McKee-Bey, Dorrell v. Cowan, Roger , 259 F. App'x 880 ( 2008 )


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  •                       NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
    To be cited only in accordance with
    Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
    United States Court of Appeals
    For the Seventh Circuit
    Chicago, Illinois 60604
    Submitted December 14, 2007*
    Decided January 10, 2008
    Before
    Hon. WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge
    Hon. JOHN L. COFFEY, Circuit Judge
    Hon. ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge
    No. 06-2187
    DORRELL A. MCKEE-BEY,                          Appeal from the United States
    Plaintiff-Appellant,                       District Court for the Southern
    District of Illinois
    v.
    No. 02-1093-CJP
    CRAIG MITCHELL and
    RICK REED,                                     Clifford J. Proud,
    Defendants-Appellees.                     Magistrate Judge.
    ORDER
    Illinois inmate Dorrell McKee-Bey claimed in this lawsuit under 42 U.S.C.
    § 1983 that correctional officer Craig Mitchell and medical technician Rick Reed
    violated his Eight Amendment rights by deliberately ignoring his medical needs.
    After a bench trial, a magistrate judge presiding by consent found for the
    defendants. McKee-Bey appeals, and we affirm.
    At trial McKee-Bey offered the following version of events. In September
    2000 he was treated at the Menard Correctional Center infirmary for orchitis, an
    *
    After an examination of the briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral
    argument is unnecessary. Thus, the appeal is submitted on the briefs and the record.
    FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2).
    No. 06-2187                                                                      Page 2
    inflammation of the testes. See STEDMAN’S MEDICAL DICTIONARY, 1377 (28th ed.
    2006). McKee-Bey testified that a couple of days after his release from the
    infirmary he encountered Mitchell, who mocked his condition and warned that he
    knew McKee-Bey had assaulted a guard at another prison. Then on October 12,
    2000, McKee-Bey noticed that his scrotum had begun to swell, peel, and change
    color. He requested medical attention from the infirmary staff but received no
    response. Another inmate testified that around October 15 he notified Mitchell, a
    lieutenant, that McKee-Bey needed medical attention. Mitchell responded that he
    was aware of the situation and that McKee-Bey should “stop crying like a little
    bitch.”
    On October 17, according to McKee-Bey, a medical technician examined him
    and promised that he would receive emergency treatment that evening. He did not.
    The next morning McKee-Bey walked with a group of inmates and guards from his
    cell house to the commissary, a distance he described as “quite a walk.” McKee-Bey
    testified that he saw Mitchell and spoke with him for the first time about his
    apparent relapse. He told Mitchell that he was bleeding and in extreme pain, and
    that he needed the emergency medical attention he was promised the previous
    evening. It is unclear from McKee-Bey’s testimony whether he tried to show
    Mitchell the problem. Mitchell purportedly told McKee-Bey to put in another
    request with the medical staff and threatened to send him to segregation if he did
    not return to his line. At the time, McKee-Bey maintained, his pants were “soaked
    in blood.”
    That same morning, McKee-Bey continued, he approached Reed, the medical
    technician who treated his condition in September, and informed Reed that blood
    and pus were “gushing” from his scrotum. Reed replied that he was busy and would
    get back to him, but he never did. That evening McKee-Bey complained to another
    guard about his symptoms. That guard testified that he and another medical
    technician escorted McKee-Bey to the infirmary, where he was diagnosed with a
    scrotal abscess and treated with an antibiotic, warm compresses, and pain
    medication. Although McKee-Bey experienced no further pain after that day, he
    testified that he ultimately lost his left testicle; he assumes that it atrophied, but he
    offered no corroborating medical evidence.
    Mitchell, in contrast, testified that he never threatened McKee-Bey and was
    unaware of his condition before their October 18 conversation, the details of which
    he did not remember. Mitchell did not recall seeing blood on McKee-Bey’s pants,
    and he denied looking at McKee-Bey’s scrotum. He said that seeing blood would
    have prompted him to send McKee-Bey to the infirmary immediately, but otherwise
    he would have told McKee-Bey to follow the normal procedure for contacting the
    medical staff. Mitchell added that he would have concluded that the condition was
    not serious if McKee-Bey disclosed that a medical technician examined him the
    No. 06-2187                                                                    Page 3
    night before without transferring him to the infirmary. Mitchell noted that
    prisoners with medical complaints are free to approach the medical technicians who
    frequently circulate throughout the cell house. He also mentioned that prison
    guards receive only limited medical training.
    Reed, for his part, testified that he did not ignore McKee-Bey’s complaints.
    Rather, he concluded that there was no emergency. When McKee-Bey approached
    him, he said, there was no evidence of blood on his clothes. Moreover, because
    McKee-Bey approached Reed from the commissary, Reed concluded that McKee-Bey
    must have waited in line for around an hour after walking between 250 to 300 yards
    from the cell house to the commissary. Reed did not ask McKee-Bey to remove his
    clothes. Instead, after their conversation Reed told McKee-Bey he would check back
    with him. Reed examined McKee-Bey’s medical records and confirmed that McKee-
    Bey had not requested medical attention from Reed after the new symptoms
    appeared on October 12. Reed also noted that the medical technician who examined
    McKee-Bey the previous evening had referred him for examination by a physician.
    Had Reed seen blood on McKee-Bey’s clothes, he said, he would have gotten him
    emergency care.
    In finding for the defendants, the magistrate judge discredited McKee-Bey’s
    contention that he was bleeding profusely during the walk from the cell house to the
    commissary, particularly since he introduced no evidence that anyone else had
    noticed his condition. The magistrate judge also believed Mitchell and Reed when
    they said they would have secured immediate medical attention had they observed
    McKee-Bey bleeding through his pants. Accordingly, the court reasoned that
    Mitchell’s and Reed’s actions did not constitute deliberate indifference because
    neither was aware of a medical emergency and both determined that McKee-Bey
    was receiving medical treatment for his condition.
    On appeal, McKee-Bey argues that the magistrate judge erroneously excused
    the failures of Mitchell and Reed to procure emergency medical attention for his
    condition. He contends that both knew he was receiving inadequate medical
    attention because, he says, he described his condition to them in detail on October
    18 and informed each that he was supposed to have received emergency care the
    previous night. We review the magistrate judge’s conclusions of law de novo and his
    findings of fact for clear error. River E. Plaza, L.L.C. v. Variable Annuity Life Ins.
    Co., 
    498 F.3d 718
    , 720 (7th Cir. 2007). And we rarely overturn a trial court’s
    credibility determinations, Gaffney v. Riverboat Servs. of Ind., Inc., 
    451 F.3d 424
    ,
    448 (7th Cir. 2006), because the judge observed the witnesses’ demeanor and
    appearance on the stand, Mlsna v. Unitel Commc’ns, Inc., 
    91 F.3d 876
    , 880 (7th Cir.
    1996).
    Prison officials violate the Eighth Amendment if they deliberately ignore an
    inmate’s serious medical needs. Johnson v. Snyder, 
    444 F.3d 579
    , 584 (7th Cir.
    No. 06-2187                                                                   Page 4
    2006); Johnson v. Doughty, 
    433 F.3d 1001
    , 1010 (7th Cir. 2006). Mitchell and Reed
    do not dispute that orchitis is a serious medical condition, but to prevail McKee-Bey
    had to prove that the defendants were aware of his condition and yet consciously
    disregarded it. See Farmer v. Brennan, 
    511 U.S. 825
    , 834 (1994); 
    Doughty, 433 F.3d at 1010
    . A prison employee who, like Mitchell, is not a medical professional
    generally fulfills his responsibilities as long as he investigates to ensure that the
    “medical staff was monitoring and addressing the problem.” See 
    Doughty, 433 F.3d at 1010
    -12 & 1010 n.9; see also Greeno v. Daley, 
    414 F.3d 645
    , 656 (7th Cir. 2005).
    A medical professional, meanwhile, must take seriously a prisoner’s complaints,
    though he may reasonably rely on the judgment of another medical professional
    who already has treated the prisoner for his condition. 
    Snyder, 444 F.3d at 585-86
    ;
    
    Doughty, 433 F.3d at 1013-15
    .
    McKee-Bey was treated a few hours later on the very same day he
    complained to Mitchell and Reed. Regardless, we have no basis to disregard the
    magistrate judge’s decision to credit Mitchell and Reed when they testified that
    they saw no blood and perceived no emergency. When McKee-Bey complained to
    Mitchell, he also said that a medical technician had seen him the previous evening,
    and given the absence of objective indicators that the care McKee-Bey was receiving
    was inadequate, Mitchell did not act unreasonably in telling McKee-Bey to continue
    seeking care through normal channels. Reed, too, acted reasonably. He reviewed
    McKee-Bey’s medical records after speaking with him on the morning of October 18,
    and during that review he learned that another medical technician already had
    examined McKee-Bey the night before and referred him to a doctor. In the absence
    of evidence of an emergency, Reed’s decision not to immediately transfer McKee-Bey
    to the infirmary satisfied the minimal expectations of his profession and the
    minimum standards of medical care to which McKee-Bey was entitled. See
    
    Doughty, 433 F.3d at 1013
    ; Forbes v. Edgar, 
    112 F.3d 262
    , 267 (7th Cir. 1997).
    AFFIRMED.