Brent Taylor v. Dawn Buss & Dennis Lewton

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted July 9, 2025*
Decided July 10, 2025
Before
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
JOSHUA P. KOLAR, Circuit Judge
No. 24-2616
BRENT TAYLOR,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
DAWN BUSS & DENNIS LEWTON,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Indiana, South Bend Division.
No. 3:21-CV-852-PPS-AZ
Philip P. Simon,
Judge.
O R D E R
Brent Taylor, an Indiana prisoner who needs prescription eyeglasses, appeals the
grant of summary judgment rejecting his claims that the prison’s optometrist was
deliberately indifferent to his eye condition and that a deputy warden retaliated against
him for complaining about his medical needs. We affirm.
* 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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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We construe the following facts in favor of Taylor, the nonmovant at summary
judgment. Clemons v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., 106 F.4th 628, 634 (7th Cir. 2024).
Taylor, who was down to his last pair of contact lenses, was seen in July 2021 by an
optometrist, Dr. Dennis Lewton. Lewton had been contracted by Indiana State Prison to
provide optometry care to prisoners. Lewton diagnosed Taylor with nearsightedness
but otherwise found him in good ocular health. Lewton then sent Taylor’s eyeglasses
prescription to the prison medical staff to be filled. Lewton told Taylor that it would
take two to three weeks for the eyeglasses to be delivered.
For reasons not explained in the record, the prescribed eyeglasses never arrived.
Taylor tried to navigate the prison without eyewear but kept bumping his head into
objects. He resorted to his last pair of contact lenses, which had expired, and soon
developed an eye infection. A few weeks later, Taylor filed a grievance about the
missing eyeglasses and his eye infection. He was told by the grievance specialist to
submit a health care request form about his eye infection, though the record does not
reflect whether he did so. Prison officials eventually reordered Taylor’s eyeglasses,
which he received in late November 2021. Lewton saw Taylor again in March 2022 and
noted no sign of an eye infection.
In the meantime, in October 2021, Taylor wrote to the prison’s deputy warden,
Dawn Buss, about his delayed eyeglasses and the inadequate care he received for his
eye infection. Buss responded, Taylor maintains, by retaliating against him. First, Taylor
says, Buss directed another prisoner, Matthew Thies—who facilitated a
personal-development course Taylor attended—to threaten to remove him from the
class unless he stopped complaining about medical care. Second, Buss, who oversaw
the prison’s law library, limited Taylor’s library access.
Taylor then brought this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Lewton, Buss, and
Warden Ron Neal, among others. District Judge Miller screened Taylor’s complaint
under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A and allowed him to proceed with a claim against Lewton for
deliberate indifference to his eyecare needs, in violation of his rights under the Eighth
Amendment. The judge also allowed Taylor to proceed with a retaliation claim against
Buss, in violation of his rights under the First Amendment. The judge dismissed Neal
and the remaining defendants from the case either because they were not personally
involved in Taylor’s medical care or because Taylor did not sufficiently allege that the
delay of prescription eyeglasses was a systemic problem at the prison.

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No. 24-2616 Page 3
Lewton and Buss then moved for summary judgment. District Judge Simon, to
whom the case had been reassigned, granted summary judgment for Lewton because
he was not personally involved in the delay of Taylor’s eyeglasses and had no personal
knowledge about Taylor’s eye infection. The judge also granted summary judgment for
Buss because there was no admissible evidence that she retaliated against Taylor by
threatening to remove him from his class and limiting his library access.
On appeal, Taylor challenges the summary judgment ruling and argues—
starting with his Eighth Amendment claim of deliberate indifference—that the judge
discounted Lewton’s awareness of an infection risk arising out of the delayed
eyeglasses. A delay in treating a non-life-threatening but painful condition may
constitute deliberate indifference if the delay exacerbates the injury or prolongs the
prisoner’s pain. See Reck v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., 27 F.4th 473, 483 (7th Cir. 2022)
(delay in treating painful perianal abscess resulting from Crohn’s disease).
To establish an Eighth Amendment claim premised on inadequate medical care,
the plaintiff must show that he suffered from an objectively serious medical condition
and that the defendant was subjectively aware of, and deliberately indifferent to, that
condition. Munson v. Newbold, 46 F.4th 678, 681 (7th Cir. 2022). As the judge here
concluded, Taylor cannot satisfy the subjective component: Taylor presented no
evidence that Lewton was ever aware of his eye infection. The record shows that Taylor
began complaining about an eye infection in August 2021 (a month after he was seen by
Lewton), that Lewton did not note any eye infection during his visits with Taylor, and
that Lewton never learned about Taylor’s complaints about an eye infection. To the
extent Taylor asserts that Lewton was the primary official responsible for ordering
glasses at the prison, the evidence shows that Lewton’s only involvement in ordering
Taylor’s eyeglasses was sending the prescription to prison officials.
Next, Taylor argues—with regard to his claim of First Amendment retaliation—
that the judge overlooked a remark purportedly made to him by Thies, acknowledging
Buss’s directive that Taylor be threatened with removal from prison courses for
complaining about his delayed eyeglasses. To establish a prima facie case of First
Amendment retaliation, Taylor had to prove that (1) he engaged in activity protected by
the First Amendment; (2) that an adverse action was taken against him; and (3) his First
Amendment activity was at least a factor that motivated the adverse action. Adams v.
Reagle, 91 F.4th 880, 887 (7th Cir. 2024). Here, no reasonable jury could find that Buss
retaliated against Taylor because there was no admissible evidence that Buss directed
Thies to threaten to remove Taylor from prison courses. Thies’s out-of-court statements

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about Buss’s directives are inadmissible hearsay. See F ED. R. EVID. 801(c). To the extent
Taylor proposes that Thies’s statements fall under the hearsay exception in
Rule 801(d)(2)(D) (agent of a party opponent), his proposal fails because he never put
forward evidence that Thies was Buss’s employee or that Thies’s statements were made
within the scope of an employment relationship. See Hildreth v. Butler, 960 F.3d 420, 429
(7th Cir. 2020).
Taylor relatedly argues that he can show retaliation on Buss’s part based on the
suspicious timing between his October letter and the reduction of his library time a
month later. But suspicious timing alone will rarely suffice to create a triable issue of
fact. Manuel v. Nalley, 966 F.3d 678, 681 (7th Cir. 2020) (citing Loudermilk v. Best Pallet Co.,
636 F.3d 312, 315 (7th Cir. 2011)). And, here, a month elapsed between Taylor’s October
letter to Buss and the reduction of his access to the library—too long a period to support
an inference of retaliation. See FKFJ, Inc. v. Vill. of Worth, 11 F.4th 574, 586–87 (7th Cir.
2021). Regardless, as Judge Simon noted, Buss attested that she was not involved in the
library’s day-to-day management (which included preparing passes for prisoner
access), and no evidence suggests that she ever ordered prison officials to limit his
library time.
We close by acknowledging a challenge that Taylor makes to one aspect of Judge
Miller’s screening order—the judge’s decision that Taylor did not state an Eighth
Amendment claim against Warden Neal and Buss on a theory that they were
deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs. Taylor points to allegations in his
complaint that they ignored letters he sent them complaining about the delayed
eyeglasses, inadequate treatment for his eye infection, and subpar eyecare that he
regarded as a systemic problem at the prison.
This argument fails for several reasons. First, Taylor did not allege that Neal and
Buss were personally involved in procuring eyeglasses and treating medical conditions
at the prison. See Gonzalez v. McHenry Cnty., 40 F.4th 824, 828 (7th Cir. 2022).
Nonmedical prison officials—like Neal and Buss—who delegate the treatment of
medical conditions to the prison’s medical staff are not deliberately indifferent for doing
so. Burks v. Raemisch, 555 F.3d 592, 595 (7th Cir. 2009). Second, Taylor did not allege that
his correspondence to Neal and Buss was sufficient to alert them that his medical issues
posed an excessive risk to his health or safety. See Ollison v. Gossett, 136 F.4th 729, 738
(7th Cir. 2025); see also Vance v. Peters, 97 F.3d 987, 994 (7th Cir. 1996). Third, Taylor’s
allegations that other unidentified prisoners experienced delays in receiving eyeglasses

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were too cursory to state a claim that Neal and Buss disregarded systemic deficiencies
in the prison’s provision of eyecare. See Ollison, 136 F.4th at 737–38.
AFFIRMED

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