### In the 

# United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

____________________ No. 15

- 2254 Q U ASIM B OLLING , Plaintiff

- Appell ant ,

v.

V ICTOR C ARTER , et al

. , Defendant s

- Appell ees

.

____________________ Appeal from t he United States District Court for the No rthern District of Illinois, Eastern Division

.

No. 12 C 3432

— Robert M. Dow, Jr. , Judge

.

____________________
S UBMITTED A PRIL 13, 2016

— D ECIDED A PRIL 26, 2016

____________________

Before P OSNER , R IPPLE , and H AMILTON , Circuit Judges

. P OSNER , Circuit Judge

. The plaintiff, a pretrial detainee at Cook County Jail, fell and injured his back , and sued six co rrection al officers, contending that they had manifest ed d eliberate indifference to an acute medical need, thus viola t ing his rights under the due process cla use of the Fourt eenth Amendment. S ee, e.g., City of Revere v. Massach u setts General Hospital , 463 U.S. 239, 244 (1983); Jackson v. Illinois Medi

- Car, Inc. , 300 F.3d 760, 764 (7th Cir. 2002); cf. Estelle v. Gamble , 4292 No. 15

- 2254

U.S. 97, 104

– 05 (1976); Walker v. Be n j amin , 293 F.3d 1030, 1040 (7th Cir. 2002 ). T hey had refused to move him to a lower bunk even though a doctor at the jail determine d that he needed to be in a lower bunk. There was no ladder to his upper bunk and because of his injury he couldn’t climb up t o it without a ladder and so had to sleep on the floor until his term of confinement ended and he was released from the jail

. There is no suggestion that because of jail crowding or other factors it would have been infeas i ble to assign him to a lower b u nk

— or that the floor was a comfor t able place for him to sleep

. The di s trict judge granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, precipitating the plai n tiff’s appeal to us. The plaintiff advances other claims against the defendants b esides their refusal to assign him to a lower bunk , but those claims have no merit and do not warrant discussion. When the plaintiff fell, which was in January 2012 , h e asked the defendants to find him a lower bunk . They said they couldn’t do that unless he obtained a lower

- b unk a ssignment from the jail’s medical unit. He had been seen by a member of the unit right after the accident, but had not o btained (and may not in that brief e n counter have sought) a lower

- bunk assignment , so h e needed to revisit the medical unit. It too k him a month to get an appointment with a do ctor, who a fter examining him on February 9 (the examin ation included an x

- ray of his back ) concluded that he should indeed be reassigned for medical reasons to a lower bunk. A l though the jail ’s staff was alerte d to the reassignment, the defe n dants did not give the plaintiff a lower bunk ; nor did anyone else

. So he conti n ued to sleep on the floor . After three more weeks of this, wh ich he claims without contradi c-No. 15

- 2254 3

tion further aggravated his back injury , his ordeal ended on March 1 , when he was r e leased from the jail

. The defendants argue that they never received an order from a doctor direc t ing them to assign the plaintiff to a lower bunk , even after the doctor’s examination of him on February 9 . But the denial appe ars i n an unsworn submi s sion that t he plaintiff contends was untruthful , which it may well have been

. The doctor’s order ( one of only four pages of evidence attached to the plaintiff’s response to the defe n dants’ motion for summary judgment , and therefore diff i cult , one would h a ve thought, for the district judge to have overlook ed ) kicks off with the following statement, ove r looked by the defendants and the district judge, that goes some di stance (though not all the way) toward establishing the plaintiff’s case: “Al ert CCDOC [Cook County Depar t ment of Co rrections] 2/ 9/2012 11:36 [a.m ] [ the date and time of the examin a tion ], Lower Bunk [the relief ordered by the doctor] .” Yet all the dis trict judge said in granting su m mary judgment in favor of the defen dants was that “i t is undi s puted that Plaintiff never r e ceived a lower bunk permit at any time while at the jail.” This is doubly false

. It is disputed and he did receive an order from a doctor directing that he be a s signed to a lower bunk

. The defendants’ brief does not discuss the di s pute . It denies there was a permit or a doctor’s order , but does not substantiate its denial. Indeed its princ i pal argument is that the plaintiff in oppo s ing the motion for summary judgment violated Local Rule 56.1 ( which go v erns m otions for summary judgment) of the di s trict court for the Northern District of Illinois

. B ecause the plaintiff had no lawyer , the district judge did not exceed his authority in e xcusing the plaintiff’s pleading e r rors

. Stevo v. Frasor , 662 F.3d 880, 886

– 8 7 (7th Cir. 2011).4 No. 15

- 2254

The judgment is reversed in part , with instructions to v acate the grant of summary judgment with respect to the plai n tiff’s claim of willful indifference to an acute medical need , but is ot h erwise affirmed.