United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted August 30, 2022*

Decided August 31, 2022 

Before 

DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge 

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge 

No. 21-2584 

VANOKA WASHINGTON, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

STEVEN RYAN and JAMIE 

BERGHAUS, 

 Defendants-Appellees. 

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Central District of Illinois. 

No. 3:18-cv-03099-CSB 

Colin S. Bruce, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

Vanoka Washington, then an Illinois prisoner, sued two correctional officers 

under the First Amendment, alleging that they falsified disciplinary reports about him 

in retaliation for a grievance that he submitted about misconduct by one of the officers. 

*

 We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and 

record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not 

significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. APP. P. 32.1 
No. 21-2584 Page 2 

See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district judge concluded that Washington could not prove that 

the officers were motivated by Washington’s grievance and granted the officers’ motion 

for summary judgment. For the same reason, we affirm. 

 We recount the facts in the light most favorable to Washington. See James v. Hale, 

959 F.3d 307, 314 (7th Cir. 2020). In September 2017, while incarcerated at Western 

Illinois Correctional Center, Washington submitted a grievance about Lieutenant Steven 

Ryan. Having received no response two months later, Washington submitted another 

grievance to request the status of the first. The next month, a grievance officer 

responded with a form stating that Washington’s second grievance would be addressed 

alongside the original. 

The same day Washington received that answer, he had an altercation with 

Ryan. Ryan approached him in the lunch hall, called him a racial slur and mocked his 

disability (Washington has no left hand or forearm), then ordered Washington to meet 

him outside the hall. After Washington obliged, Ryan cuffed him and took him to 

segregation. There, Washington saw Ryan speak with a correctional officer, Jamie 

Berghaus, in a utility room. Ryan and Berghaus each wrote disciplinary reports about 

Washington later that day, charging him with “intimidation or threats” and “dangerous 

communications.” After a hearing officer found him guilty, Washington was punished 

with four months of segregation and a disciplinary transfer to Hill Correctional Center. 

 Washington sued Ryan and Berghaus under the First Amendment, alleging that 

they retaliated against him for submitting the September 2017 grievance against Ryan 

by writing unfounded disciplinary reports. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. (Washington made 

additional claims against several prison staff relating to the incident that spurred the 

September 2017 grievance, but the district judge concluded that Jackson failed to 

exhaust administrative remedies on those claims and entered partial summary 

judgment for the defendants. That ruling is not at issue in this appeal.) 

Ryan and Berghaus moved for summary judgment, principally arguing that 

Washington could not show that his grievance motivated them to issue the disciplinary 

reports. As relevant here, each attested that he was not aware of Washington’s 

grievance about Ryan; further, the grievance officer attested that she did not tell any 

staff about Washington’s grievance. Washington testified that he assumed, based on the 

timing of the disciplinary report, that the grievance officer had told Ryan about 

Washington’s grievance and that Ryan then told Berghaus about it in the utility room. 
No. 21-2584 Page 3 

The district judge concluded that Washington’s argument was based purely on 

speculation and entered summary judgment for the defendants. Without evidence to 

combat the defendants’ declarations that they did not have knowledge of Washington’s 

grievance, the judge reasoned, Washington was unable to show that Ryan and Berghaus 

were motivated by the grievance to write the disciplinary reports. 

On appeal, Washington generally argues that the judge improperly entered 

summary judgment for the defendants on the First Amendment claims, and he repeats 

his allegations that Ryan and Berghaus falsified a disciplinary report in retaliation for 

his grievance. (To the extent Washington makes an argument against the grievance 

officer, we ignore it, because she was never made a party to this case. See Myles v. United 

States, 416 F.3d 551, 551–52 (7th Cir. 2005).) 

We apply de novo review and conclude that Ryan and Berghaus were entitled to 

summary judgment. See James, 959 F.3d at 314. In order to proceed on his claim that the 

officers punished him for protected speech in violation of the First Amendment, 

Washington needed evidence that his protected speech was a motivating factor in the 

defendants’ decision to take action against him. See Jones v. Van Lanen, 27 F.4th 1280, 

1284 (7th Cir. 2022). Even assuming that the grievance was protected speech, 

see Zimmerman v. Bornick, 25 F.4th 491, 493 (7th Cir. 2022), Washington did not counter 

the defendants’ evidence of their lack of retaliatory motive with any of his own. 

See Jones, 27 F.4th at 1284. Washington’s inferences that the grievance officer told Ryan 

about the grievance, and that Ryan in turn told Berghaus, are just speculation, which 

cannot create a genuine issue of material fact. See id. at 1284, 1286–87 (cannot infer 

prison official retaliated against prisoner for actions against another prison official 

because evidence does not closely link the officials’ decisionmaking). Ryan and 

Berghaus did not know of Washington’s grievance, and so the timing that Washington 

finds suspicious is insufficient evidence to save the claim from summary judgment. 

See FKFJ, Inc. v. Vill. of Worth, 11 F.4th 574, 586 (7th Cir. 2021); Manuel v. Nalley, 966 F.3d 

678, 681 (7th Cir. 2020). 

AFFIRMED