Will Haywood v. Heather Wilhelm-Copas

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted June 23, 2026*
Decided August 6, 2026
Before
MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
JOSHUA P. KOLAR, Circuit Judge
No. 25-2098
WILL HAYWOOD,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
HEATHER WILHELM-COPAS,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of
Wisconsin.
No. 23-cv-1315-pp
Pamela Pepper,
Chief Judge.
O R D E R
Will Haywood, a Wisconsin prisoner, sued Heather Wilhelm-Copas, a
correctional officer, alleging that she failed to protect him from being sexually assaulted
by his cellmate in violation of his rights under the Eighth Amendment. See 42 U.S.C.
* 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. A PP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. A PP. P. 32.1

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No. 25-2098 Page 2
§ 1983. The district court entered summary judgment for Wilhelm-Copas because
Haywood did not exhaust his administrative remedies. But because Wilhelm-Copas has
not established that Haywood failed to exhaust, we vacate the judgment and remand
this case for further proceedings.
I.
We review de novo the entry of summary judgment for failure to exhaust
administrative remedies, construing the evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences
in favor of Haywood, the non-moving party. Jackson v. Esser, 105 F.4th 948, 956 (7th Cir.
2024). Haywood was incarcerated at Stanley Correctional Institution during the events
giving rise to this suit. Around April 2023, Haywood told Wilhelm-Copas that his
cellmate, Donterrios Bell, was sexually harassing him. Instead of separating Haywood
and Bell or reporting the harassment to prison officials, Wilhelm-Copas told Haywood
to “deal with it” and informed Bell of Haywood’s complaints. Shortly after, on April 10,
Bell attacked and sexually assaulted Haywood inside their cell, while a third prisoner
watched.
Later that evening, Bell told correctional staff that he and Haywood had gotten
into a fight. When staff found Haywood in his cell, he had a black eye, and he said that
Bell had sexually assaulted him. Haywood was taken to a local hospital, and his
medical records indicate evidence of sexual assault. The findings of the subsequent
investigation under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, see 34 U.S.C. §§ 30301–30309, are
not in the record, although Haywood tells us that the investigation found his allegations
to be unsubstantiated.
Wilhelm-Copas drafted a conduct report the day of the attack, accusing
Haywood of assaulting Bell, see WIS . A DMIN. C ODE DOC § 303.11, and improperly
permitting another inmate to enter his assigned living area, see id. § 303.54. Haywood
filed a grievance on April 28 objecting to the disciplinary proceedings, insisting that he
was not guilty, and accusing prison staff of covering up his sexual abuse. Officials
dismissed the complaint because it concerned an ongoing disciplinary proceeding.
Haywood was later found guilty of both charges. Haywood alleges that he attempted to
file another complaint and appeal the denial of his April 28 grievance on May 12 and
again on January 1, 2024. The prison has no record of a complaint or appeal from
May 12, and none of these grievances informed the prison of Wilhelm-Copas’s failure to
protect.

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No. 25-2098 Page 3
Haywood sued, accusing Wilhelm-Copas and other defendants of violating his
rights under the First and Eighth Amendments. After screening the complaint,
see 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(a), the district court permitted Haywood to pursue a claim under
the Eighth Amendment against Wilhelm-Copas for failing to protect him from Bell’s
assault. Haywood does not contest the court’s screening order.
Wilhelm-Copas moved for summary judgment, arguing that Haywood had not
exhausted his administrative remedies. She attached copies of Haywood’s April 28 and
January 1 grievances and affidavits from prison officials asserting that the prison had
no record of a written grievance concerning Wilhelm-Copas’s failure to protect. The
district court agreed, reasoning that Haywood’s grievances had not put the prison on
notice of his failure-to-protect claim.
II.
Before bringing an action under § 1983, prisoners must exhaust available
administrative remedies by following grievance procedures established by state law.
42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a); see Schillinger v. Kiley, 954 F.3d 990, 995–96 (7th Cir. 2020). In
Wisconsin, most grievances must abide by the procedures set out in § 310.07 of the
administrative code for the Department of Corrections, which requires prisoners to
submit a signed complaint to the institutional complaint examiner, either by mail or by
leaving the complaint in a designated location. W IS . A DMIN. C ODE DOC § 310.07. We
accept the district court’s finding that Haywood failed to file a formal, written
complaint under § 310.07 regarding Wilhelm-Copas’s failure to protect him.
But a different provision governs grievances “alleging sexual abuse or sexual
harassment.” WIS . A DMIN. C ODE DOC § 310.08. Under that provision, prisoners may use
“an alternative method of filing” grievances “regarding sexual abuse or harassment,”
and that seems to be so notwithstanding the requirements in § 310.07(8) that grievances
be submitted to the institutional complaint examiner. Id. Neither party addressed, in the
district court or on appeal, whether § 310.08 provided the relevant procedures for
Haywood to exhaust his administrative remedies. We requested supplemental briefing
on the matter, noting that as the movant in a motion for summary judgment, Wilhelm-
Copas had the burden of demonstrating “that the plaintiff prisoner failed to exhaust the
applicable grievance procedures and that those procedures were available to him as a
matter of law.” Jones v. Lamb, 124 F.4th 463, 467 (7th Cir. 2024) (emphasis added).
In his supplemental brief, Haywood contends that the alternative procedures of
§ 310.08 apply broadly to all claims “regarding” or “relat[ing] to” sexual abuse or

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No. 25-2098 Page 4
harassment, including his failure-to-protect claim. WIS . ADMIN. C ODE DOC
§ 310.08(1)–(2). He notes that a policy issued by the Department of Corrections states
that prisons should offer multiple ways to report allegations of sexual abuse,
harassment, retaliation, and “staff neglect or violation of responsibilities that may have
contributed to such incidents.” WIS . DOC Executive Directive 72, XIV(A).
Wilhem-Copas counters that the grievance procedures of § 310.08 apply only to
“complaints alleging sexual abuse or sexual harassment” as those terms are defined in
the regulations related to the Prison Rape Elimination Act. See WIS . A DMIN. C ODE DOC
§ 310.03(17), (18) (citing 28 C.F.R. § 115.6). (A failure to protect does not fall under those
definitions.) She distinguishes the alternative methods of reporting abuse or staff neglect
from the methods of grieving abuse for purposes of administrative exhaustion.
Neither of these interpretations was presented in the district court, and the
statute is too unsettled for us to conclude—without a more robust record—which is
correct. Section 310.08(2) refers to alternative filing methods for complaints “regarding”
sexual abuse. Words like “relating to” or “regarding” are often—though not always—
read expansively to refer to matters relevant to a given subject. See Lamar, Archer &
Cofrin, LLP v. Appling, 584 U.S. 709, 717 (2018) (discussing the similar, broad meanings
of words like “respecting,” “relat[ing] to,” “concerning,” and “regard[ing]”). If the
statute is read broadly, the allegation that Wilhelm-Copas failed to protect Haywood is
relevant to his sexual assault. On the other hand, the prefatory clause of § 310.08 refers
to complaints “alleging” sexual abuse or harassment, and a staff member’s failure to
protect is not in and of itself an act of sexual abuse. What’s missing is any evidence
about which procedures the Department of Corrections applies to claims like
Haywood’s in practice.
Other questions remain. Availability, for instance, is a fact-intensive inquiry.
Smallwood v. Williams, 59 F.4th 306, 314 (7th Cir. 2023). Prisons must tell prisoners how
to grieve their claims and may not “shroud the prisoner in a veil of ignorance” to
prevent exhaustion. Hernandez v. Dart, 814 F.3d 836, 842 (7th Cir. 2016). At the same
time, “[m]ere ambiguity might not make the administrative process unavailable,” and
prisoners are expected to “err on the side of exhaustion.” Reid v. Balota, 962 F.3d 325, 329
(7th Cir. 2020) (quoting Ross v. Blake, 578 U.S. 632, 644 (2016)). But the record does not
resolve these issues, nor have the parties had a chance to address them. On the record
as it presently stands, we cannot say that Wilhelm-Copas has carried her burden of
proving that Haywood failed to exhaust all applicable and available procedures.
See Smallwood, 59 F.4th at 315.

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No. 25-2098 Page 5
Given the open questions, the most prudent course is to remand to the district
court, leaving to its discretion whether and how to develop the record further.
Particularly relevant factual questions might include how the Wisconsin Department of
Corrections addresses grievances regarding sexual abuse and a corresponding failure to
protect; how the prison advised Haywood to file those grievances; and whether
Haywood informed prison officials of Wilhelm-Copas’s failure to protect through any
means, for example during a PREA investigation. If material factual disputes remain,
the district court must determine whether to proceed with an evidentiary hearing under
Pavey v. Conley, 544 F.3d 739 (7th Cir. 2008), or whether Haywood is entitled to a jury
trial on exhaustion because the issue of exhaustion is intertwined with the merits of
Haywood's claim, see Perttu v. Richards, 605 U.S. 460, 479 (2025).
Accordingly, we VACATE the judgment and REMAND to the district court for
further proceedings consistent with this order.

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