Working on a pro bono basis, Sidley won a victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on behalf of a client incarcerated in the Illinois Department of Corrections (“IDOC”) who has faced extreme hardship in prison, living for years in solitary confinement without access to adequate mental health treatment. The client originally filed suit pro se in September 2016, challenging IDOC’s failure to provide him with constitutionally adequate mental health treatment and alleging that the deficient care he received at Pontiac Correctional Center, where he was housed in solitary confinement, exacerbated his mental illness and would continue to lead him to self-harm. Sidley became counsel in 2017 and helped the client file an amended complaint and litigate his case through discovery as well as oppose the defendants’ motions for summary judgment.
In 2020, as the summary judgment motions were pending, and as the Sidley team was preparing for trial, the district court dismissed the case as a sanction for a “fraud on the court,” based on asserted lies in the original pro se complaint. The appeal challenged that determination. On February 1, 2022, the Seventh Circuit panel reversed the district court’s sanctions order, finding that the district court’s findings of fraud were clearly erroneous—a complete appellate victory, setting up the case for a resolution on the merits.
The Sidley team handling the appeal included managing associates Rachel L. Hampton and Kevin R. Oliver, who split the argument in the court of appeals, as well as Sidley partner Steven J. Horowitz, pro bono counsel Leslie Kuhn-Thayer, and managing associate Mitchell Alleluia-Feinberg. During the district court proceedings, the team also partnered with the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center along with several Sidley lawyers and alumni.
