# United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted November 9 , 2022 * Decided November 17 , 2022 Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK , C ircuit Judge
DAVID F. HAMILTON , Circuit Judge
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II , Circuit Judge
No. 22-1809 PETER J. LONG , P laintiff -Appellant ,

v . JOHN F. MATZ, et al. , Defendants -Appellees

. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin

. No. 21-C-1210
William C. Griesbach , Judge

.
O R D E R Peter Long sued Wisconsin jail officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 , raising two
claims about COVID -19 . First , he says that , although the staff quarantined new inmates ,

* The appellees were not served with process and have not participated in this appeal. We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the appellant’s brief and the record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument wo uld not significantly aid the court. F ED
. R. A PP
. P. 34(a)(2)(C). NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION To be cited only in accordance with F ED
. R. A PP
. P. 32.1No. 22-1809 Page 2 gave them cleaning supplies , and later tested them to protect them from the virus, the Constitution required that the staff do more . Second, he accuses the staff of transferring
him to another faci lity in retaliati on for complaining about the level of protection . The district court dismissed his complaint, correctly concluding that he failed to allege any
constitutional violation ; thus w e affirm.
We recount the facts alleged in the complaint , accep ting the m as true

. Milchtein v. Milwaukee C ty. , 42 F.4th 814, 819 (7th Cir. 2022). Long was housed at Winnebago County Jail from 2020 through early 2021, apparently on charges that he violated terms of his
extended supervision . When he arrived, he was quarantined alone in a cell for two weeks —a s were all new inmates during the COVID -19 pandemic. Afterwar d , he moved
to a pod with several dozen inmates, all of whom had successfully completed a two

week quarantine. T he jail began to test in mates for COVID -19 in November 2020, when an inmate in the pod was hospitalized with an infection . Afterward , it test ed all inmates
and staff. Long eventually tested positive for COVID -19 and experienced joint pain, dizziness, and nausea for over two weeks

. When about one - third of the jail’s inmates
also tested positive , the jail began conducting weekly tests of its employees.
All inmates were required to clean their housing units and the restrooms. Jail staff provided the inmates with antibacterial cleaning supplies but not products containing bleach , which Long wanted , believing that it would kill both the COVID -19No. 22-1809 Page 3
virus and bacteria. Two official s denied his request and refused to give him grievance
forms . One explained that bleach was banned because the jail regarded it as a safety and security hazard; a nother said that “ [n]o constitutional rights were violated.” Long was transferred to a prison in 2021 when his supervision was revoked. He says that , although other inmates were ahead of him on the transfer list , he was moved to the top in retaliation for his complaints about the jail’s response to the pandemic.
Lo ng next turned to federal court

. He asserted that the defendants violated his constitutional rights by failing to implement COVID

- 19 testing before November 2020, refusing to provide him with bleach , denying him access to grievance forms , and retaliating a gainst him for complaining by moving him to the top of the transfer list. A magistrate judge allowed Long to amend his complaint to specify who violated his rights and how

. After Long did so , a district judge handled the case because not all parties had pr ovided consent to magistrate judge jurisdiction.
The district judge dismissed Long’s amended complaint with prejudice

. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. First, the court ruled t hat Long pleaded himself out of court on his
claim that the jail’s COVID

- 19 response was unreasonable, because he alleg ed that the
staff quarantined new inmates and began testing staff weekly after an outbreak
occurred. Second , the court concluded , the jail’s staff did not violate Long’s rights by denying his requests for bleach , because he did not plausibly allege that non - bleachNo. 22-1809 Page 4
cleansers exposed him to an unreasonably high risk of contracting COVID -19. Third, t he
court rul ed that Long did not have a constitutional right to grievance forms . Finally, regarding the retaliation claim, the court explained that Long had not alleged that his
transfer would likely deter an ordinary inmate from complaining about jail conditions

. On appeal , Lon g first raises an unfounded procedural challenge

. He contests his case’s transfer from the magistrate judge to the district judge . B ut Long did not serve any of the defendants with process , and they never consent ed to allowing a magistrate judge to enter j udgment . N on - served defendant s are “parties” under the Magistrate Judges Act, s ee 28 U.S.C. § 636 (b)

– (c ); F ED
. R. C IV
. P. 73(b)(1) , and they must consent to

a llowing a magistrate judge to issue a final judgment

. Coleman v. Labor and Indus

. Review
Comm ’n of Wis

. , 860 F.3d 461, 470–71 (7th Cir. 2017). Next, Long contends that he adequately stated claims for relief. We review de

novo t he dismissal of a complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A , drawing all reasonable inferences in Long’s favor and c onstruing his pro se submission liberally to determine if
he pleaded a plausible claim

. Perez v. Fenoglio , 792 F.3d 768, 776 (7th Cir. 2015); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009); F ED R. C IV
. P. 8(a)(2). We begin with his claim that the jail unreasonably failed to protect inmates before the jail’s COVID -19 outbreak in November 2020 by not test ing them for the virus or supplying antiviral cleansers, like bleach , which Long says that the CDCNo. 22-1809 Page 5 recommended

. When a pretrial detainee complains about cond uct at a jail , the claim
arises under the due

- process clause, and we ask whether the conduct was “objectively
unreasonable.” Kingsley v. Hendrickson , 576 U.S. 389, 392 (2015). T he preventative

measure s that Long alleges that the defendants used to address the risks of the virus
refute a n inference that the ir measures were objectively unreasonable : Before the jail

even had a COVID -19 outbreak, staff quarantin ed new inmates for two weeks before housing them together , supplied them with antibacterial cleansers, and required that they use them. A fter the outbreak occurred, they test ed inmates and , each week, test ed
those people

— the staff

— who left the jail and could upon reentry infect others

. Even if
other , pot entially cost lier measures, such as testing inmates before an outbreak
materialized and supplying them with bleach , might have been superior , due process does not require superiority , just reasonable ness, which occurred here

. Because we
conclude that the defendants behaved reasonably, we need not and do not decide whether, and if so when, the Constitution requires public officials to take steps to reduce the risk of infection within a prison or jail. Long next argues that the defendants violated his du e- process rights by preventing him from accessing the jail’s grievance forms . B ut Long does not have a liberty interest in a jail ’s grievance procedures. Owens v. Hinsley , 635 F.3d 950, 953 (7th Cir. 2011). A purported refusal to supply grievance forms may excuse inmates from theNo. 22-1809 Page 6
need to exhaust administrative remedies, but it d oes not violate constitutional rights. Id. ; Grieveson v. Anderson , 538 F.3d 763, 772 (7th Cir. 2008). That brings us to Long ’s claim that the defendants violated his First Amendment rights by accelerating his transfer to prison ( after his supervision was revoked ) to punish him for complaining about the jail’s COVID -19 response . Long has not presented a valid claim if the alleged punishment is un likely to deter ordinary inmat es from raising similar complaints. See Towne v. Donnelly , 44 F.4th 666, 671 (7th Cir. 2022).
A transfer alone is not adverse enough to deter an ordinary inmate from protected speech

. Holleman v. Zatecky , 951 F.3d 873, 881 (7th Cir. 2020). And Long did not allege that his prison

— to which he was eventually going any way after the revoked supervision

— was worse than his jail. Finally, Long argues that the district court should have offer ed him a second
chance to amend his complaint. But Long did not as k to amend his complaint a second time, and so the court was not required to offer an unsolicited , second chance for him to do so. In any case , Long does not tell us how he would alter his complaint to cure its deficiencies. See Gonzalez

- Koeneke v. West , 791 F.3d 801, 808 (7th Cir. 2015) (court may dismiss complaint with prejudice when plaintiff fails to explain how proposed amendment would cure deficiencies).
AFFIRMED