Daniel C. Stovall v. Aramark Correctional Services, LLC

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted August 18, 2026*
Decided August 19, 2026
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge
JOSHUA P. KOLAR, Circuit Judge
No. 25-1697
DANIEL C. STOVALL,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
ARAMARK CORRECTIONAL
SERVICES, LLC,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Southern District of Indiana,
Terre Haute Division.
No. 2:22-cv-00484-JPH-MJD
James Patrick Hanlon,
Judge.
O R D E R
Daniel Stovall, an Indiana prisoner, challenges the district court’s summary
judgment order rejecting his claim under the Eighth Amendment that Aramark
Correctional Services, LLC served a high-soy diet that caused him gastrointestinal
* 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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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issues. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court concluded that no reasonable jury could
conclude that Stovall’s medical condition was caused by Aramark’s diet. We affirm.
We construe the facts and draw all reasonable inferences in Stovall’s favor, the
nonmovant. See Balle v. Kennedy, 73 F.4th 545, 553 (7th Cir. 2023). In March 2022, Stovall
arrived at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility, which contracts with Aramark to
provide meals to prisoners. Shortly after his arrival, Stovall began to experience health
issues: chronic and painful constipation alternating with debilitating diarrhea,
vomiting, pain in his digestive tract, lightheadedness, insomnia, panic attacks,
depression, and brain fog. Stovall blamed his health issues on Aramark’s diet, which—
for cost-cutting reasons, he believed—relied on high amounts of soy as a substitute for
meat. Stovall says that he filed grievances about his diet, but the grievance counselor
failed to file or document them.
Stovall brought this § 1983 suit against Aramark, a grievance specialist, the
warden, the Indiana Department of Correction, and the State of Indiana. He asserted
that they knowingly served him a toxic high-soy diet in violation of his rights under the
Eighth Amendment and interfered with the grievance process in violation of his due-
process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. He moved separately for the
recruitment of counsel based on his difficulties with dyslexia, depression, and anxiety.
The district court screened the complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A and allowed
Stovall to proceed on claims that Aramark has a policy, custom, or practice of providing
an inadequate diet, see Monell v. Dep’t of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978), and has
acted negligently under state law. The court dismissed any claim against the Indiana
Department of Correction or the State of Indiana because states and their agencies are
not “persons” that may be sued under § 1983. The court also dismissed Stovall’s claim
about the grievance process because he does not have a substantive due process right to
a grievance procedure, let alone an effective one. See Grieveson v. Anderson, 538 F.3d 763,
772 (7th Cir. 2008). Soon thereafter, the court denied Stovall’s motion for recruitment of
counsel because he did not state that he made a reasonable effort to contact potential
counsel on his own.
The district court then set a pretrial schedule and, as relevant to this appeal,
required the parties to inform each other if they intended to use expert witness
testimony. The court directed the parties to disclose expert reports from each expert
witness in compliance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2)(B). Stovall soon

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No. 25-1697 Page 3
sent Aramark a list of the experts he intended to call but did not include their expert
reports.
After Aramark moved for summary judgment, Stovall responded that he had
found experts who concluded that Aramark’s diet contains dangerous amounts of soy.
Stovall attached a press release from a nutrition-focused nonprofit group touting the
testimony of four experts who testified in a deliberate-indifference lawsuit against
officials at the Illinois Department of Corrections that large amounts of soy in a prison
diet can cause serious health problems. See Harris v. Brown, No. 07–CV–3225,
2014 WL 4948229, at *1 (C.D. Ill. Sept. 30, 2014).
Stovall later filed a motion asserting that, in response to his lawsuit, Aramark
had “completely” reduced the amount of soy in its diet to “cover up [its] negligence and
wrongdoing.” The district court pointed out that Stovall’s “vague” statements were not
evidence and could not be considered at summary judgment and—to the extent that
Stovall sought for the court to take action—denied the motion.
The district court then granted Aramark’s motion for summary judgment,
determining that no reasonable jury could conclude that Aramark had any custom or
policy that caused Stovall’s health issues. The court reasoned that even if Aramark
served high-soy meals, Stovall did not provide any evidence to show a causal
connection between the meals and his medical issues. Having disposed of Stovall’s sole
federal claim, the court relinquished supplemental jurisdiction over his state-law claim.
On appeal, Stovall first argues that the district court prematurely granted
summary judgment to Aramark without giving him sufficient time to find expert
witnesses. He contends that only expert testimony could have settled the dispute over
whether Aramark had a high-soy diet that was dangerous to his health.
But Stovall did not alert the district court that he needed more time to find an
expert witness. If he believed that he needed further time for discovery to respond to
Aramark’s summary judgment motion, he should have moved under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 56(d), stating the reasons why he could not present evidence essential
to his opposition. See Foreman v. Wadsworth, 844 F.3d 620, 625 (7th Cir. 2016) (citing cases
that apply the rule to pro se litigants). But he did not seek relief under Rule 56(d) or
even inform the court, at any stage of the proceedings, that he needed assistance or
more time in finding expert witnesses. What’s more, the expert testimony that Stovall
attempted to proffer—testimony from experts with whom he had never spoken, and

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expert testimony drawn from another case about prison diets in Illinois, see Harris, 2014
WL 4948229—was rightly rejected by the district court as supported by only conjecture
or speculation. See Barnes v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., 177 F.4th 825, 831 (7th Cir.
2026).
To the extent that Stovall challenges the district court’s denial of his motion to
appoint counsel, we see no abuse of discretion. As the court rightly explained, Stovall
did not make a reasonable effort to recruit counsel on his own. See Eagan v. Dempsey,
987 F.3d 667, 682 (7th Cir. 2021).
Last, Stovall maintains that the district court should have denied summary
judgment after he told the court that Aramark—to cover up its wrongdoing—had
completely reduced the amount of soy in its diet. But a plaintiff cannot defeat summary
judgment with mere speculation, see Weaver v. Champion Petfoods USA Inc., 3 F.4th 927,
936 (7th Cir. 2021), and Stovall’s bald assertion of wrongdoing is not evidence.
AFFIRMED

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