Mohammed Abuharba v. Craig Asselmeier

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted June 25, 2024*
Decided July 1, 2024
Before
CANDACE JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
No. 23-2893
MOHAMMED ABUHARBA,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
CRAIG ASSELMEIER, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Southern District of Illinois.
No. 20-cv-855-RJD
Reona J. Daly,
Magistrate Judge.
O R D E R
Mohammed Abuharba, an Illinois prisoner, sued a prison doctor and prison
officials alleging that they were deliberately indifferent to his pain by failing to schedule
him for a dental appointment. The district court entered summary judgment for the
* 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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. 23-2893 Page 2
defendants on Abuharba’s claims. Because there is no evidence that the defendants
actually knew of and disregarded a substantial risk of harm to Abuharba, we affirm.
I.
We recount the facts in the light most favorable to Abuharba, the party opposing
summary judgment. See Petties v. Carter, 836 F.3d 722, 727 (7th Cir. 2016) (en banc). In
October 2019, Abuharba noticed that he had greenish-brown buildup on his teeth and
receding gums. He says these ailments caused him severe pain and hindered his ability
to sleep and eat firm foods. Over the course of the month, he submitted four sick-call
requests—“kites,” in prison lingo—asking to see a dentist. None of his requests was
answered.
The following month, Abuharba submitted a grievance to prison administrators
in which he described his discomfort and lack of treatment:
For several weeks now I have been submitting requests to dental to examine a
dental issue I’ve been having, which is causing my gums to recede. I have not
received any treatment yet, and I am still suffering from this condition. This
blatant refusal to treat my condition is amounting to negligence and deliberate
indifference, and is causing me injury.
Prison officials forwarded the grievance to prison dentist Craig Asselmeier, who
responded within a week that the dental unit had received “NO kites at all from
Abuharba since January 2018.” If Abuharba had a dental issue, Dr. Asselmeier added,
“he is advised to send us a kite.” Dr. Asselmeier says he does not recall if he asked an
office assistant to put Abuharba on a list to be seen.
About three weeks after receiving Dr. Asselmeier’s response, Lori Oakley, a
grievance officer, denied the grievance as “moot.” In her report, she repeated
Dr. Asselmeier’s statement that the dental department had not received any kites from
Abuharba since January 2018 and that Abuharba needed to raise his dental concerns in
a kite. Oakley later testified that her role at the prison included forwarding medical
grievances to medical personnel so they could determine appropriate treatment, and
that she had no authority to place Abuharba on a list for a dental appointment. A
designee for Warden Frank Lawrence reviewed the grievance and agreed with Oakley’s
determination on Lawrence’s behalf.

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No. 23-2893 Page 3
Abuharba appealed the denial of his grievance to the Administrative Review
Board. Board member Amy Burle returned the submission to Abuharba, asking him to
resubmit it with a copy of his original grievance. The next day Abuharba did so and
included a letter stating that he had a “dental issue” that was not being treated, and that
he had since submitted additional sick call requests but had yet to be seen by a dentist.
Burle did not respond to this letter or take any action on Abuharba’s behalf.
Eight months after sending his letter to Burle with no response, Abuharba filed
this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 seeking damages and injunctive relief in the form of
dental treatment. He sued Dr. Asselmeier, Oakley, Lawrence, and Burle for deliberate
indifference in violation of his rights under the Eighth Amendment.
Four months later, in January 2021, Abuharba finally received a dental check-up.
Dr. Asselmeier noticed that Abuharba had light plaque buildup on his teeth, affecting
his gums, but no gum disease. Dr. Asselmeier scheduled him for a dental cleaning to
remove the plaque.
The case proceeded to discovery, and the district court ultimately granted the
defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The court ruled that a jury could conclude
that Abuharba’s pain was a serious medical need, but no evidence showed that any
defendant disregarded a substantial risk of harm to Abuharba. Regarding
Dr. Asselmeier, the court concluded that his response to Abuharba’s gum pain in
November 2019—that the dental department had not received any requests for
treatment and that Abuharba needed to submit a kite—did not reflect unconcern with
Abuharba’s condition but rather “an unwillingness to accept grievances in place of kites
for dental appointments.” As for the other defendant prison officials, the court
concluded they had no reason to think that the dental department was ignoring
treatment requests, so they could rely on Dr. Asselmeier’s response to Abuharba’s
grievance.
II.
To get past summary judgment on his Eighth Amendment claim, Abuharba
needed to provide evidence suggesting that the defendants knew about a serious
medical condition but disregarded it. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 839–40 (1994);
Petties, 836 F.3d at 727–28. Prison officials cannot be liable under the Eighth
Amendment if they were unaware of even an obvious risk to Abuharba’s health. Petties,
836 F.3d at 728. We review the summary judgment ruling de novo. Id. at 727.

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No. 23-2893 Page 4
On appeal, Abuharba argues that a fact question exists over whether
Dr. Asselmeier acted with deliberate indifference—specifically, by not placing him on a
list to be seen by the dental department upon learning of his grievance seeking care. But
as the district court explained, the instructive nature of Dr. Asselmeier’s response does
not suggest that he was deliberately indifferent to Abuharba’s serious medical need.
Rather, the evidence reflects that Dr. Asselmeier checked the records, saw no recent
kites from Abuharba, had no reason to believe that the dental unit would ignore
Abuharba’s kites, and directed Abuharba to submit a kite. In any event, Abuharba’s
grievance did not put Dr. Asselmeier on notice that Abuharba had a serious medical
condition that needed addressing immediately. See Vance v. Peters, 97 F.3d 987, 993
(7th Cir. 1996) (prisoner’s communications with officials must alert officials to excessive
risk in health or safety).
Abuharba next argues that it is a question for a jury whether Oakley, the
grievance counselor, acted with deliberate indifference by turning a blind eye to
Abuharba’s quest for dental treatment—namely, by denying his grievance and relying
on Dr. Asselmeier’s instruction that he needed to file a kite to obtain an appointment.
But it is not apparent to us that a non-medical defendant like Oakley had “any duty to
do more than [she] did, in light of [her] knowledge of the situation.” Hayes v. Snyder,
546 F.3d 516, 527 (7th Cir. 2008). She testified that she was responsible for forwarding
medical concerns to the medical department, which in turn would determine whether
treatment was required, and that is exactly what she did. Abuharba says that Oakley
should have put him on a list to be seen by a dentist, but he points to no evidence to
contest her statement that she lacked authority to do so.
Abuharba also challenges the summary judgment entered in favor of
Administrative Review Board member Burle, who he says “took no action” to ensure
that he be examined, even after Abuharba told Burle that he had submitted additional
requests for treatment and had yet to be seen. We note that of all the defendants sued,
Burle seems to have been best positioned to intervene and take steps to ensure that
Abuharba’s unaddressed dental needs be taken care of. Indeed, she testified that “if an
individual in custody submitted a request slip to dental to have an exam completed,
and they were not added to the list to be seen by dental, I could recommend that they
be seen by dental.”
The record, however, does not reflect that Burle had notice from the materials
before her that Abuharba was suffering from a medical condition that was serious. A
prisoner who seeks to establish deliberate indifference through communications with a

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No. 23-2893 Page 5
prison official “has the burden of demonstrating that the communication, in its content
and manner of transmission, gave the prison official sufficient notice to alert him or her
to ‘an excessive risk to inmate health or safety.’” Vance, 97 F.3d at 993 (quoting Farmer,
511 U.S. at 837). In his grievance, Abuharba wrote only that he was “suffering” from a
“dental issue … causing [his] gums to recede.” His letter to Burle said simply that he
had a “dental issue.” This was not sufficient detail to apprise Burle that he was
experiencing pain severe to the point of being a serious medical need. Because nothing
in the record suggests that Burle was aware of Abuharba’s serious medical need, he
cannot show that she acted with deliberate indifference. See Petties, 836 F.3d at 728.
We close with a word about Abuharba’s claim against Warden Lawrence. To the
extent Abuharba believes that Lawrence was deliberately indifferent by allowing his
designee to approve Oakley’s denial of the grievance, as we have already stated, the
grievance could not have put Lawrence on notice of a serious medical need.
AFFIRMED

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