United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted May 3, 2018*

Decided May 7, 2018

Before

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

AMY C. BARRETT, Circuit Judge

No. 17-2830

CALVIN BROWN,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

BEVERLY FELTEN and 

DONALD STONEFELD,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

No. 15-cv-1191-pp

Pamela Pepper,

Judge.

O R D E R

Calvin Brown, a Wisconsin state prisoner, has sued a nurse and doctor at 

Milwaukee County House of Correction. Brown contends under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 that 

they violated the Eighth Amendment by prescribing to him two drugs despite their

potential side effects. The district court entered summary judgment for the defendants.

Because Brown did not exhaust his claim against the doctor, and he submitted no 

evidence that the risks of any undisclosed side effects were substantial, we affirm.

 

* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and 

record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not 

significantly aid the court. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 17-2830 Page 2

We recount the facts in the light most favorable to Brown, the nonmovant. 

See Tradesman Int’l, Inc. v. Black, 724 F.3d 1004, 1009 (7th Cir. 2013). Brown met in 2009 

with Beverly Felten, a registered nurse with a Ph.D. in nursing and a specialty in 

gerontology. Since 2007 she has worked with psychiatrists and psychologists at the 

prison to assess the mental health of prisoners. Felten asked Brown if he had violent 

thoughts, and he said that when people would “get in his face” or threaten him he 

wanted to grab their necks or poke their eyes, but he would walk away. He also told 

Felten that he had tried to commit suicide. Based on this, Felten concluded that Brown 

had “active thoughts of hurting others with viable plans” of doing so, and placed him

in psychiatric custody. Felten, who is also certified as an “advance practice nurse,” 

see Wis. Admin. Code N §§ 8.01-8.06, can prescribe drugs. She prescribed two drugs to 

Brown: Risperidone, an antipsychotic drug that treats schizophrenia and bipolar 

disorder, and Sertraline, an antidepressant. 

The next day, Donald Stonefeld, a physician specializing in psychiatry, examined 

Brown. He determined that Brown was calm and rational and should be released back 

to the general prison population. Regarding Felten’s decision to place Brown in 

psychiatric custody, he wrote that “[Felten] over reacted [sic] to [Brown’s] comments 

and with no psych background [she] was not equipped” to decide whether Brown was 

an “impending danger” or merely “wanted to discuss and understand” his thoughts.

Stonefeld left in place Brown’s prescriptions for Risperidone or Sertaline. Both Felten 

and Stonefeld’s written reports state that they discussed the potential side effects of 

these two drugs with Brown. Brown denies that these conversations occurred.

Brown soon began experiencing unpleasant symptoms from the drug treatment. 

He suffered muscle spasms in his back, chest, arms, and legs; tremors in his face, chest, 

and legs; and hallucinations, severe headaches, insomnia, rapid heartbeat, anxiety, and 

constipation. Stonefeld took Brown off Risperidone after Brown told Stonefeld about 

these side effects. Brown asserts that these symptoms nonetheless continue to this day. 

Six years later he was diagnosed with “probable” tardive dyskinesia. This is a disorder 

of involuntary movements of the facial muscles and tongue that can develop from 

taking antipsychotic medications. See Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, Stedman’s Medical 

Dictionary 598 (28th ed. 2006). His doctor’s notes from August 2016 record that Brown 

displayed “involuntary movement around the right side of his lower face” and that 

“newer atypical antipsychotics, such as Risperidone[,] are sporadically linked to tardive 

dyskinesia.” 
No. 17-2830 Page 3

Brown decided to take legal action. He filed a grievance complaining that Felten

harmed him by giving him Risperidone without proper training or experience. When 

his grievance went unanswered, Brown filed this lawsuit against both Felten and 

Stonefeld. During discovery, the court ordered the parties to “serve all requests for 

discovery by a date sufficiently early so that discovery is completed no later than 

July 18, 2016.” Because Brown served discovery requests on Felten and Stonefeld just 

three days before discovery closed, they asked the court to protect them from having to 

answer the requests. Brown asked for more time to respond to the defendants’ motion, 

but the court granted the motion before it received Brown’s request for more time. The 

judge explained that Brown needed to serve all discovery requests by June 17 so the 

defendants could respond before discovery closed. The court acknowledged that Brown 

was pro se, but underscored that he still must follow the court’s rules and orders. When 

the court later received Brown’s motion for more time, it denied that motion as moot.

The court eventually entered summary judgment for the defendants. It ruled 

that, because Brown did not name Stonefeld in his grievance, Brown did not exhaust his 

claim against him. As for Felten, the court determined that no evidence suggested that 

Felten lacked authority to prescribe the two antipsychotic drugs to Brown or that she 

recklessly ignored a substantial risk of side effects from them.

Brown raises three main issues on appeal. First, he argues that Stonefeld forfeited

his exhaustion defense and, forfeiture aside, Brown was not required to name Stonefeld 

in the grievance form in order to exhaust claims against him. Both points are wrong. 

The grievance form instructs that a grievance “must state the names of the person(s) 

involved, when describing the nature of the problem.” This includes Stonefeld. And 

Stonefeld argued in his brief in support of his motion for summary judgment and in his 

reply brief that Brown’s grievance did not mention Stonefeld. Therefore Stonefeld

preserved his exhaustion defense, and the district court rightly dismissed him under the 

Prison Litigation Reform Act. See 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a).

Brown next challenges the district court’s entry of summary judgment for Felten. 

He contends that Felten deliberately ignored his medical needs, see Farmer v. Brennan, 

511 U.S. 825, 834-37 (1994), because she prescribed two antipsychotic drugs without 

adequate training: her specialty is gerontology, not psychiatry, and, according to 

Brown, she lacked the background necessary to put him in psychiatric custody. But 

Felten holds a Ph.D. in nursing, she has trained for years with psychiatrists to detect 

mental-health problems in prisoners, and she is licensed as an advance practice nurse. 

This license authorizes her to write prescriptions within her area of training, see Wis. 
No. 17-2830 Page 4

Admin. Code N § 8.06, which includes psychiatry. Beyond this, Stonefeld, a physician 

who specializes in psychiatry, decided to leave Felten’s prescriptions in place when he 

released Brown from psychiatric custody. The record thus compels the conclusion that

by prescribing the drugs Felten did not recklessly disregard Brown’s medical needs.

Brown responds that Felten was deliberately indifferent for another reason: she 

did not warn him about Risperidone’s potential side effects. Deliberate indifference 

means that a defendant “knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or 

safety.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837 (emphasis added). Brown tells us that he experienced 

side effects, but he has not supplied evidence that these effects were an excessive risk of 

the drug. He submitted printouts from medical websites that list Risperidone’s side 

effects. But the printouts do not quantify any risks. Without that quantification, no 

rational factfinder could conclude that Felten ignored an “excessive” risk to Brown’s 

health, even if she did not warn him about possible side effects.

Brown also argues that Felten recklessly failed to ask him about other drugs that 

he was taking, but this argument is also flawed. He observes that Risperidone’s 

warning label cautions that taking Risperidone with any listed drug (including Zantac, 

which Brown was also taking) may be dangerous. But this label does not specify the 

risk of taking Risperidone and Zantac together, so again a factfinder could not conclude 

Felton ignored an excessive risk. Moreover, under § 1983 Brown must provide evidence 

that Felten caused an injury. See Berman v. Young, 291 F.3d 976, 982 (7th Cir. 2002)

(stating plaintiff must produce evidence that injury had “causal connection” with 

alleged violation). Brown does not assert that the risk of taking both drugs together 

materialized into an injury. On this record, then, a jury could not conclude that, by 

failing to ask about Brown’s other drugs, Felten caused compensable harm. 

That brings us to Brown’s third and final issue. He argues that the district court 

wrongly protected the defendants from answering Brown’s discovery requests. We 

review that decision for abuse of discretion. Kuttner v. Zaruba, 819 F.3d 970, 974 (7th Cir. 

2016). Brown believes that the protective order was unjustified because he missed only 

a single deadline, and that happened because he misunderstood the scheduling order. 

He thought that July 18 was the date by which he had to serve his discovery requests,

not receive responses. Although the scheduling order does not support his reading, 

Brown’s argument fails for another reason. He does not tell us that his discovery 

requests sought evidence of the risk level of Risperidone’s potential side effects—the 

evidence that he needed to survive summary judgment. Without a “clear showing of 
No. 17-2830 Page 5

actual and substantial prejudice” from the district court’s decision, we will not overturn 

it. Stevo v. Frasor, 662 F.3d 880, 886 (7th Cir. 2011).

Accordingly, the judgment is AFFIRMED.