Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01262/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01262-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Lawrence Hayes
Appellant
Gregg Scott
Appellee

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 16-1262

LAWRENCE HAYES,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

GREGG SCOTT,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Central District of Illinois.

No. 3:13-cv-03195 — Colin S. Bruce, Judge.

____________________

SUBMITTED DECEMBER 21, 2016 — DECIDED JANUARY 25, 2017

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and POSNER and FLAUM, Circuit 

Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. The Rushville Treatment and Detention Facility in Rushville, Illinois, houses persons adjudged to be sexually violent; often they are persons who 

have completed prison sentences for sexually violent acts 

but are considered too dangerous to be released into the 

general population; so they remain confined, though in a facility (Rushville) that is not, at least technically, a prison. See, 

Case: 16-1262 Document: 23 Filed: 01/25/2017 Pages: 3
2 No. 16-1262

e.g., Hughes v. Scott, 816 F.3d 955, 955–56 (7th Cir. 2016). The 

plaintiff, a detainee at Rushville named Lawrence Hayes, 

sued Gregg Scott, Rushville’s acting director, claiming that 

Scott was deliberately indifferent to Hayes’s hydration needs 

during a five-day “boil order” imposed by the City of Rushville and applicable to the treatment and detention facility.

The boil order directed residents of Rushville (including 

the detainees in the treatment and detention center) to boil 

tap water before drinking it. The detainees have sinks in 

their rooms and access to a microwave oven, so during the 

five days in which the boil order was in effect Hayes could 

boil the water from his sink in his microwave. He was also 

given an eight-ounce carton of milk at each of his three daily 

meals. Yet he claims to have gone without any drinkable water for five days, during which time he felt dizzy and dehydrated.

The district judge granted summary judgment in favor of 

defendant Scott. He ruled that that the boil order did not deprive Hayes of adequate hydration, as he did not deny that 

microwave-boiled water from his room’s tap was drinkable 

and milk available to him at all meals. The unlimited microwave-boiled water and the servings of milk at each mealtime

(not to mention beverages at the commissary) were reasonable and adequate options for hydration. Nor is there any evidence that Scott was deliberately indifferent to the plight of 

the detainees during the boil order, since he notified them of 

the order and how to cope with it (by boiling water in their 

microwave ovens), and even ordered extra supplies of 

boiled water. Officials of detention facilities do not incur liability if they “responded reasonably to [a] risk [of harm to a 

detainee’s health and safety], even if the harm ultimately 

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No. 16-1262 3

was not averted.” Peate v. McCann, 294 F.3d 879, 882 (7th Cir. 

2002). Here it was averted.

As for Hayes’s complaint about feeling dizzy and dehydrated during the boil order, he didn’t tell Scott about this, 

and there can’t be deliberate indifference if the indifferent 

person did not know what harm he was being indifferent to.

The judgment of the district court is therefore 

AFFIRMED.

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