Seventh Circuit Revives Former Illinois Prisoner’s Claim for Delayed Hepatitis-C Treatment
On January 14, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a former Illinois prisoner’s deliberate indifference claim against a healthcare provider contracted by the state Department of Corrections (DOC) could proceed to trial, though dismissal of an identical claim against four other staffers was upheld. The lower court had determined that prisoner Clarence Lewis impermissibly split his claims against Wexford Health Sources’ Dr. Dina Paul between his suit and another filed with other plaintiffs also challenging treatment for their Hepatitis-C. But the appellate Court said that Dr. Paul waited too long to raise the objection, thereby waiving the defense. The Court further held that failure to recruit counsel for Lewis’ claims against the other Wexford staffers was not shown to be error.
Lewis sued the five providers, alleging that they were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs while he was imprisoned at Hill Correctional Center from 2013 to 2018. Lewis accused Dr. Kul B. Sood, Nurse Lara Vollmer and Dr. Catalino Bautista of misdiagnosing him and mistreating him for diabetes and COPD when what he really suffered was a bowel disorder. Lewis further alleged that Bautista delayed the colonoscopy procedure which discovered it and that Vollmer then failed to provide effective treatment. Administrator Lois Lindorff also denied his grievance over the matter.
He further accused Dr. Paul of refusing to provide Hepatitis-C treatment because it was too costly—a claim also made in the class-action to which he was a party, for which the same U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois granted injunctive relief on February 4, 2019. See: Orr v. Elyea, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 230251 (C.D. Ill.).
After discovery, the district court granted the Defendants’ motion to dismiss Lewis’ suit. He appealed, arguing first that the district court erred by failing to recruit pro bono counsel to assist him. The Seventh Circuit reviewed the denial of his motion to recruit counsel under the abuse of discretion standard. To establish prejudicial error, therefore, the Court said that Lewis must show “a reasonable likelihood that the presence of counsel would have made a difference in the outcome of the litigation,” pointing to Pruitt v. Note, 503 F.3d 647 (7th Cir. 2007).
But Lewis really did suffer from diabetes and COPD, the Court noted, according to the record. Additionally, he admitted that the medication which Vollmer provided alleviated his irritable bowel syndrome symptoms. Moreover, Lewis failed to challenge the district court’s determination that the Defendants were not deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs. An attorney, therefore, would not have made a difference in the claims against Sood, Batista, Vollmer and Lindorff, the Court declared.
Lewis was also diagnosed with Hepatitis-C in 2013. Dr. Paul stated that she would check Lewis every six months to see if the disease was affecting his liver. When Lewis asked why he was not being treated with medication, Dr. Paul responded that it was too costly, and he did not meet the guidelines for treatment. “That’s how it goes when you are in prison,” Dr. Paul allegedly stated. Lewis complained that Dr. Paul would rather save a dollar rather than a life, to which she allegedly replied, “That’s how it is.” But the district court dismissed the prisoner’s claims against the doctor, calling them duplicative of those raised in the class action to which he was a party—thereby running afoul of the prohibition against claim-splitting most recently described in Brown v. City of Chicago, 771 F.3d 413 (7th Cir. 2014).
On appeal, Lewis argued that the district court’s application of the claim-splitting doctrine was erroneous because Dr. Paul failed to object to it sooner. She even conceded the error. As the Seventh Circuit noted, Dr. Paul waited 16 months to raise the defense, and by “waiting so long” had “acquiesced in Lewis’ assertion of the claims in this case.” The district court’s judgment was thus reversed as to Dr. Paul but affirmed as to the other four Defendants. On remand, the district court was cautioned to reconsider Lewis’ request for counsel on the Hepatitis-C claim. See: Lewis v. Sood, 126 F.4th 525 (7th Cir. 2025).
Related legal case
Lewis v. Sood
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | 126 F.4th 525 (7th Cir. 2025) |
| Level | Court of Appeals |
| Appeals Court Edition | F.4th |