Marzono Shelly v. Scott Fischer

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted July 24, 2025*
Decided July 24, 2025
Before
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
NANCY L. MALDONADO, Circuit Judge
No. 24-2203
MARZONO SHELLY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
SCOTT FISCHER,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Southern District of
Indiana, Terre Haute Division.
No. 2:22-cv-00065-JMS-MG
Jane Magnus-Stinson,
Judge.
No. 24-2204
MARZONO SHELLY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Southern District of
Indiana, Terre Haute Division.
No. 2:22-cv-00068-JMS-MG
* We have agreed to decide the cases 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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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Nos. 24-2203 & 24-2204 Page 2
JEFFREY STUPPY, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees. Jane Magnus-Stinson,
Judge.
O R D E R
In this consolidated appeal, Marzono Shelly, an Indiana prisoner, challenges the
district court’s orders in two cases that sanctioned him for knowingly submitting forged
documents as evidence. We affirm.
In 2022, Shelly filed separate lawsuits against prison officials at Wabash Valley
Correctional Facility in Carlisle, Indiana, for violating his constitutional rights.
See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In the first suit (No. 2:22-cv-00065-JMS-MG), Shelly asserted that
Scott Fischer, a correctional officer, retaliated against him in violation of his rights
under the First Amendment by searching Shelly after he filed a grievance against
Fischer. Further proceedings ensued. Shelly responded to Fischer’s motion for summary
judgment by submitting two purported grievance responses that acknowledged
Fischer’s misconduct. Fischer, however, disclaimed the grievance responses as forged
and sought sanctions against Shelly for falsifying evidence. In support, Fischer
introduced affidavits from both the prison’s “litigation liaison” and grievance
specialists (whose signatures appeared on the responses) denying that the grievance
responses were authentic. The grievance specialists added that they were not even
employed in their positions when the responses purportedly were written.
Meanwhile, in a second suit (No. 2:22-cv-00068-JMS-MG), Shelly asserted that
three prison officials violated his rights under the Eighth Amendment when they
moved him for one year to a cell that they knew contained mold, causing him to
experience headaches, sinus infections, and shortness of breath. The defendants later
sought summary judgment based on a failure of proof. Shelly responded with evidence
that included a purported grievance response acknowledging the presence of black
mold in his cell. The defendants (who were represented by the same counsel as Fischer)
asserted that Shelly’s grievance response also was forged, and they too moved for
sanctions. As in Fischer’s case, the defendants supported their motion with affidavits
from the litigation liaison and grievance specialist denying that the grievance response
was authentic.
Because the defendants in both suits moved at the same time for sanctions
against Shelly based on similar alleged misconduct, the district court held a joint
hearing on the motions. Based on testimony from the litigation liaison and the

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Nos. 24-2203 & 24-2204 Page 3
grievance specialists, the court found that the responses were forged and that Shelly
had submitted them in bad faith. The court relied on its inherent authority to strike
Shelly’s summary-judgment responses, to grant the defendants’ motions for summary
judgment and for sanctions, to dismiss Shelly’s suits with prejudice, and to restrict his
ability to file papers in any civil cases with the district court for two years and until he
paid all outstanding filing fees and fines owed to any federal court.
Shelly appealed both judgments. We consolidated the appeals for purposes of
briefing and disposition.
Shelly first challenges the district court’s dismissal of his suits as a sanction for
misconduct. He argues that the court applied an incorrect preponderance-of-the-
evidence burden of proof when finding that the grievance responses were forged and
that his conduct showed bad faith. In his view, the court should have applied the more
demanding clear-and-convincing-evidence standard. But he is incorrect: Facts
supporting sanctions need be proved only by a preponderance of the evidence. Ramirez
v. T&H Lemont, Inc., 845 F.3d 772, 778–79 (7th Cir. 2016).
Shelly also argues that no evidence supported the district court’s finding that the
grievance responses were forged. But we review such findings for clear error, Martin v.
Redden, 34 F.4th 564, 568 (7th Cir. 2022), and the defendants introduced ample evidence
of forgery. The grievance specialists testified that they did not write or sign the
documents and that they did not even hold their jobs on the dates in question. And the
prison’s litigation liaison corroborated the grievance specialists’ testimony about their
employment dates. Further, the specialists each testified that the grievance responses
contained language that grievance specialists would not use, such as acknowledging the
presence of mold in a prisoner’s cell or disclosing an investigation into another prison
official’s misconduct.
Shelly next argues that, even if the grievance responses were forged, the district
court lacked an evidentiary basis to find that he forged the documents, that he knew the
documents were forged, or that he filed them in bad faith. But given the deferential
clear-error standard, the district court’s finding of bad faith was a plausible
interpretation of the evidence. As the court explained, (1) Shelly’s inability to counter
the testimony of the prison officials “leaves no doubt” that the grievance responses
were forged; (2) only Shelly had an incentive to forge the responses; (3) the most likely
source of the forged documents was Shelly, given the absence of evidence that anyone
else had an incentive to forge the documents; and (4) Shelly provided no sworn
testimony or documentary evidence to support an alternative explanation for the forged

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Nos. 24-2203 & 24-2204 Page 4
documents. None of those findings was clearly erroneous, and each supports the court’s
conclusion that Shelly acted in bad faith.
To the extent Shelly argues that dismissal was an overly harsh sanction, the
district court’s decision was an appropriate exercise of its discretion. Dismissal can be
appropriate “when the plaintiff has abused the judicial process by seeking relief based
on information that [he] knows is false.” Fulks v. Watson, 88 F.4th 1202, 1208 (7th Cir.
2023) (citation omitted). And the court here considered but properly rejected lesser
sanctions, see id., reasonably concluding that Shelly’s behavior warranted the “strongest
of sanctions” based on the gravity of his misconduct, his repeated filing of forged
documents, and his failure to take responsibility for his conduct.
AFFIRMED

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