United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit No. 19-2065 KELLY D. EBMEYER, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

ADAM BROCK, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. No. 4:16-cv-04056-SEM-TSH — Sue E. Myerscough, Judge.

ARGUED NOVEMBER 13, 2020 — DECIDED AUGUST 25, 2021

Before FLAUM, ROVNER, and BRENNAN, Circuit Judges. ROVNER, Circuit Judge. Kelly D. Ebmeyer sued several prison officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging violations of the Eighth Amendment. The district court ultimately dismissed the suit with prejudice as a sanction for Ebmeyer’s litigation conduct related to his attempts to identify one of the prison employee defendants. Because the court failed to make the 2 No. 19-2065 necessary findings to support this sanction, we vacate and remand for further proceedings. We also affirm the court’s grant of summary judgment to other defendants. I. Ebmeyer was an inmate at Hill Correctional Center (“Hill”) on April 16, 2014 when the Illinois Department of Corrections Special Operations Response Team (known as “Orange Crush”) performed a facility-wide shakedown. Ebmeyer filed a lawsuit for actions purportedly taken against him during the shakedown. His complaint alleged that the Orange Crush team subjected him to a humiliating, unconstitutional strip search and excessive force, in violation of his Eighth Amendment rights and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In addition to describing the manner in which the strip search was conducted, he asserted that an unidentified “John Doe” member of that team placed him in extremely tight handcuffs that caused him injuries; Sergeant Jeffrey Oelberg struck him with a baton, squeezed his testicles, and forced him to stand handcuffed and facing a wall in a stress position for more than three hours; and prison officials Joseph Yurkovich and Kevwe Akpore promulgated policies that encouraged the challenged unconstitutional conduct.1 He sought declaratory relief, compensatory and punitive damages, medical and psychological care, costs, and an injunction prohibiting the Orange Crush team from engag- ing in such conduct against him in the future.

1 Akpore was the warden at Hill, and Yurkovich was the Chief of Operations for the Illinois Department of Corrections. No. 19-2065 3

The district court ultimately granted summary judgment in favor of Yurkovich, Akpore, and Oelberg, finding that Ebmeyer had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies on his claims against these defendants. On Ebmeyer’s remaining claim against the John Doe defendant related to the handcuff- ing injuries, the court initially allowed the claim to proceed and kept Akpore in the case in order to assist Ebmeyer in identify- ing the John Doe defendant. After Ebmeyer identified the unnamed defendant as Adam Brock, the court became aware that Ebmeyer had known from the beginning of the suit that the John Doe defendant’s first name was “Adam,” and the court issued an Order to Show Cause why it should not dismiss the case with prejudice for Ebmeyer’s failure to disclose this identification information sooner. The court rejected Ebmeyer’s ensuing explanation and dismissed the suit with prejudice. Ebmeyer appeals. II. On appeal, Ebmeyer first asserts that the court erred in granting summary judgment to three defendants on exhaus- tion grounds because they failed to meet their burden of proving failure to exhaust, and because the court should have conducted a fact-finding hearing on the matter before ruling. Second, he contends that the court erred in dismissing his case with prejudice as a sanction because the c