Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-03441/USCOURTS-ca7-14-03441-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 

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In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14‐3441

MARIO REYES,

Plaintiff‐Appellant,

v.

THOMAS J. DART, et al.,

Defendants‐Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 13 C 5009 — James B. Zagel, Judge.

____________________

SUBMITTED SEPTEMBER 2, 2015 — DECIDED SEPTEMBER 16, 2015

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and POSNER and ROVNER, Cir‐

cuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. The plaintiff, a pretrial detainee at

Cook County Jail, brought suit against the Cook County

Sheriff, Thomas Dart, who oversees the jail, and two of the

jail officials, claiming that the defendants had failed to pro‐

tect him from an attack by other prisoners. The district judge

dismissed the suit, with prejudice, in response to a motion

Case: 14-3441 Document: 25 Filed: 09/16/2015 Pages: 5
2 No. 14‐3441

by the defendants accusing the plaintiff of failing to prose‐

cute his suit.

According to the complaint—the factual allegations of

which have yet to be contested—the plaintiff was stabbed in

the course of the attack and just before losing consciousness

cried out for help but was ignored by an unidentified guard

standing ten to fifteen feet from him. The plaintiff regained

consciousness three days later in a hospital, having suffered

in the attack nerve damage and also a fracture of an eye

socket that may eventually cause blindness in that eye. He

contends that the defendants have culpably failed to create

or enforce policies necessary to protect prisoners from at‐

tacks by fellow prisoners.

After answering the complaint a lawyer for the defend‐

ants sent the plaintiff, over the course of six months in 2014,

five letters, each demanding that he sign a release enclosed

with the letter that would give the defendants’ counsel ac‐

cess to “protected health information” maintained by

“Cermak Health Services/Cermak Hospital/John H. Stroger

Jr. Hospital.” The access sought was not limited to medical

records relating to the plaintiff’s injuries. The release that the

lawyer wanted the plaintiff to sign would have extended to

all his medical records, including records—of no apparent

relevance to this case—relating to “venereal disease, sexually

transmitted diseases, acquire[d] immunodeficiency syn‐

drome (AIDS), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), or

ARC [AIDS‐related complex].” Nor would the records to be

released be limited to a particular period; the release would

embrace all of the plaintiff’s medical records since his birth

in 1977, nearly forty years ago. Nor would any limitations be

imposed on whom the defendants could disclose the records

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No. 14‐3441 3

to; they could be disclosed to persons or institutions having

nothing to do with the attack on the plaintiff and the injuries

and medical treatment resulting therefrom.

The letter “advised [the plaintiff] that it is entirely your

decision to sign the release or not,” but continued: “Howev‐

er, I must advise you that failure to sign the release may be

grounds for dismissal of your action in light of the fact that

you are bringing claims for physical injuries. In short, should

you fail to sign and return the release, I will advise the Court

of this failure to do so and request that the matter be dis‐

missed for want of prosecution. The likelihood of dismissal

of your claims for that reason would be significant.”  

The plaintiff (who has no lawyer) replied to the third of

the five letters. He explained that he had been treated not at

Stroger Hospital but at Mount Sinai Hospital, and that the

attack against him had occurred back in 2011 and this should

be indicated in any release that he signed. In response the

defendants’ lawyer added Mount Sinai Hospital to the list of

hospitals that the plaintiff would be authorizing to release

his records to the defendants’ counsel, but refused to remove

Stroger Hospital from the list “because it is a county hospital

that often treats Cook County Jail inmates.” Nor would he

rescind his demand for access to medical records dating

from the plaintiff’s birth. Instead, after the fifth letter was

sent and not replied to, he moved the district court to dis‐

miss the complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(b) (dismissal for

failure to prosecute one’s suit), because the plaintiff hadn’t

signed the release.

Without waiting for a reply from the plaintiff and with‐

out any explanation for its action, the district court issued a

minute order dismissing the suit with prejudice and denying

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4 No. 14‐3441

the plaintiff’s motion for recruitment of counsel as moot in

light of the dismissal. (The motion had been pending for two

months without action by the judge.) The plaintiff moved for

reconsideration of the dismissal order, but the judge denied

the motion on the ground that the defendants’ counsel had

warned the plaintiff that counsel would move to dismiss the

suit unless the plaintiff signed the release.

The judge erred. Rule 41(b) authorizes dismissal of a suit

if the “plaintiff fails to prosecute [it] or to comply with these

rules or a court order.” There was no failure to comply with

any rule or any court order. Nor in refusing to sign the re‐

lease was the plaintiff failing to prosecute his suit—he was

prosecuting it in part by challenging the defendants’ de‐

mand for unlimited access to and unlimited use of his medi‐

cal records (albeit only such records as counsel might find in

the files of the enumerated medical institutions). The de‐

mand for so comprehensive a release was improper, and the

plaintiff should not have been criticized—let alone thrown

out of court under inapplicable Rule 41(b)—for challenging

it.

The defense counsel’s dispute with the plaintiff over the

latter’s records was, as he failed to acknowledge, merely a

discovery dispute. Counsel wanted a release that would

cover all the records, and when the plaintiff refused, coun‐

sel’s proper recourse would have been to file a motion to

compel under Fed. R. Civ. P. 37. He might also or instead

have moved for an order requiring the plaintiff to submit to

a physical examination by a qualified examiner, pursuant to

Fed. R. Civ. P. 35. He did neither.  

A final twist is that the release form that defense counsel

wanted the plaintiff to sign expressly authorizes the signer

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No. 14‐3441 5

to revoke at any time his authorization to release his medical

records. This would seem to have empowered the plaintiff to

refuse to sign the release in the first place without being

punished for that refusal by dismissal of his suit.

The dismissal, a miscarriage of justice, is vacated and the

case remanded for further proceedings consistent with this

opinion. The first order of business for the judge on remand

should be to rule on the plaintiff’s motion for recruitment of

counsel. The second should be to remind the defendants’

counsel that the civil rule applicable to his demand for med‐

ical records is not Rule 41(b) but Rule 37.

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