United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted May 17, 2019*

Decided May 20, 2019 

Before 

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge 

AMY C. BARRETT, Circuit Judge 

MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge

No. 18-1999 

EDWARD HARDIN, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

JOHN R. BALDWIN, et al., 

 Defendants-Appellees.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 

Western Division. 

No. 17 C 50370 

Philip G. Reinhard, 

Judge. 

 

O R D E R 

Edward Hardin, an Illinois inmate, has sued a corrections officer for violating the 

Eighth Amendment by escorting him (while restrained) on an uneven sidewalk and 

hurting his shoulder when helping him up after he tripped while walking. The district 

court dismissed Hardin’s complaint at screening for failure to state a claim and issued a 

 

*

 The defendants were not served with process in the district court and are not 

participating in this appeal. We have agreed to decide this case without oral argument 

because the brief 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 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. 18-1999 Page 2 

strike against him. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915A; 1915(g). Because the officer did not recklessly 

disregard a substantial risk of injury, we affirm the judgment. 

We review de novo the dismissal of Hardin’s complaint at screening and accept 

the allegations in his complaint as true. See Otis v. Demarasse, 886 F.3d 639, 644 (7th Cir. 

2018). 

While escorting Hardin back to Dixon Correctional Center, Officer Searchy (his 

first name is not in the record) directed Hardin, who was wearing handcuffs and leg 

shackles, onto a sidewalk “littered with pot holes.” Along the way, as Searchy assisted 

Hardin, Hardin tripped and fell on the concrete, injuring his head and ankle. Searchy 

tried lifting Hardin’s right arm to get him back on his feet, but the pull injured Hardin’s 

rotator cuff. On the second try, Searchy lifted Hardin successfully and returned him to 

the prison. Hardin promptly went to the healthcare unit for evaluation, where a nurse 

cleaned his ankle wound. Several months later, he started physical therapy for the 

rotator-cuff injury. 

After initiating this suit, the district court ruled that Hardin had failed to state a 

claim, but invited him to submit an amended complaint. In that complaint, Hardin 

named Searchy as the sole defendant. As he elaborates in his brief on appeal, Hardin 

contends that Searchy should not have shackled him while he walked on the hazardous 

sidewalk and, when helping him up, Searchy should have lifted him under both arms to 

prevent a rotator-cuff injury. The district court dismissed the complaint, concluding that 

Hardin did not allege a sufficiently serious hazard or the requisite mental state for an 

Eighth Amendment claim. 

On appeal, Hardin does not challenge the district court’s reasoning; rather, he 

expands his allegations as we have just described them. But they still do not add up to a 

plausible Eighth Amendment claim. We read his brief generously and accept the 

allegations in it and the complaint as true. See Otis, 886 F.3d at 644. Even so, we agree 

with the district court that dismissal was proper. 

To state an Eighth Amendment claim based on a hazardous condition of 

confinement, a plaintiff must allege the presence of a “sufficiently serious” condition 

and that the defendant was deliberately indifferent to it. Townsend v. Fuchs, 522 F.3d 

765, 773 (7th Cir. 2008). Hardin has alleged neither. The condition that Hardin identifies 

is the uneven sidewalk, but the risk of tripping there is no worse than the risk present 

on slippery floors in prison showers. “Federal courts consistently have adopted the 
No. 18-1999 Page 3 

view that slippery surfaces and shower floors in prisons, without more, cannot 

constitute a hazardous condition of confinement.” Pyles v. Fahim, 771 F.3d 403, 410 & 

n.25 (7th Cir. 2014). We recognize that Hardin was shackled, and we will assume that 

the shackling elevated the risk of injury. But Hardin also alleges that Searchy assisted 

Hardin as he walked. That allegation implies that Searchy tried to reduce the risk of 

injury and thus was not deliberately indifferent to the risks of an uneven, horizontal 

walkway. Cf. Anderson v. Morrison, 835 F.3d 681, 683 (7th Cir. 2016) (prisoner stated 

Eighth Amendment claim when guards allegedly refused to help him descend slippery 

stairs obstructed with garbage while cuffed). 

Hardin also does not allege that Searchy injured Hardin’s rotator cuff recklessly. 

See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837 (1994). He does not suggest that Searchy knew 

that Hardin was unusually susceptible to this injury or that, in lifting Hardin up, 

Searchy used force that he knew would likely injure Hardin. Indeed, in his appellate 

brief Hardin invokes negligence law to frame his deliberate-indifference claim, but the 

two are not synonymous. See Duckworth v. Ahmad, 532 F.3d 675, 679 (7th Cir. 2008) 

(“[T]he Eighth Amendment does not codify common law torts.”). Deliberate 

indifference requires a reckless disregard of a known, substantial risk of danger, not the 

mere absence of ordinary care. Because these allegations do not suggest that Searchy 

was reckless, dismissal was proper. See Arnett v. Webster, 658 F.3d 742, 751 (7th Cir. 

2011). 

To the extent that Hardin alleges deliberate indifference in the treatment of his 

injuries, that claim also fails. Hardin did not allege that Searchy was personally 

involved in his medical treatment. See Mitchell v. Kallas, 895 F.3d 492, 498 (7th Cir. 2018) 

(requiring defendant to be “personally responsible for the alleged deprivation of the 

plaintiff’s constitutional rights”). In his appellate brief, Hardin attempts to cure this 

defect by naming several prison nurses. But he had an opportunity to include this 

information in the amended complaint and failed to do so. He may not do so on appeal. 

AFFIRMED