ORDER

B. EDENFIELD, District Judge

I. INTRODUCTION

This case began with a spider bite. Then-inmate and now 42 U.S.C. § 1983 plaintiff Chastity Prickett alleges that a spider bit her on her left breast while she was incarcerated at a Georgia probation detention center. In violation of her Eighth Amendment and other rights, she contends, detention officials were deliberately indifferent to her medical needs when they addressed the bite and the complications that arose from it. The defendants move to dismiss and for summary judgment. Doc. ## 24, 45.

II. BACKGROUND

In 5/05, Prickett was under probation when it was revoked and she was sent to the Women's Detention Center (WDC) in Claxton, Georgia. Doc. # 44 at 23; # 26-2 at 1. She claims that

[o]n or around [7/8/05, she] was bitten by a spider on her left breast. She showed the spider to a supervising officer. Prickett repeatedly requested to see a doctor during this time and was denied. She received inadequate medical care from the nursing staff of the WDC. She became very ill and was eventually transported to a local hospital, where she was assessed and transported to a larger hospital, where she underwent surgery. The wound stayed open and did not heal for approximately four months.

Doc. # 26-2 at 1-2 (plaintiff's brief); see also doc. # 44 at (printed page) 23.

WDC officials gave Prickett an institutional manual informing her of the availability of both a general and medical grievance procedure there. Doc. # 44 at 83. She does not now claim that she was unaware of such procedures, and in her deposition she admitted that she never filed any administrative grievances with WDC while she was there, nor at the hospital where WDC sent her, nor at her next place of incarceration, Pulaski State Prison (Pulaski). Nor, finally, did she do so when she was later re-incarcerated, on another probation revocation, at the Irwin County, Georgia Detention Center (IDC). Instead, she simply filed this case while still at the IDC. Doc. # 44 at 81-86; see also doc. # 25; # 24-2 exh. 1.

III. ANALYSIS

Defendants want this case dismissed because Prickett failed to file a grievance at WDC, much less at IDC, for what happened at WDC. She thus failed to satisfy 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a)'s exhaustion requirement, they contend, so dismissal is warranted. Doc. # 24 at 8-9. Prickett insists that § 1997e(a) exhaustion is not required because she was at IDC when she filed this case:

It would be absurd to require a detainee or inmate to file an internal grievance with the [IDC] about something that happened years before at the [WDC]. [IDC] administrators have no supervisory authority over [WDC] personnel. To require Prickett to file a grievance for events taking place at another facility would be an exercise in futility and could result in no conceivable benefit to any party involved. See Goebert v. Lee County, [ 510 F.3d 1312 (11th Cir. 2007)].

Doc. # 54 at 6; see also id. at 5 ("As Prickett was incarcerated at another facility, no such administrative remedies were available").

Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), which was intended to reduce the quantity and improve the quality of prisoner lawsuits, exhaustion of available administrative remedies within a prison or jail is required for any case challenging prison conditions, and not just for § 1983 actions. Woodford, 548 U.S. at 84-85.

It follows that if the remedy is not available, one cannot be faulted for failing to use it. Goebert, 510 F.3d at 1322 (administrative exhaustion procedure for inmates to appeal adverse decisions on their complaints was not "available" where they had no way of knowing about it; procedure was laid out in manual that inmates were never permitted to see, and it was omitted from inmate handbook).

Prickett was confined when she filed this action, just not at the original facility where her claims arose. Yet, the exhaustion requirement "applies to all inmate suits about prison life, whether they involve general circumstances or particular episodes, and whether they allege excessive force or some other wrong," Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 532 (2002) (emphasis added), so the key determinant here is whether Prickett was confined when she filed this case, not where she was confined:

Other courts have [applied case law and have] found that a plaintiff who was imprisoned at one facility when a § 1983 claim accrued but who was released and, by reason of criminal misconduct, brought the claim while imprisoned at another facility is likewise subject to the PLRA's exhaustion requirement.

[m]any courts have held that the transfer of a prisoner from the facility where the grievance subject arose to another facility does not excuse the prisoner from complying with the first facility's exhaustion requirement. See Medina-Claudio v. Rodriguez-Mateo, 292 F.3d 31, 35 (1st Cir. 2002) (inmate failed to comply with the PLRA's exhaustion requirement where administrative procedures provided for the filing of a grievance after the inmate's transfer to another facility); Rodriguez v. Senkowski, 103 F.Supp.2d 131, 134 (N.D.N.Y. June 21, 2000) ("[T]he mere fact that Plaintiff has been transferred to another prison facility does not necessarily render the exhaustion requirement moot.").

The fact that Prickett ultimately wound up in, and filed this case from, a different prison does not excuse her failure to exhaust administrative remedies before commencing this case. See, e.g., Miller v. Pryor, 2008 WL 4649389 at * 1 (11th Cir. 10/22/08) (unpublished) (even when transferred to another facility, "Georgia prisoners must file out-of-time grievances to exhaust administrative remedies") (applying Bryant v. Rich, 530 F.3d 1368, 1379 (11th Cir. 2008) (Despite inmate's contention that he failed to report incident of prison abuse because he feared additional violent reprisals by prison officials, inmate failed to exhaust his administrative remedies, as required by PLRA for him to pursue § 1983 claim, where inmate was later transferred to another prison where threat of violence was removed and he could have filed out-of-time grievance and then shown good cause for its untimeliness)). What matters is that (a) she was confined when her claim arose and when she elected to sue; and (b) whether her incarcerators in some way made administrative exhaustion "unavailable" to her. Turner, 541 F.3d at 1083 (exhaustion excused where prisoner followed the established grievance procedures and filed a formal grievance, but the prison warden allegedly tore it up); Goebert, 510 F.3d at 1323 (an administrative remedy is not "available" if it is unknown and unknowable to the inmate).

Since nothing made exhaustion unavailable to Prickett, her case must be dismissed on nonexhaustion grounds. Williams v. Comstock, 425 F.3d 175, 176 (2d Cir. 2005) (State prisoner's assertion that it was physically and mentally impossible for him to file an administrative grievance with prison within 14 days after suffering from stroke, as required by prison policy to timely file a grievance, did not explain why prisoner waited nearly two years before filing grievance with prison alleging that he was not provided with adequate medical care when he had stroke, and thus prisoner failed to exhaust administrative remedies as required by PLRA before bringing § 1983 action related to treatment after stroke), cited in RIGHTS OF PRISONERS § 16:9 ( The Exhaustion Requirement) (2008).

The next issue is whether that dismissal should be with or without prejudice. Normally, the failure to exhaust warrants dismissal without prejudice. See, e.g., Miller, 2008 WL 4649389 at *2. But

[t]here are situations . . . where dismissal with prejudice is the appropriate disposition. For example, some courts have found that if exhaustion would be futile because the prisoner has been transferred to another correctional facility, dismissal with prejudice is proper. See [ Davis v. Reilly, 324 F.Supp.2d 361, 366 (E.D.N.Y. 2004)]; see also Berry v. Kerik, 366 F.3d 85, 87-88 (2d Cir. 2003).

Note that Prickett has cited (in doc. # 54 at 6) to Goebert and thus adverted to the above-mentioned "unavailability" concept. See Goebert, 510 F.3d at 1322. To reiterate, inmates may be excused from the exhaustion requirement if it is "unavailable" to them, such as where the grievance system itself is vague or otherwise unclear. Id.; Williams v. Marshal, 2008 WL 4787152 at * 3 (11th Cir. 11/4/08) (unpublished).

Prickett does not argue that here. Instead, she insists that it was fine for her to not invoke any available grievance procedure (including when she was at WDC and then in a prison hospital), then wait two years and, merely because she was at another prison when she filed this case, somehow be excused from the exhaustion requirement. The case law does not support that result.

Nor does it matter whether or not (as impliedly suggested by the Miller and Bryant cases) she could "exhaust by mail" her claims against WDC while she was confined at IDC — for Prickett has simply failed to show what prevented her from filing a grievance while at WDC, and her deposition testimony bespeaks a casual attitude at that. Doc. # 44-2 at 83-84.

Prickett considers it impossible ("absurd") to administratively exhaust her claims now, yet it was her own indolence that caused the remedy's alleged unavailability. See supra n. 5. If in fact it is impossible, then dismissal should be with prejudice here. See Henry, 2008 WL 638246 at * 2. But since the record is not pellucid on this point, the "Henry" result should apply here. See id. (ordinarily, court would dismiss with prejudice unexhausted § 1983-based, deliberate-indifference-medical-care case where inmate failed to exhaust administrative remedies while incarcerated in the subject facility and, at the time he filed case in district court, he was no longer incarcerated there, but because the record as then developed did not address non-exhaustion reasons, only dismissal without prejudice was then warranted). However, the Court will entertain an F.R.Civ.P. 59(e) motion from defendants if they can show that the record supports a with-prejudice dismissal.

IV. CONCLUSION

Accordingly, the Court GRANTS — on the exhaustion issue — all of the defendants' motions to dismiss and for summary judgment (doc. ## 24, 45) and therefore DISMISSES WITHOUT PREJUDICE plaintiff Chastity Prickett's Complaint against them. This case is now CLOSED.