United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted August 19, 2019*

Decided August 20, 2019

Before

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

No. 19-1230

JURIJUS KADAMOVAS,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

JOHN CARAWAY, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Southern District 

of Indiana, Terre Haute Division. 

No. 2:17-cv-00050-WTL-MJD

William T. Lawrence,

District Judge.

O R D E R

Jurijus Kadamovas, an inmate at the Federal Correctional Complex who suffers 

from mild persistent asthma, says that his condition is exacerbated by exposure to 

secondhand smoke and chemical gas in his cell. He sued the prison’s clinical director,

Special Confinement Unit supervisors, and former and current wardens for being 

deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs. The district judge granted the 

defendants’ motion for summary judgment, concluding that Kadamovas did not have a 

 

* 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. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 19-1230 Page 2

serious medical condition and, even if he did, officials did not willfully disregard it. 

Kadamovas filed a motion for reconsideration, to no avail. We affirm.

Kadamovas has trouble breathing whenever chemical gas wafts into his housing

unit—the Special Confinement Unit—through heating and cooling vents from the 

Special Housing Unit downstairs. Based on his own calendar entries, Kadamovas 

believes that tear gas was used in the Special Housing Unit 30 times between 2013 and 

2018. He believes that the gas is being used because during these episodes he cannot 

breathe and experiences symptoms that include crying, diarrhea, and vomiting. When 

this occurs, he bangs on the door of his cell or presses an emergency button, and staff 

takes him to an outdoor recreation area for about an hour to an hour and a half.

Smoke causes Kadamovas similar problems. Whenever inmates smoke or set 

fires in the Special Housing Unit (an occurrence that he estimates at 15-20 days each 

month), he wakes up unable to breathe. Because he cannot open the window in his cell, 

any smoke that enters cannot escape.

Kadamovas wrote multiple grievances and emails, asking for a “permanent 

solution” to the smoke and gas issues. Each time, he received a response from the 

current warden. One warden wrote to Kadamovas, explaining that any inmate who 

started a fire would receive an incident report, and that prison staff—despite taking 

precautions to prevent fires—had limited ability to stop them entirely. Another warden

informed Kadamovas that staff was undertaking other efforts to mitigate the effects of 

gas and smoke, including shutting off the vents between the units and changing air 

filters more frequently than required to avoid residual contamination. And to reduce 

further potential exposure, staff in 2015 moved him to a cell in the upper tier of the 

Special Confinement Unit.

Medical staff also took steps to respond to Kadamovas’s problems. In response to 

his breathing issues, they treated him 17 times between 2014 and 2016. At each 

evaluation, his lungs were found to be clear and his respiration normal. He asked in 

2014 to see an outside pulmonologist, but his request was denied by the utilization 

review committee. In early 2016, the clinical director examined Kadamovas and

determined that, given the subjective nature of his complaints, he should see a 

pulmonary specialist.

Kadamovas was seen by a pulmonologist in May 2016. The pulmonologist 

performed a pulmonary function test—which showed no obstruction, restriction, or air 
No. 19-1230 Page 3

trapping—and prescribed Kadamovas a daily inhaler and medications for wheezing 

and shortness of breath.

Kadamovas’s problems persisted. More than half a year later, he complained that 

smoke made him short of breath, but the responding nurse found him at his cell

breathing easily, without any cough. Four months later, he complained to a nurse that 

smoke was raising his blood pressure. The nurse found that he had no breathing 

problems, but his blood pressure was elevated. After he received a nebulizer, his blood 

pressure dropped, and he reported feeling better.

The district judge granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The 

judge first concluded that Kadamovas’s asthma and breathing problems were not an 

objectively serious medical need. Alternatively, the judge explained, no defendant acted 

with deliberate indifference. The former and current wardens each took steps to ensure

that Kadamovas received appropriate medical care and attempted to reduce his 

exposure to smoke and gas. The Special Confinement Unit supervisors were not 

personally involved in any potential constitutional deprivation, as neither had decisionmaking authority over the Special Housing Unit and thus lacked the ability to restrict 

contraband there or control the frequency with which chemical gas was used. And the 

clinical director and his staff proffered extensive medical care. The judge also noted 

that, although Kadamovas criticized the clinical director for delaying his visit to a 

pulmonologist, it was actually the utilization review committee who denied this 

request. The judge then denied Kadamovas’s ensuing motion for reconsideration, 

concluding that he failed to point to any misapplication of precedent in the court’s 

order or to present any new evidence. 

On appeal, Kadamovas argues that the district court improperly entered

summary judgment for the non-medical defendants because they failed to adequately 

protect him from the harmful effects of smoke and chemical gas. Even though staff 

removed him from his cell when chemical gas was used, he says, his removal took place 

only after he had already begun to suffer the medical consequences. He asserts that

staff’s precautions to shut off the air ventilation and change the air filters make “very 

little differen[ce].” And his relocation to a unit further from the Special Housing Unit

did not help, as smoke and gas still reached him. 

Even if we accept Kadamovas’s contention that his medical condition is serious, 

he has not raised a fact question over the subjective component of deliberate 

indifference. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 839–40 (1994); Huber v. Anderson, 909 
No. 19-1230 Page 4

F.3d 201, 208 (7th Cir. 2018). Kadamovas believes that the defendants could have been 

more vigilant in minimizing the effects of gas and smoke, but presents no evidence that 

their efforts approached criminal recklessness. See Lee v. Young, 533 F.3d 505, 511 (7th 

Cir. 2008). Rather, the record indicates that defendants responded to Kadamovas’s 

complaints: they provided him regular access to medical care, allowed him to go to an 

outside recreation area to avoid the harmful effects of gas, and relocated him to an 

upper-tier cell. His unsupported contention that the defendants could have done more 

cannot stave off summary judgment.

Kadamovas also asserts that the district judge erred in concluding that the 

clinical director could not be responsible for delaying his appointment with a 

pulmonologist, purportedly because the utilization review committee had denied the

request. But the judge did not consider, he says, whether the clinical director could have 

granted his request before the utilization review committee’s denial in 2014.

Even if we assumed that the clinical director had this authority, there is no 

indication that his failure to schedule outside appointments amounts to deliberate 

indifference. True, deliberate indifference can be inferred when a prison physician 

recklessly delays referring a patient to an outside specialist for non-medically justified 

reasons. See Arnett v. Webster, 658 F.3d 742, 753 (7th Cir. 2011). But here, all evidence 

points to the clinical director exercising his medical judgment to diagnose Kadamovas’s 

condition, both reviewing his medical records and personally examining him at chronic 

care visits. Nothing in the record suggests that concluding a pulmonologist visit was 

unnecessary before 2014 would have constituted a “substantial departure from accepted 

professional judgment, practice, or standards.” Petties v. Carter, 836 F.3d 722, 729 (7th 

Cir. 2016) (en banc) (quoting Cole v. Fromm, 94 F.3d 254, 261–62 (7th Cir. 1996)). 

Kadamovas also contends that the district court should have granted his motion 

for reconsideration because his attorneys’ conduct “deviate[d] from professional 

standards of conduct.” In order to prevail on his motion for reconsideration, however, 

Kadamovas needed to point to newly discovered evidence or establish “a manifest error 

of law or fact.” Burritt v. Ditlefsen, 807 F.3d 239, 253 (7th Cir. 2015); FED. R. CIV. P. 59(e). 

His discontent with his attorneys’ representation is neither. 

AFFIRMED