Don Collins v. Rob Jeffreys

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted March 28, 2023*
Decided April 3, 2023
Before
DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge
ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge
No. 22-2679
DON COLLINS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
ROB JEFFREYS, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 20 C 6555
John Z. Lee,
Judge.
O R D E R
Don Collins, a former Illinois prisoner, appeals the dismissal of his complaint
alleging that prison staff failed to protect him from an attack by another prisoner. At
screening the district judge dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. Because
* The appellees were not served with process and are not participating in this
appeal. We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the appeal is
frivolous. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(A).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 22-2679 Page 2
Collins did not allege that any defendant knew the assailant was likely to target him, we
affirm.
We accept Collins’s allegations as true and draw all reasonable inferences in his
favor. See Schillinger v. Kiley, 954 F.3d 990, 994 (7th Cir. 2020). Collins is an older white
man who was formerly incarcerated at the Joliet Treatment Center in Illinois. (Although
Collins initiated this suit while incarcerated, he now is on parole.) Shortly after arriving
at the prison, Collins was informed that a “known enemy” was in his dorm. Collins
later moved to a different wing and was told by a defendant guard that he had two
more unidentified enemies in the prison.
Soon thereafter, a prisoner Collins identifies as “C.W.” attacked him in a
common area, knocking him unconscious and breaking several teeth and facial bones.
According to Collins, C.W. has a “well known history” of violence against prisoners
who are older white men—though Collins does not specify who knew this or how.
Collins sued several prison officials for violating his Eighth Amendment rights
by disregarding the substantial risk of harm that C.W. posed to him. See 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983. The judge screened Collins’s complaint, see 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(a), and dismissed
it without prejudice for failure to state a claim. Although prisoners can state a claim for
the prison staff’s failure to protect them from a prisoner known to target others with a
particular characteristic (e.g., race), Brown v. Budz, 398 F.3d 904, 915 (7th Cir. 2005), the
judge determined that Collins did not allege that any named defendant knew of C.W.’s
propensity to attack older white men.
Collins amended his complaint but did so in such a disjointed, lengthy fashion
that the judge could not determine whether any prison official may potentially be liable.
The judge dismissed the amended complaint for failure to state a claim. But given the
seriousness of the attack and Collins’s demonstrated difficulty in articulating his claim,
the judge recruited counsel for Collins. (The judge ultimately permitted counsel to
withdraw after she represented that filing a second amended complaint would be
inconsistent with Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.)
Collins filed his second amended complaint pro se. He added a new theory of
deliberate indifference—that the prison failed to provide adequate mental-health care or
to assess prisoners’ security threats. The judge dismissed this complaint after
determining that Collins still did not allege how any prison official knew about C.W.’s
violent propensities. Having permitted Collins multiple opportunities to amend his

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No. 22-2679 Page 3
complaint, the judge determined that further amendment would be futile and directed
that the dismissal be with prejudice.
On appeal Collins argues that the judge ignored an allegation that creates an
inference that the defendants knew about C.W.’s propensity to attack older white
inmates. According to Collins, information regarding C.W.’s likelihood to target him
could have been in the database used by the prison to track security threats, and this
information could have been accessed by the defendants. But these allegations merely
say that the defendants potentially harmed Collins—not that they did—and allegations
that are “merely consistent with” liability are insufficient to state a claim for relief.
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544,
557 (2007)).
Next, Collins asserts that the judge should have inferred that prison staff knew of
the substantial risk that C.W. posed to him, given his known “enemies.” Collins,
however, did not allege any ties between C.W. and these enemies. A substantial risk
requires more than a generalized risk of harm. Thomas v. Dart, 39 F.4th 835, 843 (7th Cir.
2022); see Brown, 398 F.3d at 915. Collins’s alleged risk of harm—the threat that Collins
had unnamed enemies somewhere in the prison—is too generalized to state a claim.
Finally, Collins argues that the unsafe nature of his former prison—a correctional
facility that lacks adequate mental-health services—put the defendants on notice that
any prisoner was at risk of a violent attack from untreated prisoners. But as the judge
appropriately concluded, a generalized risk of violence is insufficient to state a
deliberate-indifference claim. Thomas, 39 F.4th at 843; Weiss v. Cooley, 230 F.3d 1027, 1032
(7th Cir. 2000).
AFFIRMED

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