Opinion
22-2692
08-28-2024
EDWARD WALLACE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. OFFICER DELANEY, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
Submitted August 28, 2024 [*]
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 20 C 1366 Matthew F. Kennelly, Judge.
Before MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge JOSHUA p. KOLAR, Circuit Judge
ORDER
Edward Wallace, a state detainee, appeals the summary judgment against him based on his failure to exhaust administrative remedies before bringing a failure-to-protect claim. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Because the undisputed facts show that Wallace did not follow the jail's policy concerning the timing and filing of grievances with respect to his claim, we affirm.
Because Wallace opposed summary judgment, we construe the record in his favor except where, as the district court ruled, he did not comply with the district court's procedural rules in responding to a motion for summary judgment. Wallace did not, for instance, supplement his statement of facts with citations to the record, so the court appropriately deemed the defendants' facts admitted under Local Rule 56.1. See N.D.Ill. R. 56.1; Friend v. Valley View Cmty. Unit Sch. Dist. 365U, 789 F.3d 707, 710-11 (7th Cir. 2015).
Wallace's claim arises from two incidents at Cook County Jail. First, he was attacked by other prisoners on December 29, 2017. The following day, he completed a grievance form. He was attacked again on January 18, 2018, and two days later, he filled out a grievance. He says that he placed both forms in an "interlock grievance folder," in compliance, he says, with the requisite procedure at the time. The forms, however, were not received by jail officials in any timely manner; according to the defendants' records, the first grievance form for either of these incidents was not accepted until April 23, 2018.
In February 2020, Wallace filed this lawsuit, alleging that jail officials failed to protect him from the threat of harm from his fellow detainees in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Defendants sought summary judgment, arguing that, because Wallace had not properly filed timely grievances (within 15 days of the occurrences, according to the jail's rules), he had not exhausted his administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e. The district court agreed with defendants and entered summary judgment on August 8, 2022.
Wallace then filed several untimely post-judgment motions. First, on September 9, he filed a motion for reconsideration, which the district court denied three days later. On September 22, he next filed three documents: a motion for enlargement of time to file his notice of appeal, a notice of appeal, and a motion for appointment of counsel. Four days later, the court denied Wallace's motions for counsel and enlargement of time, stating that he "has no deadlines" before the district court because "the case has been dismissed and is on appeal."
We then ordered the parties to file memoranda addressing the timeliness of this appeal. A notice of appeal in a civil case must be filed within 30 days from the entry of judgment, FED. R. APP. P. 4(a)(1)(A); here, the judgment was entered on August 8 and the notice of appeal was not filed until September 22. (The motion for reconsideration was also not timely filed, so the original deadline still stood. FED. R.APP. P. 4(a)(4)(A)(iv); Blue v. Int'l Bhd. of Elec. Workers Loc. Union 159, 676 F.3d 579, 582 (7th Cir. 2012).) Wallace contended that he filed his notice of appeal late because of COVID-related mail and prison delays. In a later order, we expressed concern that the district court may not have treated Wallace's motion for enlargement of time as relating to his notice of appeal, so we remanded the case to the district court to decide whether Wallace's untimely notice of appeal was excused. On remand, the district court ruled that Wallace had shown sufficiently good cause for the untimeliness.
Wallace now challenges the court's ruling on exhaustion, but we first address the defendants' threshold challenge that jurisdiction is lacking. Defendants contend that, because the district court denied Wallace's motion for enlargement of time and Wallace did not appeal that denial, we lacked jurisdiction to remand the case to the district court to consider whether he had good cause to file his notice of appeal late. But under our precedent, Wallace did not have to file a separate notice of appeal for us to reconsider the denial of his motion for enlargement of time. See United States v. Kimberlin, 898 F.2d 1262, 1264 (7th Cir. 1990) ("[I]t is superfluous to file notices to argue that the initial [notice of appeal] places the case before us[.]"). The district court determined that Wallace had good cause for the late appeal, so our jurisdiction is secure.
As for Wallace's argument, he maintains that he exhausted his administrative remedies because he timely placed his completed grievance forms in the grievance folders. He concedes that he did not get a response to these grievances but argues that he had no control over what happened with his grievances after submitting them.
Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, however, prisoners must exhaust their administrative remedies by following the "specific procedures and deadlines established by the prison's policy" before they can file a lawsuit. Hernandez v. Dart, 814 F.3d 836, 841-42 (7th Cir. 2016) (citation omitted); 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). According to the Cook County Department of Corrections Inmate Information Handbook introduced by the defendants, prisoners must file grievances within 15 days of the incident by "hand[ing the] grievance form to the [Correctional Rehabilitation Worker], an Inmate Services supervisor[,] or a correctional supervisor" while on their daily rounds. Wallace contends that this rule supplanted an older requirement that grievances be submitted in a grievance folder, but he points to no evidence that the older requirement was in effect in late 2017. Because he cannot show that he complied with the jail's procedures for submitting a grievance, he failed to demonstrate that he exhausted his administrative remedies.
AFFIRMED
[*] We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. p. 34(a)(2)(C).