheme to prevent the South Bend clinic from opening simply to block access to pre-viability abortions, it is acting unconstitutionally. The district court must modify the injunction to instruct Indiana to treat the Alliance’s South Bend facility as though it were provisionally licensed. View "Whole Woman's Health Alliance v. Hill" on Justia Law

During his probationary employment period, Smith challenged and failed to follow directions, was confrontational, engaged in unsafe conduct, and received unsatisfactory evaluations. He filed internal and union complaints, alleging abusive language, docking his hours, and racial discrimination. The Illinois Department of Transportation discharged Smith. Smith sued the Department under Title VII, arguing that it had subjected him to a hostile work environment and fired him in retaliation for his complaints about racial discrimination. The district court granted the Department summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The district court was within its discretion in concluding that Smith’s expert witness testimony was inadmissible as not based on “sufficient facts or data” under Federal Rule of Evidence 702(b). An affidavit sworn by one of Smith’s supervisors was inadmissible because it lacked a proper foundation and was “replete with generalized assertions." Given the extensive evidence that Smith was not meeting his employer’s legitimate expectations, a reasonable jury could not find that the Department fired him because of his protected activity rather than for his poor performance nor could a reasonable jury have resolved the hostile work environment claim in Smith’s favor. View "Smith v. Illinois Department of Transportation" on Justia Law