McDonald v. Adamson

MANION, Circuit Judge.

In 2013, Illinois state prison inmate Donald McDonald filed what should have been a typical federal constitutional suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. McDonald alleged that Defendants Warden Marcus Hardy, *345Assistant Warden Daryl Edwards, and Chaplain George Adamson were denying his First Amendment free exercise rights as a practicing Muslim. He sought only injunctive relief in the district court.

McDonald’s case hit a procedural snag because three years earlier he had filed a claim for damages based on the same facts in the Illinois Court of Claims. More than two years later,…