Trais F. Haire v. Matthew Burns

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted December 18, 2024*
Decided December 23, 2024
Before
ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
NANCY L. MALDONADO, Circuit Judge
No. 24-1678
TRAIS F. HAIRE,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
MATTHEW BURNS, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of
Wisconsin.
No. 23-C-912
William C. Griesbach,
Judge.
O R D E R
Trais Haire, a Wisconsin prisoner, appeals the summary judgment against him
based on his failure to exhaust administrative remedies before bringing a failure-to-
intervene claim under the Eighth Amendment. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Because 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. 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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. 24-1678 Page 2
undisputed facts show that Haire did not comply with the prison’s grievance
procedures in the time and manner required of him, see id. § 1997e(a), we affirm.
We construe the facts and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of Haire, the
party opposing summary judgment. See Jackson v. Esser, 105 F.4th 948, 961 (7th Cir.
2024). On December 30, 2022, while Haire was incarcerated at Waupun Correctional
Center, his cellmate attacked him. The cellmate punched him, kicked him, and slammed
him into a bed frame, opening a severe gash on one side of his head. The cellmate also
destroyed Haire’s television and headphones. Haire now asserts that correctional
officers stood nearby and did not intervene to restrain his cellmate or end the attack. As
a result of the attack, Haire was placed in restrictive housing and later spent months in
secure confinement during a prison lockdown.
On January 13, 2023, while in restrictive housing, Haire submitted an inmate
complaint (#2023-769) about the destruction of his property. He complained that his
cellmate attacked him and broke his television and headphones while five correctional
officers stood outside the cell door. He asked that his cellmate buy him a new television.
The prison’s complaint administrator denied his claim. Haire appealed to the complaint
administrator, but the appeal was denied.
On June 14, 2023, Haire submitted a second inmate complaint (#2023-9111),
charging prison staff with failing to protect him during the attack. He wrote that
correctional officers should have restrained his cellmate and taken the cellmate to the
mental health ward. The administrator denied the inmate complaint as untimely
because Haire had neither submitted it within 14 days of the incident nor provided
good cause for the delay. W IS . A DMIN . C ODE DOC § 310.07(2) (2018). He did not appeal
the denial.
Haire then brought this suit, asserting an Eighth Amendment claim that prison
officials had failed to protect him from harm during the attack, along with a
supplemental state-law negligence claim. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The defendants moved
for summary judgment on the grounds that Haire failed to exhaust his administrative
remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act because he did not submit complaint
#2023-9111 within the requisite 14 days and, alternatively, failed to appeal the denial of
that complaint. Haire opposed the motion, asserting that (1) he could not comply with
the deadline because he was in restrictive housing and could not obtain a complaint
form; (2) while in restrictive housing and after being released into general population,
he did not have access to the inmate handbook containing the exhaustion rules; and
(3) he had adequately raised the failure-to-intervene claim in complaint #2023-769, his
timely complaint about property damage.

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No. 24-1678 Page 3
The district court granted the defendants’ motion. The court agreed with the
defendants that Haire failed to timely file an inmate complaint over the incident and
then neglected to take an administrative appeal of the denied complaint #2023-9111. To
the extent Haire thought that his first complaint about lost property served to exhaust
his failure-to-protect claim, the court rejected the argument, explaining that nothing in
that submission clearly identified a failure-to-protect issue—his mention of the
correctional officers was only to confirm his version of events and establish the relief he
wanted (restitution from the cellmate for the property damage).
On appeal, Haire first asserts that complaint #2023-769 served to exhaust his
administrative remedies because he filed it “to the best of his knowledge,” given his
lack of access to an administrative handbook. But in complaint #2023-769, which
addressed only the destruction of Haire’s television and headphones during the attack,
Haire did not give the prison “notice of, and an opportunity to correct, a problem.”
Turley v. Rednour, 729 F.3d 645, 650 (7th Cir. 2013). This complaint focused on the fact
that he wanted his cellmate to purchase a new television for him. Nowhere in the
complaint did Haire allege that any prison guards had reason to know that an attack
might occur and failed to take appropriate measures to prevent it. See Doxtator v.
O’Brien, 39 F.4th 852, 864–65 (7th Cir. 2022). That is fatal to his claim because
Wisconsin’s administrative procedure requires inmates to identify one single issue per
complaint, WIS . A DMIN. C ODE DOC § 310.07(5) (2018), and the issue identified in
complaint #2023-769 was a dispute between inmates.
Next, Haire argues that he had good cause for filing complaint #2023-9111 six
months late, citing his lack of access to inmate complaint forms and the administrative
handbook while he was in restrictive housing, and loss of the handbook even after he
was released into general population. But Haire did not comply with the prison’s
administrative rules, which required that he “request to file a late complaint in the
written complaint and explicitly provide the reason for the late filing.” WIS . A DMIN .
C ODE DOC § 310.07(2) (2018). In complaint #2023-9111, he did not mention inaccessible
complaint forms or lack of access to his handbook as reasons for the delay; in fact, in
that complaint he gave no explanation for the untimely submission. And on appeal,
Haire tries to show good cause through conclusory, unsworn statements, but these are
insufficient to avoid summary judgment. See Daugherty v. Page, 906 F.3d 606, 611
(7th Cir. 2018).
AFFIRMED

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