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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

WESTERN DIVISION

CAITLIN DOHENY, as personal 

representative and administrator of the 

Estate of Thomas Doheny, 

 Plaintiff, 

 v. 

BILL PRIM, Sheriff of McHenry 

County, Illinois, and UNKNOWN 

CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS 1-12

 Defendants.

 Case No. 3:20-cv-50138

 Honorable Iain D. Johnston

 

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

On November 17, 2017, Thomas Doheny took his own life. He and his former 

spouse were going through a “tenacious and bitter divorce.”1 Dkt. 25, ¶ 7. As a 

result, his former spouse asserted that he owed her more than $100,000 in child 

support and maintenance. Id. ¶ 8. But he failed to pay. He had lost his job at a 

family-owned business that paid him well over $300,000 per year. Id. ¶¶ 9–10. 

At the time of his death, Doheny was detained in the McHenry County Jail 

for civil contempt due to his failure to pay child support and maintenance—though 

the complaint does not allege how long he was in custody. Id. ¶ 11. He fell into a 

depression and complained of physical pain—for which he was given aspirin.2 Id. ¶ 

 1 The allegations are taken from the third-amended complaint. Dkt. 25. 

2 The complaint does not make clear whether Doheny was offered or received any mental 

health services while in custody, though it does allege that he was not provided an 

evaluation from a psychiatrist. Dkt. 25, ¶ 20. 

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19. Caitlin Doheny, the personal representative and administrator of Doheny’s 

estate (“the Estate”), contends Doheny should have been evaluated by a psychiatrist 

because of the alleged decline in his mental state. Id. ¶ 20. Doheny also made 

telephone calls to individuals outside of the prison in which he purportedly gave

away some of his personal property. The Estate asserts that the jail should have 

monitored these calls and his movements in the jail and, therefore, should have 

known that Doheny was at risk of suicide—presumably because people who are 

depressed often give away their belongings before attempting suicide. Id. ¶¶ 21–22. 

On the day of his death, Doheny was seen removing a garbage bag from a 

trash can in the day room. Id. ¶ 23. (By whom? We’re not told.) He then used that 

bag in his suicide, which took place around 8 PM that night. Id. Medicine call—

when inmates and detainees receive their prescribed medication—was around the 

same time. Id. ¶ 25. More than ten minutes of medicine call went by before 

Doheny’s absence was noticed. Id. ¶ 26. At that time, a correctional officer told 

another inmate to go get Doheny and bring him to the medicine distribution point. 

Id. ¶ 27. On arrival at Doheny’s cell, the inmate yelled for help. Id. ¶¶ 29–30. A 

female nurse immediately responded. But due to Doheny’s size, she could not 

remove him from the bunk to attempt chest compressions. Id. ¶ 31. Because of the 

situation, the correctional officers instituted a lockdown procedure to secure all 

inmates and then contacted the Woodstock Fire Department to request an EMS 

response. Id. ¶¶ 32–33. 

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The Estate alleges that Doheny was “for all intents and purposes dead”

before the EMS response, but that response personnel indicated that he had “some 

heart rhythms.” Id. ¶ 34. The Estate argues that the jail’s response was inadequate 

due to overcrowding and understaffing and that, as a result, Doheny was later 

pronounced dead at the hospital. Id. ¶ 36. 

Caitlin Doheny, as personal representative and administrator of the Estate of 

Thomas Doheny, filed this lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming a violation of 

the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. She seemingly sues Bill 

Prim in his official capacity as the Sheriff and policymaker of the McHenry County 

Jail (“the Sheriff”). Hill v. Shelander, 924 F.2d 1370, 1373 (7th Cir. 1991). The 

Estate also sued twelve unnamed correctional officers.3 (Why a dozen? Again, we’re 

not told.) The Sheriff then filed the present motion to dismiss. Dkt. 28. 

A. Analysis

To defeat a motion to dismiss, the plaintiff must have alleged facts sufficient 

to “state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 

550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). This means that a plaintiff’s well-pleaded factual 

allegations must allow “the court to draw the reasonable inference that the 

defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 566 U.S. 622, 678 

(2009). The Court accepts as true all of the plaintiff’s well-pleaded allegations and 

views them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Landmark Am. Ins. Co. v. 

 3 Plaintiff originally named McHenry County as a defendant, dkts. 1, 19, but the operative 

complaint does not include the County and, in response, Plaintiff notes that the County is 

no longer a defendant. Dkt. 31, at 2 (“Plaintiff has not named McHenry County, a body 

politic, as a party Defendant in its Third Amended Complaint.”). 

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Deerfield Constr., Inc., 933 F.3d 806, 809 (7th Cir. 2019). The burden of persuasion 

on a motion to dismiss rests with the defendant. Reyes v. City of Chicago, 585 F. 

Supp. 2d 1010, 1017 (N.D. Ill. 2008) (“On a motion to dismiss, defendants have the 

burden of demonstrating the legal insufficiency of the complaint – not the plaintiffs 

or the court.”). “Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above 

the speculative level on the assumption that all of the complaint's allegations are 

true.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 545. 

The Sheriff argues that the complaint contains bare allegations and 

conclusions and is, therefore, speculative. Dkt. 29, at 3. The Sheriff further argues 

that he is entitled to qualified immunity, and that the Estate has not stated a 

Monell claim. Id. at 6, 9. 

Because the Sheriff is correct that the Estate has not effectively pleaded a 

constitutional claim under § 1983, the Court does not consider the Sheriff’s 

argument regarding qualified immunity. Similarly, because a constitutional injury 

is a core element of any Monell claim, the Estate’s failure to adequately plead a 

constitutional injury renders his Monell claim ineffective. J.K.J. v. Polk County, 960 

F.3d 367, 377 (7th Cir. 2020) (en banc) (“A primary guardrail is the threshold 

requirement of a plaintiff showing that a municipal policy or custom caused the 

constitutional injury.”); Payne for Hicks v. Churchich, 161 F.3d 1030, 1039 (7th Cir. 

1998) (“[P]laintiffs must allege facts sufficient to show that the defendants deprived 

them of a right or an interest secured by the Constitution or laws of the United 

States and that the defendants were acting under color of state law.”). 

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To begin with, the Court recognizes that the complaint does not make clear 

what the Estate’s claim is. On the one hand, the complaint looks like a Fourteenth 

Amendment failure to protect from self-harm claim, and it at least references that 

amendment. Dkt. 25, ¶ 42. On the other hand, the Estate’s response to the instant 

motion argues under the Eighth Amendment. Dkt. 31, at 5–6. In an effort to be 

thorough, the Court will address both possible claims. 

1. Fourteenth Amendment – Failure to Protect

The Estate’s claim under § 1983 could be construed as a claim for failure to 

protect from self-harm in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth 

Amendment. “The obligation to intervene covers self-destructive behavior up to and 

including suicide.” Miranda v. Cnty. of Lake, 900 F.3d 335, 349 (7th Cir. 2018). Five

elements exist for a failure to protect from self-harm claim: 

1. A strong likelihood existed that the decedent would seriously harm himself in 

the near future, but a mere possibility is not enough; 

2. The defendant was aware of this strong likelihood, or strongly suspected it 

but refused to confirm it, which can be inferred if the risk was obvious; 

3. The defendant consciously failed to take reasonable measures to prevent the 

serious self-harm, taking into account, among other things, whether the 

defendant had legitimate reasons related to safety or security for failing to 

take additional action; 

4. The decedent would have survived if the defendant had not disregarded the 

risk; and, 

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5. The defendant acted under color of law.

Seventh Circuit Pattern Jury Instructions 7.19 (rev. 2017). No doubt, a plaintiff 

need not plead facts to support each element, but she must plead enough facts to 

elevate her claim from speculative to plausible. Understanding the elements of the 

claim aids in that determination. 

In light of these elements, the Estate’s complaint does not plausibly allege a 

failure to protect. The only element that would not be in serious question is the last. 

No one disputes that the defendants acted under color of law; one is the Sheriff and 

the other unnamed defendants were correctional officers. Other than that, none of 

the allegations, taken as true, come close to satisfying any other element. Again, the 

Court does not mean to imply that a complaint’s allegations must satisfy every 

element. Stumm v. Wilkie, 796 F. App’x 292, 295 (7th Cir. 2021); Bennett v. 

Schmidt, 153 F.3d 516, 518 (7th Cir. 1998) (“Complaints need not plead law or 

match facts to every element of a legal theory.”). But the allegations must do 

enough work to show that the belief in defendant’s liability is based on something 

other than speculation, so that the claim is plausible. 

First, the Estate has not alleged anything to show a strong likelihood that 

Thomas Doheny was going to hurt himself. Many people experience depression, and 

many people give away items of personal property. This is especially reasonable 

when the person in question was going through a contentious divorce, had recently 

transitioned from a $300,000 annual salary to being unemployed and unable to pay 

child support, and ended up in jail because of it. Depression under these 

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circumstances is not surprising but being depressed does not mean a person is going 

to commit suicide. 

And even if that were enough, nothing in the complaint alleges that the 

Sheriff was aware of these alleged facts. The Estate asserts that the jail monitors 

inmates’ telephone calls, and so the Sheriff should have known that Doheny was 

giving away his personal property. But the Estate does not allege what property 

was given away or to whom, so that this Court could understand how alarming such 

an act would be. And regardless, the Court will not Constitutionally mandate, nor 

expect, upon pain of monetary damages, a local jail to surveil and report all phone 

calls from every inmate and detainee. 

These allegations are not enough to plausibly allege that the Sheriff had any 

knowledge of a strong likelihood of self-harm, or that he willfully ignored such a 

likelihood. 

Additionally, nothing in the complaint, taken as true, could plausibly show 

that the Sheriff failed to take reasonable measures to protect Doheny from selfharm. The Estate alleges that correctional officers sent another inmate to check on 

Doheny after he was late to medicine call by only ten minutes. Under the factual 

allegations—to the extent there are any—of this case, ten minutes is reasonable.

The Estate further alleges that when the inmate realized what had happened, the 

inmate yelled for help, and a nurse responded immediately. The Estate alleges that 

the nurse was unable to remove Doheny from his bunk to perform chest 

compressions. On this note, the Estate takes issue with the response being by a 

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nurse and not a correctional officer. But the speculation that a correctional officer

would have made any difference is not good enough. (As an aside, wouldn’t a nurse, 

rather than a correctional officer, be the appropriate person to respond to a medical 

emergency?)4 The Court is left to speculate whether the correctional officer would 

have been able to remove Doheny from his bunk and whether the correctional 

officer and nurse would have then been able to revive Doheny. Without more, this 

deficiency in the Estate’s allegations renders implausible the causal requirement of 

all § 1983 claims (and specifically element four here). 

Because these bare allegations and conclusions require the Court to 

speculate, the Estate’s claim is not plausible without more. 

2. Eighth Amendment – Deliberate Indifference

In response to the motion to dismiss, the Estate invokes the Eighth 

Amendment. Dkt. 31, at 5. This is error. An Eighth Amendment violation exists 

where prison staff is deliberately indifferent to a serious medical need. Perry v. 

Sims, No. 19-1497, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 6165, at *8 (7th Cir. Mar. 3, 2021). But 

the Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel or unusual punishment. That applies to 

prisoners serving a sentence for a criminal conviction. It does not apply to 

individuals incarcerated for civil contempt. Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 668 

(1977) (citing Uphaus v. Wyman, 360 U.S. 72, 81 (1959)). Because Thomas Doheny 

 4 To the extent the complaint notes the allegedly diminutive size of the nurse is relevant, 

the Court knows of no constitutional provision requiring a correctional facility to hire Cross 

Fit fanatics as nurses and requiring government entities to engage in this type of hiring 

practice would cause other legal problems.

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was incarcerated for civil contempt, the Estate’s Eighth Amendment claim is 

dismissed with prejudice. 

3. Overcrowding and Understaffing

The Estate also points to the jail’s policy of housing detainees for 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Estate fails to explain how these 

allegations support their claim, or what claim they go to. This argument does not 

clearly fit into any element of the failure to protect claim, and as explained above, 

the Eighth Amendment claim is inapplicable to civil contempt detainees. If the 

Estate means for those allegations to pertain to its Monell claim, then they cannot 

be relevant in absence of a constitutional injury—an injury that has not been 

plausibly alleged. 

But regardless, all § 1983 claims require a showing of causation. Kelly v. 

Municipal Courts, 97 F.3d 902, 909 (7th Cir. 1996). The Estate’s allegation that the 

jail houses ICE detainees resulting in understaffing and then Thomas Doheny’s 

suicide is purely speculative. The Estate has failed to include sufficient allegations 

that this policy has plausibly caused any injury. The allegation, therefore, fails to 

state any claim. Without a constitutional violation by a state actor, there can be no 

Monell claim. Los Angeles v. Heller, 475 U.S. 796, 796-99 (1986).

B. Conclusion

For the reasons above, the Sheriff’s motion to dismiss [28] is granted. The 

Estate’s claims are dismissed without prejudice. But any claim arising under the 

Eighth Amendment is dismissed with prejudice. The Estate must file its amended 

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complaint—pursuant to the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11—by 

May 10, 2021. If the Estate fails to file an amended complaint by that date, the 

dismissal will be with prejudice. 

Date: April 6, 2021

___________________________

Honorable Iain D. Johnston

United States District Judge

Northern District of Illinois

Western Division

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