Case Information
*1 Before E ASTERBROOK , B RENNAN , and S CUDDER , Circuit Judges .
S CUDDER , Circuit Judge
. Levi Lord, an inmate in the Wau- pun Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, exposed himself to a female guard. After the guard told him that she would write him up and walked away, Lord began yelling that he had a razor blade and intended to kill himself. A short while later, a male guard went to Lord’s cell, ordered him out, and saw he had minor scratches treatable with a gauze bandage. Lord nonetheless invoked 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and sued four guards for money damages, alleging that they acted with deliberate indi erence to a material risk to his life by not responding faster to his suicide threat. The district court rejected the claim and entered summary judgment for the defendants.
Prison suicide is very real and very serious, but any fair reading of this record, even in the light most favorable to Lord, shows that he leveled an insincere threat of suicide to get a ention and demonstrated no recoverable injury. Other fact pa erns may yield di erent outcomes, but here the reso- lution is clear. We a rm, as Lord (thankfully) did not hurt himself and that reality leaves nothing for a jury to decide.
I
The summary judgment record supplies the operative facts, which we review in the light most favorable to Lord. See Lewis v. McClean , 864 F.3d 556, 564 (7th Cir. 2017). Summary judgment is warranted if the defendants, as the moving party, show that there remains “no genuine dispute as to any mate- rial fact.” F ED . R. C IV . P. 56(a). The law considers a dispute genuine “if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. , 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). “As to materiality, the sub- stantive law will identify which facts are material.” Id.
A
On December 10, 2017, Correctional O ffi cer Lisa Sto ff el was escorting an inmate to the shower when she heard some- one call her name. She turned around and saw Lord staring at her from inside his cell while masturbating. Sto ff el told Lord he would receive a conduct report and walked away.
Lord then began shouting that he had a razor blade and was going to kill himself. Two inmates submi ed declarations con fi rming that they heard Lord’s threat. For their part, how- ever, three correctional o ffi cers (defendants Sto ff el, Christo- pher O’Neal, and Joseph Beahm) denied hearing Lord threaten suicide. O ffi cer Christopher Pass provided a di er- ent account, acknowledging that at some point he heard Lord say he would kill himself if he was not able to talk to O cer Sto el. Pass told Lord that his sexual misconduct eliminated any chance of Sto el returning to his cell.
About thirty minutes later, O cer O’Neal saw what ap- peared to be two blood droplets on Lord’s cell door window. O’Neal asked Lord what he was doing. Lord responded by displaying a razor blade and saying he was trying to kill him- self. After securing the blade, O’Neil unlocked the door, re- moved Lord, and walked him to a separate cell. Medical per- sonnel arrived and applied a gauze bandage to the few minor scratches they saw on Lord’s forearm. While no further med- ical treatment was necessary, Lord remained under observa- tion.
B
Lord sued each of the four correctional o cers who he be- lieved heard but failed to respond to his suicide threat. Alleg- ing a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, Lord contended that the o ffi c- ers acted with deliberate indi ff erence to a serious medical need by not responding faster to stop him from a empting suicide.
Following discovery, the district court entered summary judgment for the defendants. The court viewed the record ev- idence as disproving that Lord presented any objectively se- rious medical need, the threshold element of a deliberate in- di ff erence claim. From there the court emphasized that Lord self-in fl icted only minor scratches, requiring “but a brief cleaning and a single application of gauze.” Nor, the court continued, could any reasonable jury conclude that Lord was “genuinely suicidal, rather than childishly seeking secondary gain, namely more direct contact with [O ffi cer] Sto el.”
II
A “A prison o cial’s ‘deliberate indi erence’ to a substantial risk of serious harm to an inmate violates the Eighth Amend- ment.” Farmer v. Brennan , 511 U.S. 825, 828 (1994). To establish an entitlement to damages for such a violation, the prisoner must provide evidence that he presented an objectively seri- ous medical need that a defendant correctional o cer re- sponded to with deliberate indi erence, thereby resulting in some injury. See Pe ies v. Carter , 836 F.3d 722, 727–28 (7th Cir. 2016) (en banc).
All agree that suicide is an objectively serious medical con- dition. Our case law makes equally clear that prison o cials cannot intentionally disregard a known risk that an inmate is suicidal. See Lisle v. Welborn , 933 F.3d 705, 716 (7th Cir. 2019) (collecting cases). We have likewise emphasized that policymakers responsible for prison operations must take dil- igent precautions to respond to and mitigate a meaningful risk of inmate suicide. See Woodward v. Corr. Med. Servs. of Ill., Inc. , 368 F.3d 917, 926–29 (7th Cir. 2004).
This case is di erent, as it re fl ects an inmate’s insincere su- icide threat to get a ention. Lord was upset that O cer Sto el would not return to his cell, and he reacted by screaming that he had a blade and was taking his life, only then to in fl ict mi- nor scratches. Lord did not focus his § 1983 claim on these scratches or, for that ma er, on any other physical injury. To the contrary, he focused exclusively on risk —on the danger he presented to himself by having a razor blade and the o cers then ignoring his unmistakable plea that he intended to kill himself.
Lord is right in one respect. The district court may have been too quick to conclude that the facts did not allow a jury to fi nd that any of the defendant o cers heard but failed to respond promptly to his suicide threat. Remember that two of Lord’s fellow inmates con fi rmed hearing the threat, and that evidence shows a factual disagreement. This observation ex- tends no further, however. To survive summary judgment, Lord needed to show that the di ering accounts of what hap- pened (and did not happen) left unresolved a genuine dispute over a material fact essential to the resolution of liability under § 1983. And that is where Lord’s claim fell short.
Lord’s claim fails on the basic proposition that he has sued for damages under § 1983 and alleged a constitutional tort (an Eighth Amendment violation) without then developing evi- dence of a recoverable injury. See Wilson v. Garcia , 471 U.S. 261, 278 (1985) (recognizing that § 1983 confers “a general remedy for injuries to personal rights”); Gabb v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc. , 945 F.3d 1027, 1032 (7th Cir. 2019) (quot- ing Roe v. Elyea , 631 F.3d 843, 864 (7th Cir. 2011)) (“In order to succeed in a § 1983 suit, a plainti must ‘establish not only that a state actor violated his constitutional rights, but also that the violation caused the plainti injury or damages.’”); Bart v. Telford , 677 F.2d 622, 625 (7th Cir. 1982) (“Section 1983 is a tort [and] [a] tort to be actionable requires injury.”).
Unlike the district court, we do not wade into Lord’s cred- ibility because, even viewing the evidence as he urges, he did not show that he experienced any cognizable harm. Lord’s physical injuries consisted only of minor scratches, quickly and easily treated with a gauze bandage. By any measure, the injuries were trivial—indeed, almost nonexistent—and Lord supplied no evidence that he su ered any other form of injury (for example, psychological harm) from his insincere suicide threat. Lord’s summary judgment papers show that he wanted to recover money damages solely for the risk to his life—a serious medical need—the defendant o cers ignored by not immediately responding to his suicide threat. That risk is not compensable without evidence of injury, however. Put most simply, the summary judgment record revealed and left nothing for Lord to present to a jury at trial.
B
Today’s case presents a clear instance of an insincere sui- cide threat from an inmate wanting nothing more than a en- tion. But tomorrow’s case may entail a fact pa ern nowhere near as straightforward. That reality is not hypothetical, for inmate suicide on the rise in our nation’s prisons. See E. A NN C ARSON , U.S. D EPARTMENT OF J USTICE , B UREAU OF J USTICE S TATISTICS , M ORTALITY IN S TATE AND F EDERAL P RISONS , 2001- 2016 — S TATISTICAL T ABLES 5 (2020) (providing statistics on the number of deaths by suicide in state and federal prisons and reporting that suicides reached a 15-year high in 2016). It su ces to remind that the Eighth Amendment prohibits prison o cials from imposing wanton or unnecessary pain by ignoring an inmate who, whether because of major mental ill- ness or some other serious medical need, goes beyond voicing an idle threat of suicide. Levi Lord fell on the opposite end of the spectrum, and so we AFFIRM.
[*] We have agreed to decide this case without oral argument, because oral argument would not significantly aid the court, and the briefs and record contain everything necessary for our decision. F ED . R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).