Opinion
5:22-cv-321-TES-CHW
01-30-2024
REGINALD WATTS, Plaintiff v. DEPUTY WARDEN EADDIE, Defendants.
Proceedings Under 42 U.S.C. §1983 Before the U.S. Magistrate Judge
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
Charles H. WeiGLE UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
On September 6, 2022, Plaintiff Reginald Watts, formerly an inmate at Macon State Prison, filed a pro se civil rights complaint seeking relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, in which he alleges that he was assaulted and stabbed several times by a fellow inmate on July 1, 2021, and that Defendant Peter Eaddie, the Deputy Warden of Security at the prison, knew of the risk and failed to protect Plaintiff. Following screening pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, Plaintiff was allowed to proceed with a claim against Defendant Warden Eaddie for deliberate indifference to a substantial risk for serious harm and for failure to protect him from the assault. (Doc. 10).
In lieu of an answer, Defendant filed a motion to dismiss (Doc. 21), contending that Plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) at 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). Plaintiff has not responded to the motion, although he requested and was granted an extension of time to do so. (Doc. 30). Defendant argues that Plaintiff did not fully and properly exhaust his administrative remedies because his appeal from the denial of his grievance was untimely. As explained more fully below, the record is ambiguous at best and the preponderance of the evidence indicates that any untimeliness of Plaintiff's appeal was due to the unavailability of a counselor to accept the grievance. Because prison officials hindered Plaintiff's ability to submit a timely appeal, the record shows that Plaintiff did exhaust his remedies to the extent they were available. As such, Defendant has failed to meet his burden of showing that Plaintiff did not fully exhaust available remedies, and it is hereby RECOMMENDED that Defendant's Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 21) be DENIED.
1. The Exhaustion Requirement
The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) requires prisoners to exhaust available administrative remedies before bringing an action with respect to prison conditions under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, or any other federal law. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). Exhaustion in this context means proper exhaustion: prisoners must “complete the administrative review process in accordance with the applicable procedural rules, including deadlines, as a precondition to bringing suit in a federal court.” Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 88 (2006). The exhaustion requirement is “designed to eliminate unwarranted federal court interference with the administration of prisons” by “seek[ing] to afford corrections officials time and opportunity to address complaints internally before allowing the initiation of a federal case.” Turner v. Burnside, 541 F.3d 1077, 1085 (11th Cir. 2008).
The Eleventh Circuit's Turner opinion establishes a two-step process for reviewing motions to dismiss based on a prisoner's failure to exhaust. A reviewing court first “looks to the factual allegations in the defendant's motion to dismiss and those in the plaintiff's response, and if they conflict, takes the plaintiff's version of the facts as true. If, in that light, the defendant is entitled to have the complaint dismissed for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, it must be dismissed.” Id. at 1082. Second, if the complaint is not dismissed under step one, “the court then proceeds to make specific findings in order to resolve the disputed factual issues related to exhaustion. .. .Once the court makes findings on the disputed issues of fact, it then decides whether under those findings the prisoner has exhausted his available administrative remedies.” Id. at 1082-83 (internal citations omitted). Because failure to exhaust is an affirmative defense under the PLRA, “defendants bear the burden of proving that the plaintiff has failed to exhaust his available administrative remedies.” Id.
2. The Grievance Procedure
The grievance procedure applicable in this case is set by the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDOC) Standard Operating Procedure No. 227.02. (Doc. 21-3). Under that procedure, prisoners must follow a two-step process by first filing an “original grievance” within 10 days of the grievable issue. (Id. at 8). Prisoners may file outside of the 10-day window if they show good cause. (Id.). The original grievance is then screened by prison staff, and typically either rejected or accepted for processing. (Id. at 9). The grievance procedure further provides that a response of some kind is due within 40 days of the date of a grievance's submission, with the possibility of a 10-day extension on written notice. (Id. at 11). Once the prisoner receives the warden's response, or when the time allowed for the warden to respond expires without a response, the prisoner must proceed to step two by filing a “Central Office Appeal” within seven days. (Id. at 14). The grievance procedure then contemplates a 120-day period in which the Commissioner may give a response. (Id. at 15).
3. Plaintiff's Allegations Regarding Exhaustion
In considering whether dismissal for failure to exhaust is appropriate, under Turner's step one the Court must first consider all the alleged facts, construed in favor of Plaintiff when the facts conflict. In his complaint, Plaintiff alleges that he filed a grievance on July 21, 2021, to which the warden responded on August 27, 2021. (Doc. 1, p. 4). He further alleges that he appealed the warden's decision but “never got my result back” even though more than 100 days had passed. (Id.). Attached to the complaint as Exhibit 1 is a copy of grievance number 326460, dated July 7, 2021, in which Plaintiff states:
On 7/1/21 while preparing for lockdown. As I went up the stairs to lockdown another inmate stabbed me five times in the head and twice in the back. Ofc Green and Ofc Jackson were on the floor. It was between 11:30 p.m.-12:00 a.m. After I was stabbed I ranned to my room to grab my blanket to wrap up. When I came out the inmate was gone and I was took to medical. This is a breach of security. I wrote a grievance be for [sic] but I wrote the wrong date. I say that this was due to my stabbing and due to the drugs I was given. Tylenol 650 mg and Keflex [illegible] mg.The grievance does not name Defendant Eaddie. As a resolution, Plaintiff requests, “I am medium security. Send me to a medium institution.” (Id.). Plaintiff's exhibit shows that the Warden responded to his grievance on August 27, 2021, stating:
Per Medical, the offender was [sic] saw the MD on 7-2-21. Offender was prescribed meds on 7-2-21. Per Officer Green, she did see the offender get assaulted and she called for assistance. Per Officer S. Jackson, she did assist the Officer with locking down the building for count and assist with getting the offender out of the dorm. Grievance Denied.(Doc. 1-1, p. 1). Plaintiff's exhibit also shows a Central Office Appeal Response dated April 12, 2022, well after the 120-day appeal response deadline, in which the Commissioner's designee, “RK” at the Office of Professional Standards, states:
A member of my staff has reviewed this grievance. The grievance revealed that you failed to follow the proper procedure for filing the formal grievance. Policy states that the offender has (7) calendar days from the Warden's response date to file a Central Office Appeal. Due to your failure to follow policy guidelines, the Office of Professional Standards will not address this grievance.(Doc. 1-2, p. 1). Plaintiff's exhibit does not include a copy of the grievance appeal form he submitted, and there is no allegation or evidence in the Complaint to show the date on which it was submitted.
At step one of the Turner analysis, Plaintiff's complaint and supporting documents are sufficient to show that Plaintiff made efforts to exhaust the remedies that were made available to him but was hindered by the prison officials' failure to follow their own procedures. Proceeding to step two, then, the Court looks to the evidence presented by Defendant with his motion to dismiss. This evidence provides additional detail as to Plaintiff's efforts to exhaust, but that additional detail provides additional weight to Plaintiff's contention that the remedy procedure was not fully available to him because prison officials failed to follow their own policies and hindered his ability to file a timely appeal.
4. Defendant's Evidence Regarding Exhaustion
With his motion to dismiss, Defendant Eaddie has submitted the affidavit of Curtis Jeffries, the Grievance Coordinator at Macon State Prison. (Doc. 21-1). Attached to this affidavit are exhibits related to grievance number 326460 that are generally consistent with the documents attached to Plaintiff's complaint. Defendant's copy of the Warden's response confirms that the response was signed by the Warden or Superintendent on August 27, 2021, but further shows that Plaintiff did not receive the response until September 8, 2021, twelve days later. (Doc. 21-5, p. 11). The Jeffries affidavit also attaches a copy of Plaintiff's Grievance Appeal Form, which is dated September 14, 2021, six days after Plaintiff received the Warden's response. (Id., p. 2). In the body of the appeal form Plaintiff states:
I am medium security and I have suffered physical injury due to lack of [security] at a close [security] camp. It's a lack of staff and it makes me feel unsafe. I feel if I was at a medium [security] camp I would not be going [through] this. I was given this appeal 9/8/21. I was not able to get to a
counselor until 9/16/21.(Id.).
The final two sentences of this statement are in a slightly larger script, and appear to have been written at a different time than the first three sentences. Jeffries' affidavit provides no documentation to show when the appeal was actually received or who received it. There is nothing in Jeffries' affidavit to refute Plaintiff's statement that he was unable to find a counselor to take the grievance until September 16, 2021. There is nothing in the Central Office Response to indicate that the Office of Professional Standards addressed or even acknowledged Plaintiff's contention that his grievance was untimely (by one day) because no counselor was available to accept the appeal.
5. Unavailability of Remedies
Given this record, Defendant has failed to meet his burden of showing that Plaintiff did not exhaust his remedies to the extent that they were available, because the evidence shows that prison officials hindered Plaintiff's ability to submit a timely appeal, making the full remedial process unavailable to him. The evidence submitted by Defendant does nothing to refute the statement on the face of Plaintiff's grievance appeal form, which shows that Plaintiff prepared and signed the grievance on September 14, 2021, six days after he received the Warden's response and within the seven-day period for appeal, but that he could not locate a counselor to accept the grievance until two days later. Plaintiff's statement is credible in light of Plaintiff's broader allegation that Macon State Prison was severely mismanaged and understaffed, leading to multiple inmate assaults and incidents, including six murders in the first three months of 2020 and an assault on the Warden himself. (Doc. 7, p. 2). Plaintiff's statement is also credible in light of the fact that it took twelve days for the Warden's response to be delivered to Plaintiff. It is still more credible in light of the fact that it took the Central Office seven months to respond to Plaintiff's grievance appeal rather than the required 120 days.
Defendant is correct that, generally, an untimely appeal from the denial of a grievance does not constitute “proper” exhaustion. Proper exhaustion, in the context of the applicable grievance procedure, extends from the filing of a grievance through the appeal and receipt of the Central Office Appeal outcome. See Bryant v. Rich, 530 F.3d 1368, 1378 (11th Cir. 2008). “Proper” exhaustion requires prisoners to “file complaints and appeals in the place, and at the time, the prison's administrative rules require.” Johnson v. Meadows, 418 F.3d 1152, 1158 (11th Cir. 2005). “Allowing [plaintiff's] untimely grievance to meet the exhaustion requirement would run counter to the understanding that § 1997e(a) requires prisoners to invoke and fully exhaust all available administrative grievance processes.”
Although prisons are entitled to enforce their administrative rules, including deadlines, for the exhaustion of grievances, they are not entitled to create conditions where it is impossible to follow those rules. In this case, the preponderance of the evidence indicates that Plaintiff attempted to file a timely grievance appeal but was hindered from doing so by the action or inaction of prison officials, which essentially made a timely appeal unavailable to him. “An inmate need only exhaust such administrative remedies as are ‘available.'” Ross v. Blake, 578 U.S. 632, 648 (2016). Citing dictionaries, the Supreme Court observed in Ross that “the ordinary meaning of the word ‘available' is ‘capable of use for the accomplishment of a purpose,' and that which ‘is accessible or may be obtained.'” Id. at 642. Among other possible circumstances,a remedial procedure may become available “when prison administrators thwart inmates from taking advantage of a grievance process through machination, misrepresentation, or intimidation,” where procedural systems act to “trip up all but the most skillful prisoners.” Id. at 644. It is not necessary to show malice or machination, however. The sort of “blind alleys and quagmires” that thwart proper exhaustion may also be the result of mismanagement or maladministration, as appears to be the case here, where no officer was available to accept Plaintiff's grievance within the very narrow window for submitting an appeal, effectively making a timely appeal impossible. The Georgia Department of Corrections is entitled to hold prisoners accountable to the punctilio of its procedural rules, but its officers should be held to the same standard.
Ross recognizes three possible circumstances in which remedies become unavailable: (1) when the remedial procedure “operates as a simple dead end - with officers unable or consistently unwilling to provide any relief to aggrieved inmates”; (2) when the administrative scheme is “so opaque that it becomes, practically speaking, incapable of use”; or (3) “when prison administrators thwart inmates from taking advantage of a grievance process through machination, misrepresentation, or intimidation.” 578 U.S. at 643-44.
CONCLUSION
Because the evidence of record fails to meet Defendant's burden of showing that Plaintiff did not fully exhaust his available administrative remedies prior to commencing suit, it is RECOMMENDED that Defendant's motion to dismiss (Docs. 21) be DENIED and that Defendant be directed to file an answer to Plaintiff's complaint within 21 days of any order adopting this Recommendation, with discovery to follow according to the schedule set forth in the Court's Order for Service (Doc. 10).
OBJECTIONS
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1), the parties may serve and file written objections to this Recommendation, or seek an extension of time to file objections, WITHIN FOURTEEN (14) DAYS after being served with a copy thereof. Any objection is limited in length to TWENTY (20) PAGES. See M.D. Ga. L.R. 7.4. The District Judge shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the Recommendation to which objection is made. All other portions of the Recommendation may be reviewed for clear error. The parties are further notified that, pursuant to Eleventh Circuit Rule 3-1, “[a] party failing to object to a magistrate judge's findings or recommendations contained in a report and recommendation in accordance with the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) waives the right to challenge on appeal the district court's order based on unobjected-to factual and legal conclusions if the party was informed of the time period for objecting and the consequences on appeal for failing to object. In the absence of a proper objection, however, the court may review on appeal for plain error if necessary in the interests of justice.”
SO RECOMMENDED