On March 27, 2023, Judge Sue Myerscough granted summary judgment on a Kankakee County inmate’s claim that the conditions of his confinement did not meet constitutional standards.  Previously, the court had granted summary judgment on most of the inmate’s varied claims but had sought additional briefing on one claim raised by the inmate—that he had been held in a segregated cell inside the jail with a non-functioning toilet for several days. Upon further briefing, the court considered affidavits and maintenance reports presented by jail officials which showed that (a) the inmate had not complained to jail officials about his toilet until May 25, 2020, (b) a work order had been submitted that same day, and (c) the toilet had been fixed by a maintenance worker the following day.  While the inmate was claiming that the toilet in his cell had not been working for 4-5 days, the court quickly dispatched the inmate’s claim, holding that there was no evidence that the inmate had alerted officials to his allegedly non-functioning toilet until May 25 and that the toilet was fixed the next day.  Given these facts, the court found that no reasonable jury could find that defendants’ response to the inmate’s clogged toilet was objectively unreasonable.  Michael Condon and Jason Rose represented Kankakee County and their employees in the lawsuit.