SCOTUS: If The Inmate Didn't Exhaust His Grievances, Then Say So, Or YOU'LL Be Grieving

JONES v. BOCK, SCOTUS Nos. 05-7058, 05-7152, 2007 U.S. LEXIS 1325, 75 USLW 4058, on certiorari from USCA-6, opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, filed 22 Jan 2007.

LONG STORY SHORT: The Prison Litigation Reform Act does not require inmates to plead exhaustion of administrative remedies when they file suit; exhausted claims may not be dismissed on grounds that other claims were not exhausted; and failure to exhaust is an affirmative defense that defendants must plead and prove. Binding in the United States.

FACTS: Three prisoners of the Michigan Department of Corrections alleged violations of their rights. Jones was in a traffic accident while in custody and suffered significant neck and back injuries. Months later, over his protests, he received a work assignment that aggravated his injuries, as corrections officials knew it would. Jones exhausted his administrative remedies against two officials, but also believed that several others were responsible. He eventually sued those two officials and the several others he thought liable.

Williams suffered from a painful and disfiguring condition in his right arm, for which a prison doctor recommended surgery, but corrections officials denied surgery and denied Williams' request for a one-man handicapped cell. Williams filed a grievance regarding his medical treatment, without naming any specific persons, and a grievance regarding his cell. All grievances and appeals were denied.

Walton assaulted a corrections officer and his punishment was an upper-slot restriction, that is, having to receive food and paperwork through the lower slot of his cell door. Later, Walton found out that two other inmates, who were white, had committed the same offense and gotten a three-month upper-slot restriction, but Walton's punishment was indefinite, and he believed that his race was a factor in this disparate treatment. Walton filed a grievance, naming only one specific person as a respondent. The grievance and all appeals were denied. He eventually sued the specific respondent and several other officials.

PROCEDURE: Jones, Williams, and Walton filed separate suits in U.S. District Courts, seeking damages per 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 for alleged violations of their Eighth Amendment rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. All three suits had to conform to PLRA, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1997e et seq. All three complaints were DISMISSED under the Sixth Circuit's "total exhaustion" reading of PLRA, i.e., if a prisoner sued two or more defendants but had not exhausted his administrative remedies against one or more of them, then the whole suit was dismissed. All three prisoners appealed to the Sixth Circuit, which held that the district courts had correctly applied its precedent. Jones had not met the Sixth Circuit requirements of total exhaustion and heightened pleading. In reference to Williams and Walton, prisoners must specifically grieve against the persons they intend to sue. DISMISSALS AFFIRMED. All three prisoners petitioned for and received certiorari from the Supreme Court of the United States, and argued that the Sixth Circuit's legal reasoning was contrary to the Rules of Civil Procedure regarding pleadings and affirmative defenses, and not the majority view of federal courts.

DECISION: It is well known that inmates file a lot of lawsuits, most of which are meritless. Congress passed PLRA in 1996 to require among other things: "No action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under [42 U.S.C. 1983], or any other federal law, by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted." However, an inmate need do no more than what the procedures require or allow. Neither may courts use the general principle of "fewer and better prisoner suits" to read into statutes and rules any restrictions that are not already present.

In Williams' case, Michigan grievance procedures did not require him to name any specific person he intended to sue, even if that would be a better practice. PLRA does not make grievance rules; the corrections authorities do. Since he had been as specific as the procedures made him be, he had exhausted. The same went for Walton.

In Jones' case, the "no action shall be brought" language was congressional boilerplate and did not require dismissal of all claims, good and bad, when similar language in many other statutes did not require the same. For example, statutes of limitation are defenses to whatever discrete claims in a lawsuit are too old, but are not defenses to any timely commenced claims in the same suit, even though SOLs typically read "no action shall be brought." As dismaying as the prospect may be, courts must distill "not so much wheat from chaff as needles from haystacks," with the consolation prize that hopefully inmates will no longer have incentive to file several small suits against one or a few defendants each.

In all cases, PLRA exhaustion requirements do not override the Rules of Civil Procedure regarding affirmative defenses. Defendants have to plead and prove lack of exhaustion themselves; the courts may not do so for them. Inmates need not plead exhaustion, and courts may not dismiss their complaints on that basis. SCOTUS is aware that lower courts have plenty of work to do and that inmate litigation is a major difficulty, but lower courts are not free to invoke public policy on a case-by-case basis. Established rulemaking procedures are available and all interests should use them if they are displeased with this ruling.

EDITORIAL: Good show! The Dread Chief Justice Roberts ("I Am Here For Your SOOOOUL") seems not to be quite the inmate-torturing law 'n' order zealot that liberals assured us he was. He actually read the statute, compared it with other similar statutes, considered what other courts said about it, and evaluated the results in light of the fact that we are a government of laws and precedents, not of make-it-up-as-you-go-along "public policy" elasticity. Now THAT is what liberals fear--the courts telling you to go change the rules, not ignore them, when they collide with your lofty ideals. Note also, liberals, that with correct reasoning and logic, it's possible to come up with a unanimous pro-inmate decision, with even Nino Scalia and Quiet Man Thomas agreeing. It seems we have some leadership going on here.

Having run a few inmate civil rights lawsuits in my day, and having given up on that enterprise because it is very hard to pick the good cases out of the squillions of letters I used to get, I rather like this opinion. It makes corrections officials responsible for some of their own behavior. And CJOTUS Roberts gets off a good one now and then--"fewer and better prisoner lawsuits" is classic, as is the footnote about Walton's beef: "An upper slot restriction limits the inmate to receiving food and paperwork via the lower slot of the cell door. Presumably, this is less desirable than access through the upper slot; the record does not reveal how effective this particular sanction is in discouraging assaults on staff." Nor do I see how this amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, or lack of due process, at least enough to bother a federal court with, but you'd be amazed at what prisoners consider really important.