United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted December 7, 2018*

Decided December 14, 2018 

Before 

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge 

AMY C. BARRETT, Circuit Judge 

MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge

No. 18-2347 

MARCUS MILLER, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

DR. LARSON**, et al., 

 Defendants-Appellees.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Southern District of Illinois. 

No. 17-cv-1101-SMY 

Staci M. Yandle, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

Marcus Miller, acting pro se, claims that a prison doctor violated the Eighth 

Amendment by recklessly allowing the prison’s medical staff to treat Miller with the 

wrong medicine and deliberately ignoring his repeated pleas for treatment. After Miller 

received the wrong prescription drug, he allegedly experienced serious complications. 

After granting Miller leave to amend his complaint, the district court dismissed the 

complaint at a preliminary screening before service, see 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, and assessed 

 

*

 We have agreed to decide this case without oral argument because the appellate 

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). 

** Dr. Larson’s first name is not in the record, so we have left the caption as is. 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 18-2347 Page 2 

a strike, see id. § 1915(g). We vacate the district court’s dismissal in part because Miller 

has adequately alleged that the doctor violated the Eighth Amendment. 

 We treat the allegations in Miller’s amended complaint as true for purposes of 

this appeal. Perez v. Fenoglio, 792 F.3d 768, 774 (7th Cir. 2015). Where the allegations in 

his original complaint elaborate on and are consistent with his amended complaint, we 

include those as well. See Otis v. Demarasse, 886 F.3d 639, 644–45 (7th Cir. 2018) 

(amended complaint not treated as “superseding complaint” because pro se litigants are 

entitled to leniency on procedural matters). 

 Miller is an Illinois prisoner who needs medication for high blood pressure. Dr. 

Larson is a prison physician responsible for the care of prisoners at Big Muddy River 

Correctional Center in Ina, Illinois. Following an appointment on December 15, 2016, 

Dr. Larson prescribed medication to treat Miller’s blood pressure condition. 

 On December 21, a nurse dispensed to Miller a pill that he did not recognize. 

Miller questioned the nurse about it, and the nurse replied that the pill was Clonidine 

Hydrochloride, a new drug for his high blood pressure that Dr. Larson had ordered. 

Miller took the pill but quickly experienced dizziness, nausea, and vomiting. The next 

morning Miller alerted a different nurse about these symptoms. She assured him that 

his reaction should be short-lived and was normal. Miller took the drug at the nurses’ 

encouragement for over a week despite ongoing dizzy spells and vomiting. Miller 

requested a follow-up appointment with Dr. Larson to address his concerns about the 

drug, but the doctor was on vacation for the holidays. On January 1, Miller refused to 

continue taking the drug after nurses suggested that it might be negatively interacting 

with one of his other medications or that he might have been prescribed an incorrect 

dosage. 

 Miller saw Dr. Larson again on January 9. After reviewing Miller’s complaints, 

Larson was surprised that Miller had received Clonidine and insisted that he had never 

prescribed the drug for Miller. When Larson reviewed the medical record, he 

exclaimed, “They did it again! They ... misread my writing and issued this guy the ... 

wrong medication.” Larson discontinued the prescription and ordered that Miller 

receive Tylenol and Pepto-Bismol to counter the side effects. 

But when the dizziness and vomiting persisted, Dr. Larson dismissed Miller’s 

requests for additional help. The doctor refused “further tests” or a “different course of 

treatment to relieve him of his condition,” scoffing at the symptoms as “just in his 
No. 18-2347 Page 3 

head.” Larson filed an initial grievance with the prison on January 12, in which he 

related the incident and indicated that he believed he was experiencing more severe 

internal medical issues than Larson had acknowledged. He requested a physical exam 

by an “independent doctor.” Prison officials denied the grievance on February 8, noting 

that Miller had made no further complaints and that Larson had discontinued the 

incorrect drug and treated Miller’s symptoms. Miller continued to experience dizziness 

and nausea and continued to file grievances, but the prison took no further action. 

Miller later experienced a urinary infection and kidney failure, which he attributes to 

the incorrect medication and its possible interactions with other medicines he was 

taking at the time. 

 Miller sued Dr. Larson, Debbie Isaacs (the prison’s healthcare administrator), the 

unknown pharmacist, various unknown nurses, and the prison’s grievance officer 

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating the Eighth Amendment in two ways. As relevant on 

appeal, he accuses the doctor of deliberately disregarding (1) the need to treat Miller’s 

long-term reaction to the wrong drug, and (2) the prison staff’s practice of dispensing 

drugs that the doctor had not prescribed to his patients. Miller also faults both Larson 

and Isaacs for not preventing the misdelivery of medicine. Finally, he alleged that the 

prison’s grievance officer was deliberately indifferent by failing to handle the 

grievances in a timely matter. 

 After allowing an amendment to cure pleading defects but before the defendants 

were served, the district judge dismissed the suit with prejudice. First, she ruled that 

Miller had not plausibly alleged that his persistent dizziness and nausea were serious 

medical needs. Next, she decided that Miller was seeking to hold Larson and Isaacs 

responsible for the errors of their subordinates, and § 1983 does not recognize respondeat 

superior liability. She also concluded that Miller’s allegations against the unnamed 

medical staff were too vague because it was “impossible to determine whether Plaintiff 

is discussing the pharmacist or the nurses at any given time” or which prison nurses 

were involved. Lastly, Miller’s claim against the grievance officer failed, she explained, 

because Miller had not adequately pleaded any indifference on his part. 

On appeal, Miller first argues that his claim against Dr. Larson is sufficient. A 

prisoner states a claim that a doctor violated the Eighth Amendment if he alleges an 

objectively serious health concern that the doctor “knows of and disregards.” Farmer 

v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834, 837 (1994). Under § 1983, prison doctors are not vicariously 

liable for the misconduct of others, but they may violate the Eighth Amendment by 

“turn[ing] a blind eye” to misconduct that they know will deny an inmate needed 
No. 18-2347 Page 4 

medical care. See Arnett v. Webster, 658 F.3d 742, 757 (7th Cir. 2011) (quoting Gentry 

v. Duckworth, 65 F.3d 555, 561 (7th Cir. 1995)). 

Miller correctly argues that he experienced objectively serious harm. First, he 

suffered from high blood pressure, which is an objectively serious condition. Jackson v. 

Pollion, 733 F.3d 786, 789–90 (7th Cir. 2013). He was diagnosed with it and told that he 

needed treatment for it, another indication of its seriousness. Pyles v. Fahim, 771 F.3d 

403, 409 (7th Cir. 2014) (“A medical condition is objectively serious if a physician has 

diagnosed it as requiring treatment, or the need for treatment would be obvious to a 

layperson.”) Second, after he received the wrong drug to treat his high blood pressure, 

he experienced persistent dizziness, nausea, and chronic vomiting. These symptoms are 

in combination also objectively serious. See Greeno v. Daley, 414 F.3d 645, 654 (7th Cir. 

2005) (inmate stated Eighth Amendment claim when medical staff refused to address 

frequent vomiting, heartburn, nausea); see also Smith v. Knox Cty. Jail, 666 F.3d 1037, 1040 

(7th Cir. 2012) (inmate who bled, vomited, sustained eye damage, and had dizziness 

and severe pain stated claim for deliberate indifference). Third, in concluding that 

Miller did not allege a serious medical need, the district court did not even consider the 

alleged kidney failure or bladder infection; these conditions added to the seriousness of 

Miller’s medical problems. 

Miller also plausibly alleged that Dr. Larson violated the Eighth Amendment by 

deliberately ignoring his medical needs in two respects. First, he alleges that Dr. Larson 

did nothing to address the harm that he knew Miller faced from a staff that regularly 

provided the wrong drugs. The doctor’s remark that the pharmacy had “again” given 

the wrong drug permits an inference that he knew about but ignored this danger. A 

prison official may violate the Eighth Amendment when the official knows that an 

inmate may receive inadequate medical care but “fail[s] to exercise his or her authority 

to intervene on [the inmate’s] behalf to rectify the situation.” Perez, 792 F.3d at 782. See 

also Dixon v. Cty. of Cook, 819 F.3d 343, 350 (7th Cir. 2016) (prisoner stated 

deliberate-indifference claim against prison nurse who knew of prisoner’s untreated 

medical needs but did nothing); Gentry, 65 F.3d at 561 (prison administrator could be 

liable under § 1983 for ignoring constitutional deprivation caused by other prison staff). 

Second, when Miller told Dr. Larson that the Pepto-Bismol and Tylenol did not resolve 

his vomiting, nausea, and dizziness, Dr. Larson brushed him off and gave no further 

care. A doctor who “persists in a course of treatment known to be ineffective” may 

violate the Eighth Amendment. Petties v. Carter, 836 F.3d 722, 729–30 (7th Cir. 2016) (en 

banc). 
No. 18-2347 Page 5 

We pause to observe that these are only allegations and that, because the suit 

was dismissed before any defendants were served, Dr. Larson has not yet participated 

in the proceedings. At this preliminary stage, we merely conclude that Miller has 

sufficiently stated an Eighth Amendment claim against Dr. Larson. Further proceedings 

are needed to determine their truth and to allow Dr. Larson to respond with possible 

defenses. 

The district judge properly dismissed the remainder of Miller’s suit. Miller 

contends that because Isaacs oversaw the medical staff, she could have prevented the 

whole episode. But unlike Dr. Larson, Isaacs was not responsible for individualized 

patient care and did not know about the danger that he faced from the medical staff. 

Therefore, Miller’s allegations against her are tantamount to an assertion of 

respondeat-superior liability, which § 1983 does not permit. See Arnett, 658 F.3d at 757. 

Miller also contends that the unnamed nurses and pharmacist were deliberately 

indifferent because they mishandled his prescriptions and disregarded his symptoms. 

But Miller never alleged that these putative defendants knew or recklessly ignored 

what Dr. Larson had prescribed. Even after the district court gave him an opportunity 

to cure his pleading defects, at most Miller alleged that the nurses and pharmacist were 

negligent. Yet negligence is insufficient to state a valid claim of medical mistreatment 

under the Eighth Amendment. See Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106 (1976). Finally, 

Miller seems to have abandoned his claim against grievance officer David Hermetz on 

appeal, so we do not address it. 

 We VACATE and REMAND the dismissal of the Eighth Amendment claim 

against Dr. Larson, as well as the assessment of a strike against Miller pursuant to 28 

U.S.C. § 1915A. We AFFIRM in all other respects.