00-2769 Walker v. Benjamin, et al.

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“Walker’s only evidence regarding Nurse Dunbar related to her persistent refusals to give him pain medication. On August 10, Walker complained to Nurse Dunbar that he was in great pain but she did not give him pain medication. Following his surgery, when Walker returned to the prison infirmary with a prescription for Darvocet-N 100, a narcotic pain reliever to be used as needed, Nurse Dunbar refused to give Walker any medication for pain. Instead, she is alleged to have told him to stop pushing the call button, and told him, ‘You will get pain medication when I want you to have it, and I don’t want you to have it.’ After Nurse Dunbar learned that Walker had complained to his doctor about not receiving his prescribed medication, Nurse Dunbar said, ‘So you blabbed to the doctor that we weren’t giving you your pain medication. You only want to get high, and we aren’t going to let you do that.’ We are obliged at this point to credit Walker’s version of these events, and if they are true, Walker presents a disturbing picture. Walker had an injury likely to cause considerable pain; he had an infection so severe that it caused a bone to be displaced. After surgery, his treating physician prescribed a powerful narcotic-based painkiller, indicating that he expected Walker would be in great pain. According to his version of events, Walker both complained about his pain and manifested physical indications that he was in pain. Moreover, his doctor prescribed pain medication, and Nurse Dunbar simply refused to give it to him.

“Walker’s injury was not trivial; his infection was so severe as to displace a bone and require emergency surgery. His treating physician prescribed pain medication, and according to Walker’s version of events, the nurse refused to dispense it. The same analysis applies to Dr. Benjamin, who also refused to give the prescribed pain medication. The fact that Nurse Dunbar and Dr. Benjamin may have based their refusal to treat Walker’s pain on a good-faith belief that he was malingering, that he was not in pain but was merely trying to get high with the narcotic painkiller, is an issue for the jury… His claim for the deliberately inadequate treatment of his severe pain thus survives summary judgment.”

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Cudmore, Mag. J., Rovner, J.