Anthony Mays v. Thomas Dart

Summary

In this published Seventh Circuit opinion, the court reversed a preliminary injunction requiring the Cook County Jail to eliminate double celling and group housing for social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, holding that the district court committed three legal errors: (1) it failed to consider the totality of the Sheriff's conduct in responding to the pandemic; (2) it failed to afford proper deference to correctional administrators' judgment on safety and security under Bell v. Wolfish; and (3) it applied the incorrect "better than negligible" standard for likelihood of success on the merits rather than the proper "some likelihood" standard. The court affirmed the remainder of the preliminary injunction (sanitation, testing, and face masks) because the district court properly considered the totality of circumstances and relied on CDC guidelines. The case clarifies the objective reasonableness standard for Fourteenth Amendment conditions-of-confinement claims by pretrial detainees under Kingsley v. Hendrickson and the sliding-scale approach for preliminary injunctions, emphasizing that courts must evaluate the defendant's entire course of conduct—not isolated aspects—and defer to prison administrators' expertise on security-related housing decisions.

Holdings

1. The district court erred by narrowly focusing its analysis on social distancing rather than considering the totality of the Sheriff's COVID-19 response.
2. The district court did not meaningfully consider the deference owed to correctional administrators when evaluating housing decisions.
3. The district court erred by using the 'better than negligible' standard instead of the 'some likelihood of success' standard required by Winter and Nken.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the district court abused its discretion in granting the preliminary injunction requiring socially distanced housing.
2. Whether the district court applied the correct legal standards when evaluating the likelihood of success on the merits.

Disposition

reversed in part, affirmed in part