United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 21-2756 VICTOR GONZALEZ, as the Special Administrator of the Estate of Roger Gonzalez, Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. MCHENRY COUNTY, ILLINOIS, et al., Defendants-Appellees. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 15-cv-776 — Philip G. Reinhard, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED MARCH 31, 2022 — DECIDED JULY 26, 2022 ____________________

Before MANION, HAMILTON, and BRENNAN, Circuit Judges. MANION, Circuit Judge. Victor Gonzalez, representing the estate of the decedent Roger Gonzalez, appeals the district court’s dismissal of his claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against McHenry County, current Sheriff Bill Prim in his official ca- pacity, and former Sheriff Keith Nygren in his personal capac- ity. We shall refer to Victor Gonzalez by his surname and to Roger Gonzalez as the decedent. 2 No. 21-2756

Gonzalez alleges that the McHenry County jail main- tained an unwritten policy of accepting any pretrial detainee into its custody regardless of its ability to treat his medical conditions and that this policy directly harmed the decedent. But Gonzalez does not allege how the conditions of the dece- dent’s detention were objectively unreasonable or how the al- leged policy harmed the decedent. Furthermore, he does not explain what other options were available to the county— sheriffs cannot release pretrial detainees on their own prerog- ative. Nor does Gonzalez allege that Nygren was personally involved in the actions that led to the decedent’s death as re- quired to sustain a section 1983 claim based on individual li- ability. Therefore, we must affirm the district court’s judg- ment. The decedent was admitted to the McHenry County jail in October 2013 as a pretrial detainee. The complaint does not disclose the charges against the decedent, but we take it as undisputed that he was incarcerated under a court order. At the time of admission to the jail, the decedent weighed 400 pounds and had several serious medical conditions, including chronic hepatitis C, renal failure, edema, cirrhosis, and con- gestive heart failure. During his incarceration, the decedent gained 60 pounds and suffered several medical incidents of varying severity. For example, jail personnel discovered the decedent unresponsive on the ground in his cell on multiple occasions. In each case, jail personnel promptly took the de- cedent to the hospital where his problems were treated. He returned to the jail after each hospital stay. All told, the dece- dent was transported to the hospital eight times. On a few of those occasions, he was hospitalized for more than two weeks. No. 21-2756 3

After the decedent pleaded guilty, he was transferred in September 2014 to the Northern Receiving Center of the Illi- nois Department of Corrections (IDOC). He died in IDOC cus- tody a little over two months later. Gonzalez brought section 1983 claims alleging that “the official policy of the Jail was to accept custody of all persons charged with crimes who could not post bond or otherwise secure pretrial release without regard to the inability of the Jail to accommodate that person’s serious medical needs.” He also claims that the sheriffs “knew that the Jail could not ac- commodate a person afflicted with the serious medical needs of [the] decedent” yet turned “a blind eye” to his plight. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss, which the district court granted. 1 Gonzalez appeals. We review an order granting a motion to dismiss de novo. M