Opinion ID: 2998269
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Litigation Plaintiffs’ Claims

Text: The litigation plaintiffs alleged that they had been sent to Tamms in retaliation for filing lawsuits against IDOC and its officials. The district court determined that several of the 10 No. 03-3318 prisoners—Mr. Felton, Mr. Horton, Mr. V. Rodriguez and Mr. Santiago—had failed to exhaust their administrative remedies. It therefore dismissed the suits of these prisoners without prejudice. IDOC moved for summary judgment. At the same time, they moved to strike certain evidence offered by the prisoners in response, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(c)(1). The evidence consisted of affidavits indicating that 5 information in the prisoners’ placement forms was false. The IDOC officials admitted relying upon these forms in making their transfer decisions. IDOC predicated its motion to strike on the assertion that the prisoners had presented this evidence but had failed to amend answers to previously-served IDOC interrogatories as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26. The district court granted both the motion to strike and the motion for summary judgment. On the motion to strike, the substance of which is considered in greater detail below, the court determined that the prisoners had insufficient justification for failing to amend their answers to IDOC interrogatories. The district court therefore did not consider, when deciding the summary judgment motion, the prisoners’ claim that IDOC had placed them at Tamms based on 6 falsified placement forms. 5 Placement forms summarize personal information about the prisoner, including their segregation status and the STG affiliation or general disciplinary problems justifying their transfer to Tamms. 6 The district court also determined that the prisoners failed to disclose facts supporting their claim against Mr. Snyder as requested in the interrogatories. As a result, the court dismissed (continued...) No. 03-3318 11 7 On the merits of the summary judgment motion, the district court noted that, in order to prevail on their retaliation claim, the prisoners had to demonstrate that their conduct was constitutionally protected and that this conduct (the litigation previously filed by the prisoners) constituted a substantial or motivating factor in IDOC’s decision to transfer them to Tamms. Each prisoner presented a chronology of events that allegedly demonstrated that their filing of a previous lawsuit had motivated IDOC’s transfer decision. 8 With the sole exception of Mr. Clayton, the district court determined that the prisoners’ chronologies had failed to connect their transfers to their previous litigation activity. Because these prisoners had not offered any additional evidence, the court determined that they had not met their burden. The court further opined that the same result would obtain for Mr. Felton and Mr. Horton, had their cases not been dismissed for failure to exhaust. The prisoners now appeal the district court’s § 1915A 6 (...continued) Mr. Snyder as a defendant. 7 The court also treated the motion for summary judgment as a motion by all of the officials—including some defendants who had not filed motions—because the Illinois Attorney General represented all of the defendants. 8 As for Mr. Clayton, the district court noted that he had presented some evidence of a direct threat, made by one of the officials named as defendants, to send him to Tamms because of his grievances and lawsuits. However, because an official other than the one who had allegedly threatened Mr. Clayton approved his transfer, the district court determined that Mr. Clayton had failed to connect his activities with his transfer. Therefore, with respect to each of the prisoners, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the prison officials. 12 No. 03-3318 ruling based on exhaustion as well as its grant of IDOC’s motions to strike and for summary judgment.
The Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”) prohibits prisoners from filing suit with respect to prison conditions unless all available administrative remedies have been exhausted. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). The parties agree that this action is subject to the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement. Although exhaustion is a precondition to the prisoners’ suit, failure to exhaust is an affirmative defense that IDOC has the burden of proving. See Dale v. Lappin, 376 F.3d 652, 656 (7th Cir. 2004). IDOC claims that several of the prisoners failed to exhaust their administrative remedies and are precluded from bringing this suit. Our consideration of this question requires that we ascertain the administrative procedures by which a prisoner may challenge his transfer to Tamms. Because the record and the initial briefing did not present a clear picture, we requested that the parties file supplemental briefs addressing the administrative procedures available to a Tamms prisoner. Upon review of these submissions,we must conclude that IDOC has not carried its burden of establishing that the prisoners failed to exhaust available administrative remedies. IDOC submits that inmates have two avenues through which they must challenge their transfers to Tamms: through the transfer review hearing process and the inmate grievance process. Illinois regulations establish two types of transfer hearings at Tamms, depending on the inmate’s segregation category upon arrival at the facility. Prisoners are classified as subject to either administrative or disciplinNo. 03-3318 13 ary segregation, and different review processes govern each category. Inmates who are in administrative detention when they arrive are afforded a transfer review hearing within ten working days (“whenever possible”) of their transfer to Tamms. Ill. Admin. Code tit. 20, § 505.60(a). This hearing includes the opportunity for an inmate to appear, make statements challenging his placement, submit documentary evidence and request that the transfer review committee interview other persons. Id. § 505.60(b). The committee then makes a recommendation to the Chief Administrative Officer (“CAO,” i.e., the warden), who approves or denies the recommendation before forwarding it to the Assistant 9 Deputy Director. Id. § 505.60(d). Presumably, those plaintiffs who were sent to Tamms in administrative detention status received this initial transfer review hearing, although, for reasons discussed below, the record is silent in that respect. Inmates who are transferred to Tamms in disciplinary segregation status are not afforded an initial transfer review hearing; regulations provide only that such individuals receive a hearing after their term of disciplinary segregation ends. Id. § 505.60(a). This provision must prove problematic for some inmates. If a prisoner is sent to Tamms in a disciplinary segregation status that does not expire for a very long time, he will not have a hearing on his transfer to Tamms until the expiration of that very long disciplinary sentence. 9 IDOC notes that its policy has changed from that contained in the regulations and that the recommendation goes from the CAO to the Deputy Director, who apparently approves a transfer if warranted. 14 No. 03-3318 Apart from the initial transfer review hearing, the review committee conducts a review of each prisoner’s file every ninety days to determine whether placement at Tamms is still appropriate. Id. § 505.70(a). The ninety-day review does not afford the inmate an opportunity to be heard or to present evidence. In addition, although IDOC represents that the ninety-day review is conducted for every Tamms inmate, see Appellees’ Supplemental Br. at 4 n.4, the regulation indicates that such quarterly review only applies to those in administrative detention, see Ill. Admin. Code tit. 20, § 505.70(a) (noting that the committee “review[s] the record of each committed person in administrative detention”). For individuals in administrative detention, the transfer review committee conducts an additional hearing every year in which the inmate has the same opportunity to be heard and to present evidence challenging his transfer as in the initial hearing, and is also entitled to notice of the committee’s finding. Id. § 505.70(b) (stating that the annual hearing is to be held in accordance with the standards of the initial review). Again, the individuals in administrative detention that have been at Tamms for more than a year have presumably been afforded such annual reviews, while those in disciplinary detention status presumably have not. We say “presumably” with respect to the administrative review hearings because it appears that IDOC has not provided the prisoners with the hearing records, which they requested early in this litigation. Nevertheless, without evidence to the contrary, we presume that Tamms officials follow Illinois regulations, in which case every prisoner transferred in administrative detention has been afforded a No. 03-3318 15 10 review hearing. Prisoners who were transferred in, and remain in, disciplinary segregation have not yet qualified for a review hearing, and this administrative remedy is unavailable to them. See Lewis v. Washington, 300 F.3d 829, 833 (7th Cir. 2002). IDOC’s position that the transfer review process affords an administrative remedy is unconvincing for another reason. Many of the prisoners contend that they were not told the reasons for their transfer to Tamms; indeed, several prisoners filed grievances to complain about this problem. IDOC regulations do not require the department to notify prisoners why they have been transferred. We doubt whether the transfer review process is effective for prisoners who do not know the grounds for their transfer and who thus have no basis with which to contest their transfer. More importantly, if a prisoner discovers the reasons for his transfer shortly after completing the initial transfer review hearing and wishes to contest the transfer because, for instance, the reasons are based on incorrect facts, he must wait at least one more year before he can present evidence at his annual review hearing. For all these reasons, with respect to the transfer review process, IDOC has not carried its burden of establishing that the prisoners have not satisfied PLRA exhaustion requirements. 10 IDOC does not argue that the prisoners have failed to exhaust administrative remedies because an annual status review is available to those in administrative detention status. Nor do they argue that the ultimate availability of a transfer hearing to those in disciplinary segregation—available, that is, after their period of disciplinary segregation ends—means that such prisoners have also failed to exhaust available remedies. 16 No. 03-3318 IDOC also submits that the inmate grievance process is another avenue for challenging transfer to Tamms. Although we have considered, in previous cases, IDOC’s grievance process in challenging general prison conditions, we have not addressed whether the grievance process is an administrative remedy by which a prisoner may challenge his transfer to Tamms. In Illinois, “incidents, problems, or complaints” may be grieved, Ill. Admin. Code tit. 20, § 504.810(a), but the grievance process cannot be “utilized for complaints regarding decisions that are outside the authority of the Department, such as parole decisions, clemency, or orders regarding length of sentence or decisions that have been rendered by the Director.” Id. There seems to be significant confusion within IDOC, presumably caused by the “or decisions that have been rendered by the Director” clause of section 504.810(a), as to whether a Tamms prisoner may grieve his transfer, IDOC did not challenge every plaintiff on exhaustion grounds, and treatment of grievances by IDOC’s ultimate grievance appeal body, the Administrative Review Board (“ARB”), varied among the prisoners. For instance, the ARB responded to Mr. Combs’ grievance complaining about improper placement at Tamms by offering reasons for the transfer (e.g., gang activity). This action would seem to indicate that the ARB, at least, believed the grievance process to be the proper challenge avenue. In contrast, although he is no longer a party to this suit, the treatment of Mr. Carroll’s grievance is instructive, especially given that IDOC did not challenge whether he exhausted his remedies. The ARB simply replied to his complaint that transfer to Tamms was not an issue that it could address, but rather was an administrative prerogative of IDOC. No. 03-3318 17 In addition, there is some evidence that a Tamms counselor told Mr. Knox that he could not grieve placement at the facility; this evidence the district court found sufficient to establish that Mr. Knox had exhausted all available administrative remedies. However, Mr. V. Rodriguez, one of the prisoners whose claims the district court dismissed for failure to exhaust, also submitted an affidavit setting forth a similar account. Prior to his transfer to Tamms, he received a disciplinary report at another facility, but he completed the appeal of that report after his transfer. Mr. V. Rodriguez claims that IDOC officials led him to believe that his administrative remedy lay in challenging his transfer to Tamms, together with an existing administrative appeal that 11 he was pursuing to challenge disciplinary action. In its supplemental brief, IDOC does not respond to or explain the inconsistent treatment. Despite a number of Tamms-specific regulations in the Illinois Administrative Code, see id., pt. 505, IDOC does not point to any regulation or department policy that clearly identifies how a prisoner challenges his transfer to Tamms. If, for example, the regulations specified that a prisoner must challenge his transfer through the grievance process, or indicated the form that such a challenge should take, the prisoners would be obliged to conform to those administra- 11 Mr. V. Rodriguez was transferred to Tamms while awaiting a disciplinary action (assaulting a guard) through the IDOC administrative system. He claims that the grievance officer at Tamms told him that he could challenge his transfer together with his administrative appeal of the disciplinary action. Mr. V. Rodriguez never filed a separate grievance challenging his transfer because he claims that he was led to believe that, by appealing his transfer at the same time he appealed the disciplinary action, he exhausted his administrative remedies. 18 No. 03-3318 tive requirements. If the ARB took consistent positions on its authority to address a transfer grievance, a clear route for the prisoner at least would be evident and we could proceed to determine its effectiveness. But, as this case comes to us, we find the record “hopelessly unclear . . . whether any administrative remedy” remained open for the prisoners to challenge their transfers through the grievance process. Walker v. Thompson, 288 F.3d 1005, 1009 (7th Cir. 2002). With regard to Mr. Felton, Mr. Horton, Mr. V. Rodriquez and Mr. 12 Santiago, IDOC failed to meet its burden of proving that they failed to exhaust an available administrative remedy, Dale, 376 F.3d at 656, even after we afforded the opportunity to clarify the record through supplemental briefing. Although we base our decision on IDOC’s failure to meet its burden on the exhaustion issue, we pause to note as well that the district court erred in finding Mr. Felton’s and Mr. Horton’s grievances insufficient to “alert[ ] the prison to the nature of the wrong for which redress is sought,” which is all that the PLRA requires. Strong v. David, 297 F.3d 646, 650 (7th Cir. 2002). Although their purported placement challenges were made within substantive complaints about Tamms conditions, each prisoners’ grievance expressed concern about not being told the reason for his transfer to Tamms or listed something to the effect of “Transfer from Tamms” as the requested remedy. These complaints were 12 The district court dismissed Mr. Santiago because he submitted the grievance that he claimed exhausted his administrative remedies after this suit was filed. The appellants here do not challenge his dismissal. But, because it is unclear whether the grievance process may be used to challenge a prisoner’s transfer to Tamms, Mr. Santiago’s failure timely to file a grievance is of no moment, and we conclude that the district court erred in dismissing him on that ground. No. 03-3318 19 sufficient to alert prison officials that Mr. Felton and Mr. Horton challenged their transfers, even though the grievance officers in each case addressed the prison condition complaints without mentioning their transfers to Tamms. We therefore reverse the district court’s dismissal of the claims of Mr. Felton, Mr. Horton, Mr. V. Rodriguez and Mr. Santiago.
The litigation plaintiffs believe that they were sent to Tamms in retaliation for filing legal actions against IDOC 13 and its officials. Proving this theory required the prisoners to reconstruct the decision-making process leading to their transfers. To accomplish this task, the prisoners requested a number of documents from IDOC. Included in the requested documents were: placement forms for each prisoner; the results of any administrative reviews conducted since their arrival at Tamms; each prisoner’s ARB file; the litigation files of each litigation plaintiff; documents listing prisoners considered eligible for placement in Tamms who 13 Because the district court rejected the associational rights and the ex post facto counts of the gang plaintiffs, the remaining discovery disputes primarily involved the litigation plaintiffs. Indeed, given that the First Amendment and ex post facto complaints were dismissed early on, the district court and magistrate judge determined, correctly, that many of the prison- ers’ discovery requests had become irrelevant. Because the district court correctly dismissed these counts, we need not address the district court’s handling of the prisoners’ discovery requests aimed solely at proving the gang plaintiffs’ associational rights and ex post facto violations. 20 No. 03-3318 14 were not transferred; and any documents discussing the transfer of the named plaintiffs, rather than other prisoners, to Tamms. Before considering the specific discovery disputes at issue in this appeal, it is useful to recount certain aspects of the discovery history in this case. The record reveals that both IDOC and the prisoners were slow in discovery. The prisoners delayed answering IDOC’s interrogatories and, at 15 one point, earned a warning about possible sanctions. 14 The prisoners sought records of non-Tamms inmates to demonstrate, among other things, that IDOC transferred the litigation plaintiffs but did not transfer prisoners who presented more severe disciplinary or gang-related problems. They argued that, together with their litigation files, these records would raise an inference that the litigation plaintiffs were transferred solely on the basis of their litigation activities. 15 In a similar vein, later in the proceedings, the prisoners’ identical form responses to IDOC’s interrogatories were to become a matter of controversy. Every IDOC defendant except Mr. Snyder served three interrogatories on each remaining plaintiff. Mr. Snyder served four interrogatories; numbers 2 through 4 were the same as other officials’ three interrogatories. The relevant interrogatory, numbered 1 generally but Mr. Snyder’s number 2, read: “State the factual basis for your assertion that Defendant [official’s last name] approved your transfer to Tamms Super Max Correctional Center in retaliation for litigation, grievances or ‘writ writing.’ ” See, e.g., R.69, Ex.3. The prisoner responses were apparently drafted using Mr. Snyder’s interrogatories as a model, and repeated for every prisoner in response to each IDOC official. Each prisoner gave the same response to the second interrogatory, that is, Mr. Snyder’s second, even though, for the other officials, the response should have been to the first question. Regardless of which IDOC official (continued...) No. 03-3318 21 The circumstances surrounding the State’s production of the placement forms, crucial to the prisoners’ claim, must be 16 examined in some detail. IDOC eventually produced the forms and attached them to its renewed motion for summary judgment, together with affidavits from IDOC officers stating that they had relied on the placement forms when deciding the appropriateness of a prisoner’s transfer to Tamms. The State argued that the officials’ reliance on 15 (...continued) the prisoner addressed, the prisoner stated: I do not have any personal knowledge that defendant Snyder personally approved my transfer to Tamms. Rather, I contend that defendant Snyder approved policies and procedures which permitted prisoners to be transferred to Tamms in retaliation for activities which were protected by the First Amendment. See, e.g., R.69, Ex.29. The plaintiffs claimed that, “[r]ather than provide duplicative answers to the same questions asked separately by each of the defendants, plaintiffs sought to simplify their responses by combining all defendants’ interrogatories.” R.104 at 5. 16 On October 28, 2002, at the same time the district court granted IDOC leave to renew its summary judgment motion, it ordered IDOC to produce documents relied on by the officials in deciding which prisoners to transfer to Tamms. The prisoners had asked for the documents with their initial discovery request in August 2000. A month later, IDOC produced approximately 7500 pages of documents in compliance. Based on the volume of material, the district court granted additional time, until January 29, 2003, for the prisoners to reply to IDOC’s summary judgment motion. The district court subsequently granted a motion to file instanter, and the prisoners filed their response on February 10, 2003—the same day the court held a hearing on the summary judgment motion. 22 No. 03-3318 prisoner placement forms belied the prisoners’ claim that IDOC transferred them in retaliation for any protected activity. The prisoners then sought to introduce affidavits alleging that the information contained in the placement forms was untrue. They contended that IDOC officials had falsified their gang associations or disciplinary histories to justify their transfers to Tamms. IDOC moved to strike this evidence and all other evidence that the placement forms were incorrect, that the prisoners’ disciplinary histories were insufficient to warrant assignment to Tamms, that the timing of their transfers was suspicious, and that Mr. Snyder could be held liable for the transfers. In resisting the efforts of the prisoners to have the court consider the prisoners’ evidence that the transfer documents were false, IDOC crafted its motion as a request for discovery sanctions. It argued that the prisoners had failed to amend their previous interrogatory answers (that is, their 17 answer number 2) to encompass the new falsification theories, in violation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(e)(2). The district court granted IDOC’s motion to strike on essentially two related grounds. First, the court considered the prisoners’ answers to IDOC interrogatories to be “incomplete” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(a)(3) because they failed to present any supporting facts in spite of the interrogatories’ request for “the factual basis for your assertion that Defendant . . . approved your transfer to Tamms.” R.69, Ex.3. Second, the district court agreed with IDOC that the prisoners’ contention—that information in 17 See supra note 15. No. 03-3318 23 their placement forms had been falsified—was a new theory based on new evidence. Because the prisoners failed to amend their responses to the IDOC interrogatories to reflect their new allegation and provide more complete factual bases for their claims, as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(e)(2), the district court excluded from consideration the prisoners’ affidavits (or any other evidence that they might have produced) contending that their placement 18 forms had been falsified, as a sanction under Rule 37(c)(1). 19 The prisoners’ argument in this appeal is twofold. First, they submit that the district court erred in concluding that they had violated Rule 26(e)(2) by not supplementing their interrogatory responses. Because IDOC had not produced the placement forms or other requested discovery when they answered the interrogatories, the prisoners note that they could not have known the falsehoods contained in the forms—falsehoods which formed the “factual basis” for their claim. The prisoners argue that they complied with the requirements of Rule 26 by offering affidavits, and they characterize any requirement to go back and supplement their interrogatory answers as a “duplicative, meaningless 18 In addition, the district court noted that the prisoners’ form responses to IDOC interrogatories mentioned only Mr. Snyder. See supra note 15. Because their responses were inadequate and only applied to Mr. Snyder, the district court determined that he was not liable as a matter of law and dismissed him from the suit. Given our decision concerning the propriety of the discovery sanction, it was inappropriate for the district court to dismiss Mr. Snyder at this stage of the litigation. 19 IDOC argues that the prisoners have waived any challenge to district court discovery decisions because their brief does not comply with Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28(a)(9)(A). We find the prisoners’ submission to be sufficient. 24 No. 03-3318 formality.” Appellants’ Br. at 44. Second, the prisoners assert that, even if they violated the letter of Rule 26, the district court abused its discretion by imposing its Rule 37 sanction. Although we review the district court’s discovery rulings for abuse of discretion, “[t]he district court must apply the correct legal standards and not reach an erroneous conclusion of law in forming the basis for the sanction of exclusion.” Musser v. Gentiva Health Servs., 356 F.3d 751, 755 (7th Cir. 2004). Reaching an erroneous legal conclusion constitutes an abuse of discretion. Id. We therefore first consider the district court’s determination that the prisoners violated Rule 26 by failing to amend their interrogatories. At the outset, we cannot accept the argument that, as a general proposition, the requirements of Rule 26 constitute a meaningless formality. Although the prisoners may disagree about its application to their case, “the formal requirements of Rule 26 are not pointless.” Hoffman v. Caterpillar, Inc., 368 F.3d 709, 714 (7th Cir. 2004). Litigants would be well advised to conform their conduct in litigation to the Rules. Under Rule 26, [a] party who has made a disclosure under subdivision
disclosure or response is under a duty to supplement or correct the disclosure or response to include information thereafter acquired if ordered by the court or in the following circumstances: .... (2) A party is under a duty seasonably to amend No. 03-3318 25 a prior response to an interrogatory, request for production, or request for admission if the party learns that the response is in some material re- spect incomplete or incorrect and if the additional or corrective information has not otherwise been made known to the other parties during the discovery process or in writing. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(e). The prisoners submit that they complied with Rule 26 because they produced affidavits with their response to IDOC’s summary judgment motion that stated clearly their allegation that the transfer forms state false reasons for the prisoners’ transfers. They contend that the affidavits “otherwise . . . made known . . . in writing” to IDOC that the prisoners contested the truthfulness of their placement forms and therefore complied with Rule 26. Accordingly, they submit, they are excused from actually amending their 20 interrogatories. 20 It appears from the record that the prisoners argued for the first time in this appeal that by submitting their affidavits they complied with Rule 26’s “otherwise . . . made known” clause. This is not the argument that they made before the district court. Rather, in opposing the State’s motion to strike their evidence, the prisoners asserted several points. First, they contended that the affidavits were consistent with their interrogatory answers. Second, the prisoners noted that they informed the IDOC officials that they would supplement their interrogatory answers if the officials specified what information was missing—a specification that the prisoners never received. Third, they argued that any failure to amend their interrogatories should be excused because they were swamped with discovery only two months before the (continued...) 26 No. 03-3318 The prisoners’ argument has merit. The present situation is governed by the “otherwise” clause in Rule 26(e)(2). See Gutierrez v. AT&T Broadband, LLC, 382 F.3d 725, 733 (7th Cir. 2004). Although the prisoners did not amend their interrogatory answers, their response to IDOC’s summary judgment motion placed the officials on written notice that the prisoners challenged the placement forms’ veracity. There was no unfair surprise in the prisoners’ failure to amend their interrogatories, especially given IDOC’s delay in producing the relevant documents. The prisoners’ submissions complied with Rule 26. Because the district court declined to consider the prisoners’ contention that information in their placement forms was false, it assumed the forms to be true when analyzing IDOC’s rationale for transferring the plaintiffs. The prisoners were left only with chronologies indicating that their transfers were suspicious; the district court found these chronologies to be inadequate to allow the prisoners to survive summary judgment. We cannot say whether the 20 (...continued) motion was heard and more than two years after they first requested the documents. We ordinarily refuse to consider arguments not made before the district court. However, we also hold fast to the principle that a defense of waiver may itself be waived if not raised. See Riemer v. Illinois Dep’t of Transp., 148 F.3d 800, 804 n.4 (7th Cir. 1998). In their submission to this court, IDOC’s waiver argument on this issue is focused solely on the adequacy of the prisoners’ brief; the officials do not argue that the appellants have waived their contention that submitting affidavits complied with their Rule 26 obligations. We therefore find that IDOC waived any waiver argument on this issue, and we will consider the prisoners’ submission. No. 03-3318 27 district court would have reached the same conclusion had it considered, in addition to the chronologies, evidence that IDOC relied on false placement forms in transferring the prisoners, or other evidence establishing that the prisoners were transferred in retaliation for their litigation activities. The district court should have considered the prisoners’ allegations and summary judgment based on its refusal to 21 do so was inappropriate. 21 Even if the prisoners had failed to comply with Rule 26 by not amending their interrogatory responses, we do not believe that the district court should have excluded the prisoners’ evidence as a sanction. Rule 37 provides that a party who fails to amend an interrogatory response under Rule 26(e)(2) “is not, unless such failure is harmless, permitted to use as evidence . . . information not so disclosed.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(c)(1) (emphasis added). Notably, contrary to what the prisoners seem to argue here, there is no sliding scale of sanctions under Rule 37. In the Rule 26(a) context, we have noted that “the sanction of exclusion is automatic and mandatory unless the sanctioned party can show that its violation of Rule 26(a) was either justified or harmless.” Salgado v. Gen. Motors Corp., 150 F.3d 735, 742 (7th Cir. 1998). Similarly, here once the district court found a Rule 26 violation, it was obligated to exclude the offered evidence unless the prisoners’ failure to amend was harmless or justified. See Williams v. Morton, 343 F.3d 212, 222 (3d Cir. 2003). The determination of whether a failure is harmless or justified is left to the broad discretion of the district court. David v. Caterpillar, Inc., 324 F.3d 851, 857 (7th Cir. 2003). The trial court need not make explicit findings regarding a justification or the harmlessness of the Rule 26 violation, id., but we have indicated that the following factors should guide the (continued...) 28 No. 03-3318 21 (...continued) district court’s discretion: (1) the prejudice or surprise to the party against whom the evidence is offered; (2) the ability of the party to cure the prejudice; (3) the likelihood of disruption to the trial; and (4) the bad faith or willfulness involved in not disclosing the evidence at an earlier date. Id. (citing, among others, Bronk v. Ineichen, 54 F.3d 425, 428 (7th Cir. 1995)). In this case, the prisoners argued in their response to IDOC’s motion to strike that any violation of Rule 26 on their part was harmless. The district court responded to this argument with a single sentence: “The Court finds that Plaintiffs have not submitted sufficient justification for their failure to amend their interrogatory responses and that this failure is not harmless.” R.106 at 6. The district court’s one-sentence discussion of the issue before imposing a Rule 37 sanction did not constitute the “thoughtful discussion” that would assure us that the court considered the David factors. David, 324 F.3d at 858. Indeed, our review of the history of this case indicates that application of the David factors leads to a conclusion that any Rule 26 violation was harmless. There is no evidence that the prisoners’ failure to amend their interrogatory responses was the result of willfulness or bad faith; indeed, it seems clear that IDOC resisted producing discovery, delayed in submitting the placement forms and, in the end, deluged the prisoners with document production shortly before the district court resolved its summary judgment motion. Nor can we say that the prisoners’ failure to amend their interrogatory responses prejudiced or surprised IDOC because the prisoners offered their falsification theory shortly after discovering it through IDOC’s late discovery. Indeed, if there was prejudice in this case it was to the plaintiffs, based on IDOC’s delayed production. Cf. Rosario v. Livaditis, 963 F.2d 1013, 1019 (7th Cir. 1992) (“A party who fails to pursue discovery in the face (continued...) No. 03-3318 29