United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted November 6, 2015*

Decided November 9, 2015

Before

WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 15-1549

DAJUAN KEY,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

CHAD KOLITWENZEW, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Central District of Illinois.

No. 14-2286

Sue E. Myerscough,

Judge.

O R D E R

DaJuan Key, a pretrial detainee, brought a deliberate-indifference claim against 

administrators and security and medical staff at Jerome Combs Detention Center in 

Kankakee, Illinois, for withholding treatment of his diagnosed mental-health disorders 

and failing to protect him from self-destructive behavior caused by the lack of treatment. 

The district court determined that Key’s complaint failed to state a claim. See 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915A. Because Key stated claims against a physician’s assistant at the facility and 

 

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

participating in this appeal. After examining the appellant’s brief and the record, we 

have concluded that oral argument is unnecessary. 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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. 15-1549 Page 2

corrections officers, we vacate the judgment of dismissal regarding those claims, but we

affirm the judgment of dismissal of the claim against the remaining defendants.

According to Key’s complaint, the allegations of which we accept as true, a 

physician’s assistant abruptly discontinued his prescriptions for psychotropic 

medication without evaluating him, and this was done despite his diagnosed conditions 

of schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. After

three weeks of requesting to be seen by health services, Key met with the physician’s

assistant and a psychological social worker—on October 31, 2014—which, as we will see, 

is a key date in this case. At the meeting, he reported thoughts of self-mutilation and 

suicide and implored the physician’s assistant to represcribe his medication. The 

physician’s assistant denied Key’s request. Key asked if he could see a psychiatrist but 

again was rebuffed. Key then told the physician’s assistant that he was going to cut 

himself “because he couldn’t get the self-harm thoughts out of his head.” 

Over the following week, Key cut himself on at least four occasions, using small 

pieces of metal, a sprinkler head, and his fingernails. Though corrections officers 

intervened each time and placed him in a restraint chair, Key alleged that the corrections 

officers ignored his oral warnings about his impulses to self-harm and rejected his 

requests for preemptive, preventive measures. The officers also placed him on suicide 

watch after the first and third incidents. (The second incident occurred during his first 

stint on suicide watch.) These measures—use of a restraint chair and suicide 

watch—were used, he said, only after he had already injured himself, and inexplicably 

he was taken off suicide watch without an assessment of ongoing risk.

In addition to damages and a declaratory judgment stating that the defendants’ 

actions had violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights, Key sought a preliminary 

injunction ordering his medication represcribed and an examination by a psychiatrist. 

He also requested additional physical and mental-health attention for other detainees 

placed in restraint chairs or housed in administrative segregation.

The district judge screened the complaint, see 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, and dismissed it 

for failure to state a claim. Key failed to state a deliberate-indifference claim, the court 

explained, because he alleged nothing more than a difference of opinion about the 

proper course of treatment and, further, he did not allege that the physician’s assistant 

could have been aware of the risk that he would cut himself before his examination on 

October 31, 2014. The judge also dismissed this claim with regard to the other 

defendants, noting that Key admitted receiving medical care each time he cut himself 
No. 15-1549 Page 3

and that he did not allege any actions by the psychological social worker other than 

appearing at the October examination.

Regarding the failure-to-protect claim, the judge concluded that, based on Key’s 

allegations, the corrections officers responded sufficiently each time they caught Key 

cutting himself: they stopped the behavior, treated his injuries, and had him restrained 

and monitored. As for the administration, the judge concluded that the acknowledged 

presence of a physician’s assistant and a psychological social worker belied Key’s 

allegation that the administrators failed to employ “licensed mental health staff.” The 

judge also considered Key’s request for a preliminary injunction, but denied it, 

concluding that his allegations did not demonstrate a reasonable likelihood of success on 

the merits.

On appeal Key first challenges the district judge’s characterization of his 

allegations regarding the physician’s assistant as a “mere disagreement” over the 

treatment offered to him. He reiterates that he received no treatment at all: his repeated 

requests and grievances identifying self-harming thoughts were ignored, and his verbal 

warnings to staff were disregarded.

The district judge misconstrued Key’s claim. While a disagreement with a 

doctor’s medical judgment will not establish deliberate indifference, Estelle v. Gamble, 429 

U.S. 97, 104 (1976), deliberate indifference cannot be precluded if an inmate alleges that 

his medical treatment was based on a failure to treat, see Rodriguez v. Plymouth Ambulance 

Serv., 577 F.3d 816, 832 (7th Cir. 2009). Key alleged that the physician’s assistant didn’t 

treat his disorders at all and that his complaints about his condition were otherwise 

ignored. This was sufficient to state a claim.

Key next takes issue with the district judge’s determination that he did “not 

allege[] any facts that show [that the physician’s assistant] could have been aware of the 

risk of Plaintiff cutting himself prior to the examination on October 31, 2014.” His 

complaint, Key maintains, alleged that the physician’s assistant ignored him, despite 

being fully informed about his risk of self-mutilation either before October 31 or at the 

examination that day when he personally told the assistant as much.

We conclude that the district court was too hasty in dismissing the claim against 

the physician’s assistant, especially given its duty to construe Key’s pro se complaint 

liberally, see Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 90 (2007). Prison doctors may exhibit 

deliberate indifference to a known condition through inaction, Gayton v. McCoy, 593 F.3d 

610, 623–24 (7th Cir. 2010); Rodriguez, 577 F.3d at 830, or by delaying necessary treatment 
No. 15-1549 Page 4

and thus aggravating the injury or needlessly prolonging an inmate’s pain, Gomez v. 

Randle, 680 F.3d 859, 865 (7th Cir. 2012); Smith v. Knox Cnty. Jail, 666 F.3d 1037, 1039–40 

(7th Cir. 2012); McGowan v. Hulick, 612 F.3d 636, 640 (7th Cir. 2010). Key set forth a 

plausible account of facts showing that the physician’s assistant demonstrated deliberate 

indifference through inaction. The assistant cut off medication, despite being aware of 

Key’s condition: the condition had been previously diagnosed, Key had been receiving 

medication to treat it, and Key told him at his appointment on October 31 about the 

self-mutilating impulses he experienced when he was off the medication.

Regarding his failure-to-protect claim against the corrections officers (defendants 

Brown, Lesage, Voss, Aramovich, Emery, Jurgens, Mayo, O’Neil, and Coash), Key 

challenges the court’s conclusion that they responded sufficiently when they “notified 

supervisors of Plaintiff’s ongoing situation, provided prompt first aid, removed 

potentially harmful items from Plaintiff’s cell, secured Plaintiff in a restraint chair, and 

placed Plaintiff on suicide watch, when appropriate.” Key argues that the judge’s 

characterization of the defendants’ response overlooks their failure to take necessary 

preventive measures before he harmed himself.

To state a failure-to-protect claim, Key must allege that corrections officers knew 

that he faced a substantial risk of serious harm and deliberately disregarded the risk. 

See Estate of Miller, ex rel. Bertram v. Tobiasz, 680 F.3d 984, 989 (7th Cir. 2012). This he has 

done: he alleged that immediately before each incident of self-mutilation, he informed 

the officers of a substantial risk of serious harm, yet they disregarded his warnings and

requests to be restrained. In one incident, for instance, Key alleged that officers 

permitted him to cut himself until he managed to have his mother call the facility and 

demand he be restrained. And in another Key says that an officer saw him cutting 

himself but only insulted him and walked away. This claim too must be remanded for 

further consideration.

Though we recognize that a more complete examination of the facts may show 

that the corrections officers and the physician’s assistant responded adequately based on 

their knowledge of Key’s condition and the risk of harm, those are facts to be developed 

during discovery. See McGowan, 612 F.3d at 641. At this stage Key has stated claims of 

deliberate indifference, and his allegations put the defendants on notice that they are 

accused of disregarding a known risk of serious harm. 

Finally Key does not develop any challenge to the district court’s dismissal of the 

claims against the administrators or the psychological social worker. Also, the request 
No. 15-1549 Page 5

for injunctive relief is moot because Key is no longer detained at Jerome Combs 

Detention Center.

We AFFIRM the dismissal of Key’s claims against the psychological social worker 

Amy Jane Doe and the administrators: Chief of Corrections Chad Kolitwenzew, 

Assistant Chief of Corrections Robert Schultz, and Sheriff Timothy Bukowski. With 

regard to the remaining defendants, we VACATE the judgment of the district court and 

REMAND for further proceedings.