Steven Ingalls, Jr. v. Elizabeth Bennett

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted August 4, 2026*
Decided August 4, 2026
Before
DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge
DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge
No. 25-2303
STEVEN INGALLS, JR.,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
ELIZABETH BENNETT, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Southern District of
Indiana, Terre Haute Division.
No. 2:23-cv-00221-MPB-MG
Matthew P. Brookman,
Judge.
O R D E R
Steven Ingalls, Jr., a prisoner at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility, sued
prison officials, a nurse, and Centurion Health of Indiana, LLC, alleging that they were
deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs, in violation of his rights under the
Eighth Amendment. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. After an evidentiary hearing, the district judge
* 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. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 25-2303 Page 2
dismissed the suit without prejudice, concluding that Ingalls failed to exhaust his
administrative remedies. We affirm.
The Indiana Offender Grievance Process in effect at the time set out a three-step
procedure that includes filing (1) a formal grievance; (2) a first-level appeal to the
warden; and (3) a second-level appeal to the Department of Correction’s grievance
manager. See Ind. Dep't of Corr. Pol’y & Admin. Proc., Offender Grievance Process,
No. 00-02-301, § IV (Sept. 1, 2020). For the third step, prisoners—within five business
days of receiving the first-level appeal decision—had to check the box on a form stating
that they disagreed with the warden's response, sign the form, and submit it to the
grievance specialist. See id. § XII. Upon receipt of this form, the grievance specialist had
five days to enter the second-level appeal into an electronic system before a grievance
manager completed an investigation and issued a final decision. See id.
In February 2023, Ingalls submitted a formal grievance. He complained that his
nurse, Elizabeth Bennett, failed to evaluate his reported stroke-like symptoms—
intracranial pain, impaired cognitive function, difficulty walking, numbness, and
elevated blood pressure. A prison grievance official denied the grievance, citing the
nursing staff’s reports that (1) Ingalls had sought only a blood-pressure check for
monitoring purposes and (2) medical staff directed Ingalls to submit a healthcare
request form if he wished to be evaluated. Ingalls filed a timely first-level appeal to the
warden’s designee, Mike Ellis, who denied the appeal. The grievance office had no
physical or electronic record of Ingalls submitting a second-level appeal.
Ingalls then turned to federal court and brought this § 1983 action for deliberate
indifference against his nurse, the prison officials, and Centurion Health. The district
judge screened the complaint, 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b), dismissed Ingalls’s claims against
Centurion Health (because he failed to allege that a Centurion policy or custom caused
any constitutional injury, see Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 690 (1978)), but
allowed him to proceed on his Eighth Amendment claims against the remaining
defendants.
The defendants then moved for summary judgment, contending that Ingalls
failed to exhaust administrative remedies, as required under the Prison Litigation
Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a), because he did not file a second-level appeal. Ingalls
countered with an affidavit declaring otherwise, and he attached a copy of the form that
he believed had initiated a second-level appeal. Because Ingalls’s affidavit and
supporting documentation created a genuine factual dispute over whether he

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No. 25-2303 Page 3
submitted a second-level appeal, the judge denied summary judgment and called for an
evidentiary hearing.† See Pavey v. Conley, 544 F.3d 739, 742 (7th Cir. 2008).
Before the Pavey hearing, Ingalls moved for the assistance of counsel based on his
lack of legal training. He also stated that an attorney who represented him in an
unrelated civil matter had expressed interest in representing him at the hearing. The
judge denied the motion, finding that Ingalls was a capable pro se litigant, that his
previous filings were cogent, and that the relevant dispute was limited to a credibility
issue that did not require legal training.
At the Pavey hearing, Ingalls, Carla Coakley (a grievance specialist), and Ellis (the
warden’s designee) testified about the disputed second-level appeal. Ingalls testified
that after his first-level appeal was denied, he initiated the second-level appeal by
checking the “disagree” box on the prison’s form, signing the form, and either
submitting it to his counselor or placing it in the unit’s counselor mailbox (he could not
recall which). The prison staff did not provide him with any receipt or confirmation, he
said, adding that he never followed up on the second-level appeal. Ellis, for his part,
testified that there was no electronic or physical record of Ingalls submitting a second-
level grievance. And Coakley, who testified that all submitted grievance or grievance
appeals are date-stamped upon receipt and logged in the prison’s electronic and
physical records, said she would have photocopied the stamped form of any second-
level appeal she received and, in turn, provided a copy to Ingalls.
The judge then dismissed Ingalls’s suit for failure to exhaust administrative
remedies. The judge found vague and incredible Ingalls’s testimony about submitting
the second-level appeal (e.g., his inability to recall which method he used when he
submitted the appeal, or to whom he submitted it). The judge also credited the officials’
testimony that the grievance office had no physical or electronic record of a second-
level appeal. And Ingalls’s own copy of the appeal form, the judge pointed out, was
lacking a date stamp.
† Recently, the Supreme Court abrogated our decision in Pavey v. Conley, 544 F.3d
739, 742 (7th Cir. 2008), at least under other circumstances (when the issue of exhaustion
is intertwined with the merits of a claim that is subject to a jury trial). See Perttu v.
Richards, 605 U.S. 460, 479 (2025). But Ingalls’ claim is not intertwined with the
exhaustion issue, and he does not argue to the contrary.

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No. 25-2303 Page 4
On appeal, Ingalls asserts that the judge wrongly credited the prison officials’
testimony over his at the Pavey hearing. But Ingalls points to nothing in the record—
beyond his own hearing testimony and his unstamped copy of the appeal form—to
suggest that the judge’s factual findings and credibility determinations were clearly
erroneous. See Wilborn v. Ealey, 881 F.3d 998, 1004 (7th Cir. 2018). We defer to findings
based on witness credibility, id. at 1006, and here the officials gave uncontroverted
testimony that the grievance office had no record of a second-level appeal, and that any
second-level appeal submitted by Ingalls would have been recorded. And Ingalls’s own
testimony of submitting the second-level appeal, the judge noted, was vague and
inconsistent. Because the prison officials’ testimony was neither “facially implausible”
nor “contradicted by extrinsic evidence,” we see no reason to disturb the judge’s
determinations of witness credibility. Id. at 1006–07.
Ingalls turns next to the district judge’s screening order, see 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b),
and asserts that the court did not give him the benefit of liberal construction when
dismissing his Monell claim against Centurion Health for failure to state a claim. But
even though pro se complaints like Ingalls’s must be construed liberally, we still must
consider whether his claims are plausible. See Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S.
544, 570 (2007). And Ingalls has not plausibly alleged that his constitutional rights were
violated by a Centurion policy or custom. See Monell, 436 U.S. at 694–95. In his
complaint, he described only Nurse Bennett’s treatment of his medical condition
without pointing to some policy or practice of Centurion that caused the alleged
constitutional violation. As the judge correctly explained, Monell liability cannot be
established based on the theory of respondeat superior. See Betts v. Boone Cnty., Ill.,
178 F.4th 1051, 1056 (7th Cir. 2026).
Ingalls lastly challenges the denial of his motion for assistance of counsel in
advance of the Pavey hearing. But we see no abuse of discretion in the judge’s
conclusion that Ingalls appeared competent to litigate the case himself. The hearing was
centered on a straightforward factual issue surrounding the second-level appeal, and
Ingalls had already successfully opposed the defendants’ motion for summary
judgment earlier in the case.
AFFIRMED

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