Andrew D. Coe v. Darrin Atkins

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted November 4, 2025*
Decided November 6, 2025
Before
MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge
CANDACE JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge
No. 24-2565
ANDREW D. COE,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
DARRIN ATKINS, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 15 C 6869
Thomas M. Durkin,
Judge.
O R D E R
Andrew Coe sued four correctional officers and a doctor under 42 U.S.C. § 1983,
alleging they were deliberately indifferent to his need for high-top shoes to manage his
* 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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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painful foot condition. The district court entered summary judgment for the defendants.
We affirm the judgment.
We recount the facts in the light most favorable to Coe and draw all reasonable
inferences in his favor. See Riley v. Waterman, 126 F.4th 1287, 1295 (7th Cir. 2025). Coe
suffers from foot drop, a neurological condition that prevents him from using the
muscles that control his feet, leading to numbness and painful spasms. To walk, Coe
uses a cane and wears leg braces. When Coe arrived at the Northern Reception and
Classification Center in Joliet, Illinois, on September 26, 2014, he was wearing these leg
braces and a pair of high-top sneakers. Because of his foot drop, the healthcare unit
gave him a 30-day permit to keep his sneakers, instead of returning them to his family
and giving him the Center’s standard shoes, which are low-top and have no laces.
On October 9, the Center’s medical director submitted a referral to Dr. Stephen
Ritz seeking well-cushioned and arched walking shoes for Coe. The director did not
mention that Coe wore leg braces or needed specific shoes to stabilize the braces. Dr.
Ritz denied the referral because the request did “not meet Wexford policy” and Coe had
no “medical necessity for walking shoes.” Rather, Coe had “access to walking shoes in
the commissary, as well as heel cups and shoe inserts.” The director did not appeal Dr.
Ritz’s decision, and Coe’s permit expired on October 26.
Coe continued to wear his high-top sneakers for three weeks, until November 19.
That day Officers Brandi Best (née Walker) and Darrin Atkins asked him if he had
permission to wear them and Coe presented the expired medical permit. Best and
Atkins then confirmed with the health unit that the permit had expired and that no new
permit had been issued. Based on this information, the officers returned to confiscate
Coe’s shoes, giving Coe the standard shoes instead.
Later that day, Coe’s right foot slid out of his new shoe. His toe slammed into the
cement wall of his cell, causing redness, swelling, and a one-inch laceration that Coe
testified left his bone exposed. Coe received prompt treatment. A few weeks later, Coe
suffered a similar injury to a different toe when his other foot slipped out of his shoe in
the same manner. Coe testified that Officers Damian Bragg and Lorient Stanback were
nearby but did not respond as he cried out in pain. Ninety minutes later, another officer
took Coe to receive medical treatment.
Coe then sued Officers Atkins, Best, Stanback, Bragg, and Dr. Ritz for deliberate
indifference to his medical needs under the Eighth Amendment. After recruiting a

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No. 24-2565 Page 3
lawyer for Coe and proceeding through discovery, the district court entered summary
judgment for the defendants. The district court reasoned that Atkins and Best were
entitled to rely on the medical staff’s determination that Coe did not have an active
medical permit for high-top shoes. And Dr. Ritz was not deliberately indifferent for
denying him such a permit, because there was no evidence that Dr. Ritz knew that Coe
wore leg braces or needed high-top shoes when he exercised his medical judgment to
deny the referral. Finally, the district court ruled that no reasonable jury could conclude
that Bragg and Stanback exacerbated Coe’s injury or prolonged his pain.
On appeal, Coe maintains that a jury could find that Atkins, Best, and Dr. Ritz
were deliberately indifferent to his need for high-top shoes and that Bragg and Stanback
ignored his pleas for help. To prevail on these claims, Coe needed to show (1) that he
had an objectively serious medical condition and (2) prison officials were “deliberately,
that is subjectively, indifferent” to his condition. Johnson v. Dominguez, 5 F.4th 818, 824
(7th Cir. 2021) (quoting Whiting v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., 839 F.3d 658, 662 (7th Cir.
2016)). The defendants do not contest that foot drop is a serious medical condition.
Coe first argues that the district court overlooked factual disputes about Atkins’s
and Best’s knowledge of his need for high-top shoes. He reasons that, because they
oversaw his daily needs, a jury could infer that they knew he needed high-top shoes to
hold his leg braces in place. Even if the officers were aware that Coe used these shoes
and why, the prison medical staff correctly informed the officers that Coe’s medical
permit for those shoes had expired. Prison officials are entitled to defer to the medical
staff’s judgment on whether an accommodation is medically necessary. See Giles v.
Godinez, 914 F.3d 1040, 1049–50 (7th Cir. 2019). Investigating a prisoner’s medical care
with the appropriate providers is precisely what officers are supposed to do in a
situation like this, and they have no duty to act further absent knowledge that medical
providers are mistreating the prisoner. See Hayes v. Snyder, 546 F.3d 516, 527 (7th Cir.
2008). Coe provides no evidence that he was being mistreated, let alone that the officers
knew of any mistreatment.
Indeed, although Coe next argues that Dr. Ritz’s denial of the referral amounted
to deliberate indifference, he has not identified a genuine dispute on that question. He
rests on the fact that the on-site medical director believed that Coe needed well-
cushioned and arched walking shoes. But to show deliberate indifference, Coe needed
to provide evidence that Dr. Ritz’s finding that these shoes were not medically
necessary represented “so significant a departure from accepted professional standards
or practices” that a jury could find Dr. Ritz was not exercising his professional

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judgment. Riley, 126 F.4th at 1295 (quoting Pyles v. Fahim, 771 F.3d 403, 409 (7th Cir.
2014)). The undisputed evidence shows Dr. Ritz relied on the information given to him,
even if incomplete, and made a reasoned medical judgment in denying Coe the
requested shoes based on the information he had. A mere difference in opinion among
medical providers is not evidence of deliberate indifference. See Murphy v. Wexford
Health Sources Inc., 962 F.3d 911, 916 (7th Cir. 2020).
Lastly, Coe maintains that Stanback and Bragg ignored his injury for over 90
minutes while he called for help. Although Coe may have identified a genuine dispute
about whether they heard him, the district court recognized that such a dispute alone is
not enough to survive summary judgment. Coe also needed to provide some evidence
from which a reasonable jury could find that the delay exacerbated his condition or
caused unnecessary pain. See Wilson v. Adams, 901 F.3d 816, 822 (7th Cir. 2018). Coe
contends that a 2022 surgery on the same toe shows that his injury worsened from the
delay, but that evidence—produced four years after the close of discovery—was
inadmissible. F ED. R. C IV. P. 37(c)(1). Regardless, he has not identified any “verifying
medical evidence” connecting the surgery to his injury eight years earlier, let alone the
90-minute delay in treatment. Knight v. Wiseman, 590 F.3d 458, 466 (7th Cir. 2009). There
is also no reason to believe prompt medical treatment would have alleviated his pain
sooner. When he eventually received treatment, his injury was dressed and cleaned, but
his medical records show that he was not provided a pain reliever—regular strength
acetaminophen—until the next day. See id.
We have considered Coe’s remaining arguments, but none merits discussion.
AFFIRMED

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