Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-15-03482/USCOURTS-ca7-15-03482-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 560
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Civil Detainee - Conditions of Confinement
Cause of Action: 

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In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 15‐3482

MICHAEL HUGHES,

Plaintiff‐Appellant,

v.

GREGG SCOTT, et al.,

Defendants‐Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Central District of Illinois.

3:15–cv‐03151‐SEM‐TSH — Sue E. Myerscough, Judge.

____________________

SUBMITTED MARCH 10, 2016— DECIDED MARCH 23, 2016

____________________

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

cuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. Rushville Treatment and Detention

Facility is an Illinois state facility for the diagnosis, treat‐

ment, and (pending successful treatment) incarceration of

persons believed prone to sexual violence. Usually these are

persons who have served prison sentences for sex crimes

and are considered too dangerous to be allowed to go free

after they complete their sentences.

Case: 15-3482 Document: 8 Filed: 03/23/2016 Pages: 5
2 No. 15‐3482

The plaintiff, Michael Hughes, is confined at Rushville

because he was found to be a sexually violent person within

the meaning of the state’s Sexually Violent Persons Com‐

mitment Act, 725 ILCS 207. He will remain there unless and

until he is found no longer to be such a person—more pre‐

cisely if it is no longer “substantially probable that [he] will

engage in acts of sexual violence.” Id. at 207/5(f).

This case, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, grows out of

several written grievances that Hughes submitted at Rush‐

ville complaining of the dental care that he was receiving

there. He alleges that a program director named Scott, a

grievance examiner named Simpson, and a security therapy

aide named Hougas—the defendants in this case—infringed

his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by disregarding

his grievances and insulting him into the bargain. See Bab‐

cock v. White, 102 F.3d 267, 275 (7th Cir. 1996). The district

judge dismissed Hughes’ complaint for failure to state a

claim.

Hughes alleges that after he filed the grievances Simpson

summoned him to a meeting with herself and Hougas and at

the meeting yelled at him and told him that he was “igno‐

rant” and “stupid” and a “moron” and that his life at Rush‐

ville would go better if he stopped complaining (a statement

that could well be thought a threat). His grievances were

never answered, and whenever Hougas crosses paths with

Hughes she called him “ignorant.”

Grievances addressed to a government agency are, if in‐

telligible, nonfrivolous, and nonmalicious, petitions for the

redress of grievances within the meaning of the First

Amendment and are therefore prima facie protected by the

amendment. We are given no reason to doubt that Hughes’

Case: 15-3482 Document: 8 Filed: 03/23/2016 Pages: 5
No. 15‐3482 3

grievances fall within the protected scope; though repeti‐

tious, their repetition reflected the institution’s failure to re‐

spond to any of them. We are mindful that for retaliation for

filing petitions to be actionable, the means of retaliation

must be sufficiently clear and emphatic to deter a person of

“ordinary firmness” from submitting such petitions in the

future. See, e.g., Bridges v. Gilbert, 557 F.3d 541, 552 (7th Cir.

2009); cf. Santana v. Cook County Board of Review, 679 F.3d 614,

622–23 (7th Cir. 2012). DeWalt v. Carter, 224 F.3d 607, 612 (7th

Cir. 2000), suggests that “simple verbal harassment” of a

prisoner does not suffice, and Antoine v. Uchtman, 275 Fed.

App’x 539, 541 (7th Cir. 2008), that even threats may not suf‐

fice. But the abuse to which Hughes was subjected by the

defendants and the warning that his life would be better if

he stopped filing grievances went beyond simple verbal har‐

assment.

The district judge emphasized that the defendants’ ac‐

tions had not deterred Hughes from filing a lawsuit com‐

plaining about the inadequacy of the dental care that he was

receiving or from bringing the present lawsuit, which com‐

plains not about inadequate dental care but about the de‐

fendants’ treatment of him, which has been abusive, and of

his grievances, which they have ignored. The district judge

ignored features of this case that support Hughes’ claims.

Remember that he’s not a prison inmate but a civil detainee,

and the Supreme Court held in Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S.

307, 321–22 (1982), that “persons who have been involuntari‐

ly committed are entitled to more considerate treatment and

conditions of confinement than criminals whose conditions

of confinement are designed to punish.” For another thing,

it’s not obvious that Hughes is a person of “ordinary firm‐

ness,” as he is being held against his will in a detention facil‐

Case: 15-3482 Document: 8 Filed: 03/23/2016 Pages: 5
4 No. 15‐3482

ity for an undetermined length of time—indeed for years al‐

ready—because of a psychosexual disorder. Cf. Schultz v.

Pugh, 728 F.3d 619, 621–22 (7th Cir. 2013). He must be suffer‐

ing from some mental disorder; that’s a requirement for

commitment to Rushville. 725 ILCS 207/5(f). His particular

disorder may well be what is called paraphilia. See “Para‐

philia,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphilia

(visited March 22, 2016). In lay terminology he’s a sexual de‐

viant, confined in a facility that is supposed to treat his con‐

dition, as well as protect the public from him until he is suf‐

ficiently improved that he can be safely released.

Just as police when interrogating children are held to un‐

derstand the mental and psychological differences between

adults and children, see J.D.B. v. North Carolina, 564 U.S. 261

(2011), so staff of an institution that houses and treats per‐

sons suffering from mental disorders should be held to un‐

derstand that they are dealing with psychologically im‐

paired persons. The defendants should have known better

than to shout at a possibly quite vulnerable person, call him

“ignorant,” “stupid,” and a “moron,” ignore grievances filed

by him that may be both meritorious and quite serious (ne‐

glect of dental care of course can be dangerous), and threat‐

en him with retaliation for his audacity in complaining—all

with no suggestion that the complaint lacks merit. Their

conduct toward him could well be thought a significant step

beyond “simple verbal harassment.”

A further wrinkle is that the Illinois Department of Hu‐

man Services has established elaborate procedures for in‐

mates of Rushville to complain of the treatment they receive.

59 Ill. Admin. Code 299, subpart G; see Lehn v. Scott, 2015 Ill.

App. (4th) 140415‐U (Dec. 30, 2015); Schloss v. Jumper, 2014

Case: 15-3482 Document: 8 Filed: 03/23/2016 Pages: 5
No. 15‐3482 5

Ill. App (4th) 121086 (June 5, 2014). Hughes tried to invoke

those procedures, without success—the defendants flouted

them, in patent disregard of the passage we quoted from

Youngberg v. Romeo.

But perhaps the most remarkable feature of this case is

the defendants’ insistence in defiance of the Illinois Admin‐

istrative Code that Hughes has no need to invoke grievance

procedures because he can always sue, as he has done. What

makes this contention remarkable is the fact that the inter‐

ests of Rushville, of the Illinois Department of Human Ser‐

vices, and of the taxpayers of this almost bankrupt state, ob‐

viously are best served if grievances are handled at the facili‐

ty level rather than by the court system, which is far more

costly. Does Rushville have an unlimited budget, so that it

can pay lawyers to defend against lawsuits brought only be‐

cause the institution refuses to obey the Administrative

Code and respond to Hughes’ grievances, preferring instead

to ridicule him and drive him to sue Rushville staff?

We don’t get it. But we have said enough to require that

the judgment of dismissal be vacated and the case returned

to the district court to try to make sense of the conduct of the

defendants and their institution, and to determine whether

they are in fact improperly impeding the plaintiff’s constitu‐

tional right to petition government for redress of grievances.

REVERSED AND REMANDED

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