IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EASTERN DIVISION

RANDALL W. SYLER, )

)

Plaintiff, )

)

v. ) Case No. 12 C 1408

)

THE COUNTY OF WILL, et al., )

)

Defendants. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

On February 28, 2012 Randall Syler ("Syler") filed a detailed pro se 42 U.S.C § 19831

Complaint and exhibits, coupled with an In Forma Pauperis Application ("Application") and a

Motion for Appointment of Counsel ("Motion"), in which he charged a violation of his

constitutional right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment while he was an inmate at the

Will County Jail -- in substantive terms, an assertedly gross failure to deal properly with injuries 2

he had suffered in an August 30, 2010 fall from an elevated bunk in his jail cell. Two days later

this Court issued a brief memorandum order reflecting (1) its initial screening of the Complaint

called for by 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(a), (2) its determination that Syler had stated a viable claim in

those terms, (3) its granting of the Application under the terms called for by 28 U.S.C. § 1915

and (4) its appointment of a member of the trial bar to represent Syler pro bono publico.

This opinion skips over, as not relevant for current purposes, the intermediate steps in the

 All further references to that and other provisions of Title 42 will simply take the form 1

"Section --," omitting the prefatory citation to "42 U.S.C."

 Syler's claim drew on the extensive jurisprudence having its origin in Estelle v. 2

Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104 (1976), as extended by the caselaw to pretrial detainees.

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litigation that have most recently eventuated in the Second Amended Complaint ("SAC") as

prepared by Syler's able appointed counsel. What is relevant is that the exhibits attached to the

SAC (which Syler had also submitted as exhibits to his original Complaint) bring into play what

Congress has decreed is a threshold issue that must be dealt with at the outset of any lawsuit of

the nature brought by Syler. Here is Section 1997e(a):

No action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 of

this title, or any other Federal law, by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or

other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are

exhausted.

In that respect the SAC, like the original Complaint, was accompanied by a copy of

Syler's September 22, 2010 grievance (prepared on Inmate Request Form 22), in which his only

complaint was that "I was charged to see the doctor which I shouldn't have been because it was

an emergency and had surgery on my left testicle." When that was responded to within a week

by a statement that "the charges had nothing to do with emergency or surgery," Syler waited

something over a month before filing his second Inmate Request Form 22, which he designated

as his "second appeal" and in which he complained once again only as to having been charged

$10 to see the doctor. That second grievance ended this way:

I would like a refund of my $10.00. Thank you.

That triggered a prompt response that honored his request for a refund. 

In short, not a word was said in either of Syler's administrative grievances about the

claimed inadequacy of the care and treatment that he received, which is the entire gravamen of

his constitutional claims under Section 1983 (SAC Count I charges a failure to provide medical

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care actionable under Section 1983, while Count II advances a related Monell claim.). Nine 3

months passed before Syler took any other action, at that point sending an August 8, 2011 letter

that inquired as to the status of his grievance and spoke for the first time of asserted "cruel and

unusual punishment." 

Under those circumstances it comes as no surprise that an important part of the response

to the SAC filed by all of the non-medical state actor defendants was a highly detailed

Affirmative Defense No. 1 that asserted Syler's failure to have exhausted administrative

remedies. Although Fed. R. Civ. P. 7(a)(7) calls for a reply to an answer only if the court orders

one (in practice a comparative rarity), that was clearly called for here. This Court so orderd on

December 10, and on December 13 Syler's appointed counsel provided such a reply. That reply

really does not challenge Syler's noncompliance with the statutory requirement described in this

opinion -- nor, because Syler's deficiencies are irrefutably confirmed by his own documentation,

is any evidentiary hearing required to resolve the issue. 

In sum, just as the alchemists of the Middle Ages could not succeed in their quest to

transmute base metal into gold, Syler cannot in belated hindsight transmute a claim that was

expressly limited to a $10 cash refund into the claimed exhaustion of whatever any

administrative remedies might have provided in response to a grievance claiming an

Eighth-Amendment-type constitutional violation. Hence because Syler has not met the

precondition prescribed by Section 1997e(a), this action is dismissed -- Counts I and II with 

 All other counts in the SAC are state law counts: Count III asserts a state law medical 3

malpractice claim; Count IV asserts a state law indemnification claim against the County of Will;

and Count V asserts a like indemnification claim against the Will County Sheriff.

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prejudice and the remaining counts without prejudice as to their possible assertion in a state court

of competent jurisdiction.4

__________________________________________

Milton I. Shadur

Senior United States District Judge

Date: January 8, 2013

 No view is expressed here as to the viability vel non of those state law contentions. 4

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