The language of the
Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) has been the subject of much debate since
its enactment in the mid-1990s. Specifically, the PLRA requires that jail detainees and prisoners exhaust
all available remedies prior to filing their lawsuits. 42 U.S.C. 1997(e). This otherwise simple language, designed to
stem the massive flood of “jailhouse lawyer litigation,” has itself been the
subject of multiple interpretations and thousands of lawsuits because this
statutory requirement can bar a plaintiff from obtaining relief in federal
court.
The U.S. Supreme
Court’s recent decision in Jones v. Bock,
Warden, et. al., Slip Op. 549 U.S. ___ (2007), dealing with two separate appeals
from lawsuits in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals addressing the meaning of
“failure to exhaust” resolves some of the questions that have circled the
PLRA. In this respect, in Williams v.
Overton, 136 Fed. Appx. 859 (6th Cir. 2005) and Jones v. Bock, 135
Fed. Appx. 837 (6th Cir. 2005), the Sixth Circuit dealt with appeals on three
main issues: 1) whether the PLRA requires a prisoner to name the specific
defendant in his/her administrative grievance in order to preserve the
detainee’s right to sue the specific defendant, 2) whether a circuit court can
dismiss a complaint if there is a single unexhausted claim, but the prisoner
exhausted his remedies for his other claims, and 3) whether satisfaction of the
PRLA’s exhaustion requirement is an affirmative defense or a prerequisite to a
prisoner’s right to sue.
In Williams, 136
Fed. Appx. at 862, the Sixth Circuit Court held that “total exhaustion” is
required in order for prisoners to bring civil rights actions pursuant to 42
U.S.C. § 1983. The court found that the
plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as to one of his
counts, therefore, the total exhaustion requirement was not met and the trial
court properly dismissed the entire action. In Jones, 135 Fed. Appx. at 838, the appellate court held that
the district court did not err when it dismissed plaintiff’s complaint because
he failed to exhaust administrative remedies. The court stated that a plaintiff must either attach a copy of his
administrative grievance form to the complaint or state the nature of the
remedies pursued and the result of each process. Id.
at 639.
The United States
Supreme Court granted certiorari and
consolidated the cases. Oral argument
was heard on October 30, 2006 and, in a unanimous decision, reversed the Sixth
Circuit. Jones v. Bock, Warden, et. al., 127 S. Ct. 910; 2007
U.S. LEXIS
1325; 75 U.S.L.W. 4058 (January 22, 2007). First, the Supreme Court held that failure to exhaust is an affirmative
defense and, as a result, prisoners are not required to specifically plead that
they exhausted the available administrative remedy processes. The Court pointed to the fact that the PLRA
is completely silent as to whether pleading exhaustion was required in
determining that said deficiency was only an affirmative defense.
Second, the Court
found that exhaustion does not require the prisoner to name each and every
individual that may become a defendant. Exhaustion is satisfied if the grievance served its function of alerting
the state of the alleged problem and inviting corrective action. Citing,
Riccardo v. Rausch, 375 F. 3d 521,
524 (7th Cir. 2004). The Court noted a
split amongst the circuit courts on this issue, but ultimately held that
failure to name an individual defendant in a grievance did not amount to a
failure to exhaust.
Third, the Supreme
Court held that the PLRA does not allow for the dismissal of the entire
complaint if one of the claims was not properly exhausted. The respondents argued that the PLRA states
that no “action” can be sustained if a prisoner failed to exhaust. However, this argument was not
persuasive. The Court found the term to
be boilerplate and stated that district courts must allow the exhausted claims
to go forward, otherwise prisoners may file separate lawsuits, which was not
the intent of the PLRA.
In the end, the
Supreme Court did not find support for the Sixth Circuit’s decision. However, the Supreme Court did not dismiss
the idea that that the Sixth Circuit’s decision may one day be the law, but as
the Court stated, that decision would be through the legislative rule making
process and not on a case-by-case basis.
* * *
Dominick Lanzito is an Associate in our Chicago office and concentrates his practice in the defense of municipal defendants in civil rights, prison and other litigation involving municipal police agencies. If you have any questions regarding this article, please contact Dominick via dlanzito@querrey.com, or via 312-540-7592. If you have questions regarding Querrey & Harrow’s municipal entity defense practice, please contact Dan Gallagher via dgallagher@querrey.com, or via 312-540-7674.
