# 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

.

J OHN 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,
J udge

.

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 help ing him up after he tripped while walking. The district court dismissed Hardin’s complaint at screenin g for failure to state a claim and issued a

* The defendants were not served with pr ocess 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 pres ent the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not significantly aid the court. See F ED

. R. A PP

. P. 34(a)(2)(C). NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1No. 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 Hard in’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 concre te, injuring his head and ankle. Searchy tried lifting Hardin’s right arm to get him ba ck on his feet, but the pull injured Hardin’s rotator cuff. On the second try, Searchy lif ted 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 cour t ruled that Hardin had failed to state a
claim, but invited him to submit an amende d 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 shac kled 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 cour t 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 th e district court’s reasoning; rather, he expands his allegations as we have just describ ed them. But they still do not add up to a plausible Eighth Amendment claim. We re ad 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 pr esence of a “sufficiently serious” condition

and that the defendant was de liberately indifferent to it. Townsend v. Fuchs , 522 F.3d 765, 773 (7th Cir. 2008). Hardin has alleged neither. The co ndition that Hardin identifies is the uneven sidewalk, but the risk of trippi ng there is no worse than the risk present on slippery floors in prison showers. “Fed eral courts consistently have adopted theNo. 18-1999 Page 3

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

constitute a hazardous cond ition of confinement.” Pyles v. Fahim , 771 F.3d 403, 410 & n.25 (7th Cir. 2014). We recognize that Hard in was shackled, and we will assume that the shackling elevated the risk of injury. Bu t Hardin also alleges that Searchy assisted Hardin as he walked. That allegation implie s 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 th is injury or that, in lifting Hardin up, Searchy used force that he knew would likel y injure Hardin. Indeed, in his appellate brief Hardin invokes negligence law to fram e 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 co dify common law torts.”). Deliberate indifference requires a reckless disregard of a known, substantial risk of danger, not the mere absence of ordinary care. Because thes e 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 alle ges deliberate indifference in the treatment of his injuries, that claim also fails. Hardin di d 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 resp onsible 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. Bu t he had an opportunity to include this information in the amended complaint and faile d to do so. He may not do so on appeal.

AFFIRMED