Gilberto Gonzalez v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc.

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted May 16, 2022*
Decided May 16, 2022
Before
MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge
DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge
No. 19-2951
GILBERTO GONZALEZ,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
WEXFORD HEALTH SOURCES,
INC., et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Southern District of Illinois.
No. 17-cv-287-NJR-GCS
Nancy J. Rosenstengel,
Chief Judge.
O R D E R
Gilberto Gonzalez, an Illinois inmate, fractured his thumb while incarcerated at
Menard Correctional Center and received treatment beginning the next day. Gonzalez
sued Wexford Health Sources, Inc., and prison employees, raising two Eighth
Amendment claims. He contends, first, that the care for his thumb and, second, that the
conditions in his cell amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The district court
* 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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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entered summary judgment for the defendants. It correctly ruled that Gonzalez did not
supply evidence suggesting that any defendant provided inadequate care or created
unconstitutional conditions of confinement. Thus, we affirm.
We recount the facts and draw all reasonable inferences in Gonzalez’s favor.
Logan v. City of Chicago, 4 F.4th 529, 533 n.1 (7th Cir. 2021). One morning, Gonzalez
jammed his thumb playing basketball in the prison yard. His thumb began to hurt,
swell, and turn purple. Believing his thumb to be broken, Gonzalez asked an
unidentified officer for permission to see medical staff. The officer told him to wait until
he was returned to his cell. An hour and half later, Gonzalez showed his swollen thumb
to the lieutenant who led the inmates back to their cells; the lieutenant, also
unidentified, referred him to another unnamed officer, who told him to wait. That
night, Gonzalez asked an unnamed nurse distributing medicine nearby to examine his
thumb, which had swelled more. The nurse refused, explaining that the medical unit
was short-staffed and busy tending to inmates recently transferred to Menard.
The next morning, Gonzalez began receiving care for his thumb. A nurse
prescribed ibuprofen and arranged for an x-ray that day. Staff sent the x-ray to an
outside radiologist, who assessed that Gonzalez’s thumb was slightly fractured and
ordered a follow-up x-ray. Gonzalez also saw a nurse practitioner who placed
Gonzalez’s thumb in a splint. One week later, Gonzalez returned to the medical unit for
a follow-up visit. He complained of pain, and the nurse prescribed acetaminophen and
a higher dose of ibuprofen. The next week, a nurse practitioner examined Gonzalez’s
thumb, ensured that the splint was in place, and scheduled another follow-up visit.
Gonzalez’s care continued until his thumb healed. Three weeks after the injury, a
radiologist reviewed his follow-up x-ray and found it “suggestive of some healing.”
Gonzalez had two more follow-up visits at which the nurse practitioner observed no
pain or bruising. An x-ray taken two months after the injury showed “minimal evidence
of healing” but normal bone alignment of his thumb. The radiologist recommended
another follow-up visit. Within a month, Gonzalez’s thumb had fully healed.
In this same time frame, Gonzalez raised concerns about the conditions in his
cell, which he alleged contributed to medical ailments such as headaches and high
blood pressure. He was moved three times to different cells to avoid clogged toilets that
could not be readily fixed and sinks that had to be “snaked” to eliminate odor. He
received cleaning supplies weekly, and a toothbrush, soap, and roll of tissue monthly.

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Gonzalez sued the Illinois Department of Corrections, Wexford, and prison
officials and employees (some unidentified) for violating his Eighth Amendment rights.
See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. For his first claim, he faulted the unnamed defendants who denied
him care on the day of his injury, accused prison administrators and Wexford of
deliberately understaffing medical units to prevent adequate care, and contended that
he should have received a cast, an MRI, and a specialist for his thumb. For his second
claim, Gonzalez alleged that Menard has plumbing, pest infestation, and overcrowding
problems. The district court gave Gonzalez five months to identify the unnamed
defendants and move to “substitute specific defendants for the John Does.”
Later, the district court granted the defendants’ motions for summary judgment.
It dismissed the unnamed defendants—those responsible for the delay with Gonzalez’s
treatment—for failure to name them by the deadline. In addition, it ruled that Gonzalez
did not provide evidence that the defendants had a policy of understaffing the medical
unit. Further, the court reasoned, no evidence suggested that the care that Gonzalez
received reflected deliberate indifference. Finally, the court ruled that Gonzalez did not
substantiate his allegations about unconstitutional conditions in his cell at Menard.
On appeal, Gonzalez contends that his one-day delay in treatment showed that
the defendants were deliberately indifferent to his pain after he fractured his thumb.
But Gonzalez never named the individual defendants responsible for that brief delay.
The district court warned him that he needed to identify them and gave him ample time
to discover their names. Further, Gonzalez never offered to the district court or this
court a reason for his failure to comply with the court’s deadline. Thus, the district court
acted well within its discretion to dismiss the unidentified defendants for failure to
prosecute. F ED. R. C IV. P. 41(b); see James v. McDonald’s Corp., 417 F.3d 672, 681 (7th Cir.
2005). The claim against Wexford for the delay—based on its alleged policy of
understaffing Menard’s medical unit—also fails because Gonzalez provided no
evidence of such a policy.
Gonzalez next contends that he presented evidence that the care he received
beginning the day after his injury was constitutionally inadequate. To get past summary
judgment, Gonzalez needed to supply evidence that the defendants deliberately
ignored a serious medical condition. See Petties v. Carter, 836 F.3d 722, 728–31 (7th Cir.
2016) (en banc). He did not. It is undisputed that, from the morning after his injury,
medical professionals treated Gonzalez regularly until his thumb healed. They placed
his thumb in a splint the day after his injury and reassessed the splint afterward. They
also responded to his complaints of pain by adjusting his medications to relieve his

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discomfort. Finally, to monitor the progress of his healing, he received x-rays, which an
outside radiologist reviewed, until his thumb had fully healed. Gonzalez replies that he
should have received different treatment: an MRI, a cast, and a referral to a specialist.
But he has not offered any evidence suggesting that the care he received was so paltry
that “no minimally competent professional would have so responded under those
circumstances.” Walker v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., 940 F.3d 954, 965 (7th Cir. 2019).
Finally, the district court rightly entered summary judgment on Gonzalez’s
conditions-of-confinement claim. Gonzalez has not submitted evidence that would
permit a reasonable factfinder to conclude that the conditions in his cell caused his
headaches and high blood pressure. See Gray v. Hardy, 826 F.3d 1000, 1006 (7th Cir.
2016). Moreover, the conditions that he described in his declaration and deposition
testimony—clogged plumbing and pest infestation in his cells—do not create a triable
claim. It is undisputed that after prison officials learned of these problems, they moved
Gonzalez to working cells and provided him with cleaning supplies and hygiene
products. That reasonable response complies with the Eighth Amendment. Townsend v.
Cooper, 759 F.3d 678, 687 (7th Cir. 2014).
AFFIRMED

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