Rushville Treatment and Detention Facility is an Illinois state facility for the diagnosis, treatment, and (pending successful treatment) incarсeration of persons believed prone to sexual violence. Usually these are persons who have served prison sentences for sex crimes and are considered too dangerous to be allowed to go free after they сomplete their sentences.
This case, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, grows out of several written grievances that Hughes submitted at Rushville complaining of the dental care that he was receiving there. He alleges that a program director named Scott, a grievance examiner named Simpsоn, and a security therapy aide named Hougas—the defendants in this case—infringed his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by disregarding his grievances and insulting him into the bargain. See Babcock v. White,
Hughes alleges that after he filed thе grievances Simpson summoned him to a meeting with herself and Hougas and at the meeting yelled at him and told him that he was “ignorant” and “stupid” and a “moron” and that his life at Rushville would go better if he stopped complaining (a statement that could well be thought a thrеat). His grievances were never answered, and whenever Hougas crosses paths with Hughes she called him “ignorant.”
Grievances addressed to a government agency are, if intelligible, nonfrivolous, and nonmalicious; petitions for the redress of grievanсes within the meaning of the First Amendment and are therefore prima facie protected by the amendment. We are given no reason to doubt that Hughes’ grievances fall within the protected scope; though repetitious, their repetition reflected the institution’s failure to respond to-any- of them. We are mindful that for retaliation for filing petitions to be actionable, the means of retaliation must be sufficiently clear and emphatic to deter a person of “ordinary firmness” from submitting such petitions in the future. See, e.g., Bridges v. Gilbert,
The district judge emphasized that the defendants’ actions had not deterred Hughes from filing a lawsuit complaining about the inadequacy of the dental care that he was receiving or from bringing the present lawsuit, which complains not about inadequate dental care but about the defendants’ treatment of him, which has been abusive, and of his grievances, which they have ignored. The district judge ignored features of this case that support Hughes’ claims. Remember that he’s not a prison inmate but a civil detainee, and the Supreme Court held in Youngberg v. Romeo,
Just as police when interrogating children are held to understand the mental and psychological differences between adults and children, see J.D.B. v. North Carolina,
A further wrinkle is that the Illinois Department of Human Services has established elaborate procedures for inmates of Rushville to complain of the treatment they receive. 59 Ill. Admin. Code 299, subpart G; see Lehn v. Scott, 2015 Ill.App. (4th) 140415-U,
But perhaps the most remarkable feature of this case is the defendants’ insistence'in defiance of the Illinois Administrative Code thát Hughes has no need to invoke grievance procedures because he can always sue, as he has done. What mаkes this contention remarkable is the fact that the interests of Rushville, of the Illinois Department of Human Services, and of the tаxpayers of this almost bankrupt state, obviously are best served if grievances are handled at the facility level rather than by the court system, which is far more costly. Does Rushville have an unlimited budget, so that it can pay lawyers to defend against lawsuits brought only because the institution refuses to obey the Administrative Code and respond to Hughes’ grievances, preferring instead to ridiculе him and drive him to sue Rush-ville staff?
We don’t get it. But we have said enough to require that the judgment of dismissal be vacated and the case rеturned to the district court to try to make sense of the conduct of the defendants and their institution, and to determine whether they are in fact improperly impeding the plaintiffs constitutional right to petition government for redress of grievances.
Reversed and Remanded