by Douglas Ankney

On September 16, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (“Court” or “Seventh Circuit”) revived former prisoner Carl Joseph McDaniel’s suit against the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) alleging violations of his rights under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act (RA) related to the DOC’s refusal to house McDaniel in a “no-­stairs” unit which caused him to miss over 600 meals in a year.

McDaniel, in his early 60s when he filed the appeal in the instant opinion, had suffered numerous medical problems during his more than 14 years in custody that required him, for a time, to use a wheelchair. His medical problems included: hypertension, hyperthyroidism, COPD, stage 3 chronic kidney disease, bladder tumors, type 2 diabetes complicated by neuropathy, gout, fibromyalgia, anxiety, PTSD, bipolar disorder, chronic pain, peptic ulcer disease, asthma, and degenerative joint disease in his spine with spinal stenosis.

In 2017, McDaniel had spinal surgery, after which his treating physician gave him several postoperative instructions: he was to avoid “strenuous exercising,” “lifting more than 5-­10 pounds,” and “bending, lifting, carrying, twisting.” But he could “climb stairs” and walk with the aid of a four-­wheel walker. Even so, McDaniel continued to experience other medical problems, including incontinence and spinal issues.

Prior to his transfer to Columbia Correctional Institution (CCI), McDaniel was housed for months at a facility where his file restricted him to a low-­tier floor, no-­stairs unit, low bunk, and walker. But at CCI, a physical therapist evaluated McDaniel. In the course of that evaluation, McDaniel successfully walked up just six stairs—prompting the therapist to conclude that the no-­stairs and low-­tier restrictions were no longer necessary. Doctor Salam Syed, one of CCI’s treating physicians, approved discontinuing those restrictions.

According to McDaniel’s complaint, he then received a walker and a cane. His new cell assignment at CCI required him to walk up and down stairs at least “16 times each day to access prison programs and activities, including meals and the infirmary.” Problems arose immediately. Because the cafeteria and infirmary were on another floor, stairs impeded McDaniel’s access to both. Because of the pain from going up and down the stairs, he stopped attending most meals and taking his medications. He missed over 600 meals in one year at CCI.

When McDaniel managed to successfully climb and descend stairs, it was only with help. He paid other prisoners with commissary items to carry his walker while he used the railing to move or sat and scooted down the stairs. Other times, prisoners would put their arms around McDaniel and assist him with the stairs. But CCI staff eventually forbade McDaniel from asking anyone for help and threatened him with disciplinary action if he did not stop scooting down the stairs on his buttocks.

While at CCI, McDaniel submitted several accommodation requests for his disabilities. His requests to CCI’s ADA coordinator documented his falls and his “inability to access meds, food, services, programs, and benefits from exacerbated pain [from] transitioning [the] stairwell.” All were denied. At CCI’s Health Services Unit (HSU), he informed Syed that he “ha[d] pains and ha[d] no medication,” and “cannot go up or down stairs.” HSU staff responded: “many/most ppl live w/pain and he will endure it if he wants to do the activity.”

McDaniel also had trouble navigating inside his cell. Because there was not room enough for his walker, he often soiled himself due to his incontinence issues. One doctor had instructed him to practice timed voiding, i.e., using the toilet at regularly scheduled intervals. But with a cellmate this was impossible. McDaniel requested a “handicap accessible cell.” HSU denied that request as well. Over the course of a year, HSU staff evaluated McDaniel more than 49 times. Each time, he reported his chronic pain preventing him from accessing meals and medication and his incontinence issues; HSU and Syed still refused to move him to a no-­stairs unit and simply instructed him to “take your medication as prescribed.”

McDaniel ultimately sued the DOC, Syed, and others (collectively “Defendants”), alleging the DOC violated his rights under the ADA and the RA and that the other defendants violated his rights under the Eighth Amendment. The Defendants moved for summary judgment on all claims. The district court granted Defendants’ motion. McDaniel appealed. At the time of the appeal, McDaniel had been released from prison. Unfortunately, he died in February 2024. His son Robert McDaniel represented his father’s estate on appeal.

The Court first addressed the district court’s mishandling of the facts during summary judgment. After the Defendants had filed their motion for summary judgment, McDaniel responded to each paragraph of their stipulated facts in his “Response” that totaled 33 pages. While he disputed those facts where appropriate, he did not cite to specific places in the record in support of his statements. The district court had concluded that McDaniel had not provided evidence to support his version of events.

McDaniel had signed all 33 pages of the response “under penalty of perjury.” As such, the “facts” provided in those 33 pages based on McDaniel’s own personal observations were “evidence.” And under Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the benefit of all conflicts in the evidence and all reasonable inferences thereof are in favor of the nonmoving party (in this case McDaniel) during summary judgment. Where a nonmoving party supplies evidence from which a reasonable jury could find in his favor, summary judgment is inappropriate.

The Court observed “[s]overeign immunity bears on whether a federal court may hear a case, so we address it before reaching the merits.” Under the Eleventh Amendment, states are ordinarily sovereignly immune from suits seeking monetary damages. Since McDaniel had died, injunctive relief was no longer available and monetary damages were the only possible relief remaining. While the state of Wisconsin had waived its sovereign immunity from suits for damages under the RA as a condition for receiving federal funds, with the ADA it was not so simple.

Congress expressed its intent to abrogate sovereign immunity in the ADA by providing that: “A State shall not be immune under the eleventh amendment to the Constitution of the United States from an action in Federal or State Court of competent jurisdiction for a violation of this chapter.”

However, whether this expression was a valid exercise of Congress’s Section 5 enforcement power was a separate question explored by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Georgia, 546 U.S. 152 (2006). The Georgia court explained that there are two paths by which Congress may validly abrogate state sovereign immunity under the ADA.

The first path requires the plaintiff to show that their claim falls within the category of a three-­step inquiry articulated in Tennessee v. Lane: (1) identify the rights at issue, (2) identify the pattern of violations the legislation is designed to remedy and prevent, and (3) determine whether the legislation is congruent with and proportional to the pattern of violations.

The second path is to show that the conduct alleged to violate the ADA also violated the U.S. Constitution. In these types of cases, Title II of the ADA validly abrogates sovereign immunity not as “prophylactic legislation” but because it acts as a remedy for a Constitutional violation.

The Court then observed that courts construe and apply both the ADA and RA statutes in a consistent manner, evaluating claims under each statute with the same analysis: “To avoid summary judgment under the ADA and the [RA], McDaniel must offer evidence that ‘(1) he is a qualified person (2) with a disability and (3) the [DOC] denied him access to a program or activity because of his disability.’” The DOC disputed only element (3).

It is well established that “[r]efusing to make reasonable accommodations is tantamount to denying access.” Determining whether an accommodation satisfies these requirements is a “highly fact-­specific inquiry,” per McAllister v. Innovation Ventures, LLC, 983 F.3d 963 (7th Cir. 2020). And to win compensatory damages, McDaniel had to show that the DOC was “deliberately indifferent” to its violation, i.e., that the DOC had “both (1) knowledge that a harm to a federally protected right is substantially likely, and (2) a failure to act upon that likelihood.”

The Seventh Circuit concluded that “[o]n this record, the evidence on denial of access is sufficient to defeat summary judgment for the [DOC]…. McDaniel offered evidence that, during his year at [CCI], he missed some 600 meals and many doses of his medications because of the stairs—which he often could not climb or descend due to the pain of doing so—impeded his access. Accommodations must give ‘meaningful access to the benefit that the grantee offers.’…A reasonable jury could find that missing nearly two meals a day on average meant McDaniel did not have ‘meaningful access’ to meals. The same is true of his access to medications.” And since deprivation of adequate food was a constitutional violation, the DOC was liable for damages under both the ADA and the RA.

Accordingly, the Court reversed the grant of summary judgment for the DOC on the ADA and RA claims but affirmed the district court’s judgment as to the other defendants as McDaniel had not provided sufficient evidence of a violation of the Eighth Amendment by those defendants. See: McDaniel v. Syed, 115 F.4th 805 (7th Cir. 2024).  

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