Turner v. Paul, No. 19-2225 (7th Cir. 2020)
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Turner suffered a broken nose during an altercation with another inmate while in pre-trial detention at the Cook County Jail. The injury left him with pain and shortness of breath. A doctor determined that he needed surgery to treat his problems. The surgery was repeatedly rescheduled and postponed. More than a year after the initial injury, he finally received the surgery following his release from custody. Claiming that his treatment was unconstitutionally deficient, Turner sued administrators and medical professionals and Cook County itself.
The district court granted the defendants summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Turner presented no evidence that would allow the trier of fact to conclude that the allegedly unreasonable conduct of any named defendant caused his surgery to be delayed; none of them had the authority to schedule or to perform the relevant surgery. Each time any of the individual defendants encountered Turner, his surgery or another appointment was on the surgery schedule. No rule of law imposes a duty on the medical defendants to continue calling the clinic after they properly contacted the proper schedulers.
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