Full Opinion

USCA11 Case: 22-11188 Document: 75-1 Date Filed: 11/06/2026 Page: 1 of 9 NOT FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 22-11188 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ WALLACE GARY COLLIER, a.k.a. Gary Winters, Plaintiff-Appellant, versus SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Defendants, WOODROW A. MYERS, Defendant-Appellee. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 4:19-cv-00053-RH-MAF ____________________ Before NEWSOM, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges. USCA11 Case: 22-11188 Document: 75-1 Date Filed: 11/06/2026 Page: 2 of 9 2 Opinion of the Court 22-11188 PER CURIAM: Wallace Gary Collier, a Florida prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the defendants in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action for deliberate indifference to a serious medical need based on a delay in medical treatment. Collier argues that the district court erred in concluding that he failed to establish causation because he presented sufficient evidence to show that the delay in treating his hepatitis C virus (“HCV”) while he was incarcerated caused him to develop severe fibrosis (i.e., scarring of the liver). After careful review, we affirm. I. Background In January 2019, Collier filed a § 1983 civil rights suit against Woodrow Myers, the Chief Operating Officer of Corizon Health, Inc. (“Corizon”), and Corizon itself. Collier alleged that Corizon was the healthcare provider from 2015 to 2017 at the facilities where Collier was incarcerated. Collier asserted that he had been incarcerated at Union Correctional Institution (“UCI”) in Florida, where he contracted HCV in 2007. He was initially “asymptomatic . . . except for tiredness and minor pain,” but “[o]ver the next seven years[, he] received inadequate evaluations without seeing a specialist or receiving proper testing for liver damage.” In 2014, a new treatment for HCV called direct acting antivirals (“DAAs”) 1 was developed, but Corizon doctors did not 1 Collier contended that the DAAs were considered “a break-through cure” with a “97% effective [rate] with minimal side effects.” USCA11 Case: 22-11188 Document: 75-1 Date Filed: 11/06/2026 Page: 3 of 9 22-11188 Opinion of the Court 3 inform him of this new treatment. Collier learned about DAAs on his own in 2015 and, between 2015 and 2017, he “requested to see a specialist and [] receive treatment, numerous times, to no avail.” Rather, Corizon doctors assured him that his liver enzyme levels were “good” and that “there were no indications of damage to his liver.” One Corizon doctor told Collier in 2016 that DAAs were expensive and Corizon was not providing funding for them. Around January 2018, Collier was diagnosed with fibrosis of the liver. Despite later receiving DAA treatment for his HCV because of an injunction in a separate action, Collier’s fibrosis was not cured. Collier asserted that Myers and Corizon knew prisoners were dying from HCV and that money was needed to treat HCV infections in the prison. He argued that Myers and Corizon had a “[c]ustom and [p]ractice of non-treatment” of HCV inmates in order to make a profit, and that they had been deliberately indifferent to Collier’s medical needs by delaying his treatment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Myers and Corizon ultimately moved for summary judgment. Myers, for his part, asserted that Corizon’s contract to provide medical services for Florida prisons ran from September 2013 through May 2016 at which point it was canceled. Myers argued that, as the chief executive officer of Corizon, he had no personal interaction with Collier, and he did not have any input in his care. Additionally, he denied knowing that Collier had any serious medical need. Corizon argued that its reasoned medical USCA11 Case: 22-11188 Document: 75-1 Date Filed: 11/06/2026 Page: 4 of 9 4 Opinion of the Court 22-11188 decision to not provide DAAs due to prohibitive cost did not amount to deliberate indifference. In support, Myers and Corizon submitted a sworn declaration from Dr. Craig Hutchinson, an Infectious Disease Physician at Corizon, in which he explained that the DAAs promised a high rate of cure for HCV without side effects, but they cost around “$84,000” and “$95,000.” He stated that no company, including Corizon, could afford such costs by itself. Corizon asked the Florida Department of Corrections (“FDOC”) to obtain funding from the Florida Legislature for DAAs or obtain the DAAs without cost directly from the manufacturer in exchange for sharing treatment data. However, those efforts were unsuccessful. In hopes that future funding would be forthcoming, Corizon and the FDOC began accumulating data on inmates with HCV to prioritize which patients needed treatment. Collier was one of 5,376 inmates with HCV under Corizon’s care, and he was being evaluated for treatment as of September 2015 pending funding. Corizon did not finish evaluating all of the patients on the lists prior to the cancellation of its contract in May 2016. Collier opposed the motion for summary judgment, arguing that Corizon violated his Eighth Amendment rights because it was contractually responsible to pay for necessary medication for FDOC inmates, and it improperly “denied [him] treatment for his serious medical need.” He maintained that Myers was vicariously liable as a supervisor because he was aware of the non-treatment policy and of the number of inmates with HCV in need of treatment. Collier submitted copies of his lab results from 2014 to 2017. The lab results showed that the earliest mention of Collier’s USCA11 Case: 22-11188 Document: 75-1 Date Filed: 11/06/2026 Page: 5 of 9 22-11188 Opinion of the Court 5 fibrosis score (“F3”) 2 did not appear in any of the lab reports until November 2017. 3 The district court ultimately granted summary judgment to Myers and Corizon. 4 The district court concluded that the record “support[ed] a finding that Corizon adopted a policy not to treat [HCV] patients with DAAs in the absence of state funding—in effect, not to treat patients with DAAs at all.” The district court then explained that, long after the cancellation of Corizon’s contract, the FDOC adopted a framework for the treatment of inmates with HCV in response to a class action, which this Court had upheld as constitutionally adequate in Hoffer v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, 973 F.3d 1263 (11th Cir. 2020) (“Hoffer II”). Under that treatment framework, “DAAs were to be administered to inmates at level F2 and above but not those at level F0 or F1 unless they had an exacerbating condition or exhibited signs of rapid fibrosis progression.” Thus, assuming without deciding that 2 “Liver fibrosis can be measured, or staged, on a five-step scale, in ascending order of severity, from F0 (no fibrosis) to F1 (mild fibrosis) to F2 (moderate fibrosis) to F3 (severe fibrosis) to F4 (cirrhosis).” Hoffer v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 973 F.3d 1263, 1267 (11th Cir. 2020). 3 Collier requested that the district court take judicial notice of various exhibits and expert testimony in Hoffer v. Jones, 290 F. Supp. 3d 1292 (N.D. Fla. 2017) (“Hoffer I”), which was a separate class action against FDOC for deliberate indifference to the serious medical needs of inmates with HCV. The district court did not expressly address this request for judicial notice. 4 A magistrate judge issued a report and recommendation, recommending that the motion for summary judgment be denied and the case set for trial. The district court did not accept this recommendation. USCA11 Case: 22-11188 Document: 75-1 Date Filed: 11/06/2026 Page: 6 of 9 6 Opinion of the Court 22-11188 the Hoffer II treatment framework represents the constitutional minimum for adequate care, the district court reasoned that Collier would have been “entitled to treatment when he reached level F2—or earlier if he had an exacerbating condition or exhibited signs of rapid fibrosis progression.” The problem for Collier was that there was no evidence of when his fibrosis began or when it progressed. Rather, the only evidence in the record showed severe fibrosis (F3) in November 2017. Because Collier’s fibrosis level prior to November 2017 was unknown, he necessarily could not show causation—that his present condition was worse than it would have been had he been treated with DAAs during Corizon’s tenure as the medical provider for the FDOC. In other words, he failed to show that he suffered any damage from the delay in treatment. Consequently, the district court entered summary judgment in favor of Myers and Corizon. This appeal followed.5 II. Discussion Collier argues that the district court erred in entering summary judgment for Myers because there was sufficient 5 In 2023, while this appeal was pending, Corizon filed a notice of suggestion of bankruptcy, and we stayed this action pending the bankruptcy proceeding. As a result of the bankruptcy proceeding, Corizon was to be dissolved and the claims against it were extinguished, but the claims against individual employees could proceed. Accordingly, we lifted the stay on September 10, 2026, dismissed the appeal in part as to Corizon, and permitted the appeal as to Myers to proceed. Consequently, Myers is the only defendant left in this appeal. USCA11 Case: 22-11188 Document: 75-1 Date Filed: 11/06/2026 Page: 7 of 9 22-11188 Opinion of the Court 7 evidence to “demonstrate that [the] [d]efendants’ denial of treatment for [HCV] caused” permanent damage to his liver.6 We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing all the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Grange Mut. Cas. Co. v. Slaughter, 958 F.3d 1050, 1056 (11th Cir. 2020). Summary judgment is properly granted if “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). The non-moving party must produce substantial evidence to defeat a motion for summary judgment; “[a] ‘mere scintilla’ of evidence is insufficient.” Garczynski v. Bradshaw, 573 F.3d 1158, 1165 (11th Cir. 2009). 6 Collier requests that we take judicial notice of expert testimony from Hoffer I, which he argues helps him establish causation. We deny his request because Collier asks us to take judicial notice of the Hoffer I testimony for the “truth of the matter asserted,” which is an impermissible use of judicial notice. United States v. Jones, 29 F.3d 1549, 1553 (11th Cir. 1994) (explaining that a court may take judicial notice of documents filed in another case “not for the truth of the matters asserted in the other litigation, but rather to establish the fact of such litigation and related filings,” or only “for the limited purpose of recognizing the ‘judicial act’ that the order represents or the subject matter of the litigation” (quotations omitted)); see also Fed. R. Evid. 201(b) (“The court may judicially notice a fact that is not subject to reasonable dispute because it: (1) is generally known within the trial court’s territorial jurisdiction; or (2) can be accurately and readily determined from sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.”); Grayson v. Warden, Comm’r, Ala. Dep’t of Corr., 869 F.3d 1204, 1224–25 (11th Cir. 2017) (explaining that a district court cannot “rely on judicial notice to make its findings [in one case] conclusive in [a different] case[]”). USCA11 Case: 22-11188 Document: 75-1 Date Filed: 11/06/2026 Page: 8 of 9 8 Opinion of the Court 22-11188 The Eighth Amendment forbids “cruel and unusual punishments.” U.S. Const. amend. VIII. A prison official’s “deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners” constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104 (1976). To succeed on a claim for deliberate indifference to a serious medical need, a plaintiff must demonstrate three elements. See Wade v. United States, 13 F.4th 1217, 1225 (11th Cir. 2021). “First, a plaintiff must show that he had an objectively serious medical need. Second, a plaintiff must show that a prison official acted with deliberate indifference to his serious medical need. And third, a plaintiff must show that his injury was caused by a prison official’s wrongful conduct.” Id. (citations omitted). This case centers on the third prong.7 With regard to establishing causation, “[a]n inmate who complains that delay in medical treatment rose to a constitutional violation must place verifying medical evidence in the record to establish the detrimental effect of delay in medical treatment to succeed.” Hill v. Dekalb Reg’l Youth Det. Ctr., 40 F.3d 1176, 1188 (11th Cir. 1994), overruled in part on other grounds by Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730 (2002). 7 The district court found that Collier established the first two elements, and neither Collier nor Myers challenge those key findings, leaving causation as the only issue on appeal. See United States v. Campbell, 26 F.4th 860, 873 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc) (holding that issues not raised in a party’s initial brief are forfeited on appeal). USCA11 Case: 22-11188 Document: 75-1 Date Filed: 11/06/2026 Page: 9 of 9 22-11188 Opinion of the Court 9 Here, the district court did not err by determining that Collier failed to provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate causation. Collier did not provide any medical evidence to show that Myers’s policy not to administer DAAs absent state funding caused him injury. Hill, 40 F.3d at 1188. His supporting evidence of his liver condition was limited to a November 2017 lab report that showed his fibrosis score of F3, which was after Corizon’s contract to provide medical services ended. For causation to exist, there would need to be some evidence that suggested Collier— sometime between September 2013 and May 2016 when Corizon was in charge of administering medical services to the FDOC— either (a) was at an F2 level or above such that treatment was warranted under the Hoffer II framework and (b) exhibited signs of rapid fibrosis progression. Accordingly, Collier failed to meet his burden to show causation, and the district court did not err in granting summary judgment on his delay in treatment claim. See Wade, 12 F.4th at 1225; Hill, 40 F.3d at 1188. AFFIRMED.