Roberts v. Neal

Citations: 745 F.3d 232; 2014 WL 929047; 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 4529Docket: No. 13-1335

Court: Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit; March 11, 2014; Federal Appellate Court

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The plaintiff, an Illinois prison inmate, appeals the dismissal of his civil rights lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 due to failure to exhaust administrative remedies as mandated by the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). He was transferred from Big Muddy Correctional Center to Pinckneyville Correctional Center and alleges inadequate medical treatment for a broken hand while at Big Muddy. He claims to have filed an emergency grievance with Big Muddy’s warden, but the defendants deny any record of it. After his transfer, he informed defendant Alvis about a prior arrangement for a bottom bunk due to his injury, but Alvis instructed him to negotiate with his cellmate. Roberts asserts he filed a grievance against Alvis, which was also denied by Pineckneyville officials as unrecorded.

The district court dismissed the claim against Alvis, citing lack of evidence beyond Roberts's assertion that he filed a grievance, which led to his failure to exhaust remedies. The court's summary judgment was deemed inadequate since there was a potential factual dispute requiring an evidentiary hearing to resolve whether the grievances were filed or acknowledged. Although Roberts seems to have forfeited his claim against Alvis by not naming him in the grievance, he sought advice on the lack of response to his grievance against the Big Muddy staff and was told to refile it with the Administrative Review Board (ARB). The grievance process in Illinois requires that grievances be filed at the prison level, but if they involve incidents in another prison, they can be sent directly to the ARB. Roberts's refiled grievance fell under this latter procedure due to his transfer after the incident.

Roberts appealed a decision regarding a hand injury, but the Board deemed his appeal untimely, occurring 70 days post-injury, which exceeded the 60-day filing limit mandated by section 504.810(a). The district judge upheld the Board's ruling, stating that Roberts did not exhaust his administrative remedies. Additionally, Roberts filed a grievance against nurse Davis for alleged mistreatment at Big Muddy, but this was dismissed because he submitted it to a grievance officer at Pinckneyville instead of the Administrative Review Board, as required. The dismissal was considered too abrupt, given the lack of inquiry into Roberts's understanding of the proper grievance procedure for a different prison. There is no available guidance explaining the grievance process in layman's terms, and it’s unclear if Roberts was aware of the requirements of section 504.870(a)(4), which necessitated direct filing with the Board for claims against Big Muddy employees. Furthermore, Roberts’s grievance lacked sufficient detail to identify Davis as the target, focusing instead on a complaint about a doctor at Pinckneyville, which led the grievance officer to misinterpret the nature of Roberts's complaint. Although Roberts mentioned a doctor at Big Muddy, the grievance primarily expressed discontent with treatment received at Pinckneyville, failing to fulfill the requirements of section 504.810(b) by not providing adequate descriptive information about Davis.

Roberts cannot sue Davis due to his failure to exhaust available remedies against her, as he is not a doctor and the grievance does not pertain to her actions. Additionally, affidavits from grievance record custodians at Big Muddy and the Administrative Review Board confirm no timely grievance was filed by Roberts against Big Muddy employees. However, Roberts claims he submitted an emergency grievance before his transfer to Pinckneyville, which should have been directed to the warden and addressed an imminent risk of injury. This type of grievance requires expedited processing and a response from the warden. There is uncertainty whether this emergency grievance was included in the records reviewed, and if filed, Roberts did not receive a response, relieving him of the obligation to take further action to preserve his grievance. Consequently, the untimeliness of a later grievance to the Administrative Review Board is irrelevant to the exhaustion requirement. The district court's judgment is affirmed regarding Alvis and Davis, but reversed concerning the other defendants, necessitating further proceedings on the grievance issue, which may require an evidentiary hearing.