our next case for this morning is christopher piles against sam noir basi not sure how to pronounce that so that's what i'm saying it's for appeal and i'll be focusing on the want to get instructor now bassy if i pronounce that correctly the illinois code expressly provides that grievances filed after the deadline for good cause shall be considered mr pile satisfied the good cause provision and the defendants did not meet their burden of proving otherwise could you clarify a factual question for me he receives his councillors response on december the third tw correct between december the third and december the twenty first when the law library decides to pick these things up for photocopying where is it is he hanging on to it waiting for some word that the library is going to be open for business go to speak or is there some interim spot where he puts the grievance i believe the latter your honor it's a little ambiguous in the record but my understanding is there's some sort of area mr pyles refer to it as the area for copies and the files in the gallery which is where he placed it on december third and it took eighteen days until december twenty first for the library clerk to pick it up and that of course was a delay beyond his control ok thank you indeed on the day it was june mr piles his grievance containing his counselors response as well was in the hands of prison officials and that's critical to this case and just two days after the deadline as soon as prison officials returned it mr pyles filed his grievance immediately these facts were undisputed below and they established good cause as a matter of law in holding otherwise the district court made no adverse factual finding there speck to it's instead as a legal matter on summary judgment the court assumed that copying delays by prison officials could never be good cause in any circumstances simply because copying a grievance is not required by the illinois important is the timeline here as the staged raises the concern that if we were to recognize copying as good cause then everybody would just submit their their grievance to the library or whomever else for copying the day before the thing was due and managed to get an extension of time that way well you want to answer your first question i do think the timing here is important but to address that policy concern it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that prisoners would be submitting a grievance in advance that they've already written late when they know that that's going to jeopardize their ability to file on time there's really no real incentive of doing that and i don't think we've ever heard of that before but you would concede that in the situation the state portrays you know that they give it to the library the day before one might legitimately find a lack of go absolutely your honor we're not saying that any situation where a prisoner submits a grievance to the library is going to be good cause it's going to depend on the particular facts of the case and here the reasonableness of mr pyles misconduct in attempting to copy  groovin since december third was undisputed below the defendants never advanced any argument as to reasonable ness or ever challenge the factual predicates of mr pyles this claim to good cause instead they relied only on this legal argument that one on page sixteen of the afa leaves brief which is where they set out the idea that there were other ways he might have copied other than giving it to the library they say numerous options exist beyond wading the hearing here with respect to a dispute on the facts as to the second grievance in this case the one against dr sharing but when it comes to the want to guns doctor now bassy if you look at page eight thirty two in the appendix that's at the very beginning of the pay the hearing the magistrate confirmed that there were no factual issues with respect to the grievance against dr now bassy and defense counsel admitted that they were not challenging those facts so that they centrally disclaimed any of those challenges and now tellingly in their brief and that footnote other only relying on on what they say quote information and belief and that's just not an appropriate basis of course for granting summary judgment so they had a chance to submit that type of evidence but they did not and relied only on that legal argument and i thought actually just would have been a different way to show that it wasn't good cause because if you had three or four different ways to copy there's no reason to hang things up with something outside of your control well yes your honor if the evidence showed beyond any reasonable dispute any genuine dispute that were material that somehow mr pyles was able to reliably obtain a copy of the scream and is quickly or beforehand  some other manner and that he somehow unreasonably chose not to do so then that would not be good cause i don't think so but again there simply was no evidence to that effect or even any argument to that effect  under i would say the federal rules supersedes or there are many rules that bend for good cause right typically that determination is left to the sound discretion of the district judge whose discretion if there is discretion here use it issue well your honor that it's important to remember here that the discretion unlike some of those provisions there is no discretion when it comes to considering the grievance in this case because the statute at issue uses the word shall if good cause established rioja i understand that but whose is there any discretionary judgment involved in determining  well there may be in some situations your honor but i think usually the reason there is discretion in a district court to find good causes because it's an intensely factual matter it's a subjective determination to some extent and therefore the district court is in the best position to make that decision as a discretionary matter but here again the facts were in disputed and we know for instance from this court's decision in hurst versus hand that the prisoner's only burden on this could cause a provision is to provide an explanation for the delay and that it's incumbent upon the defendants to challenge some factual predicate of that good cause explanation and only then made the prisoner have some burden of meeting that challenge  regulations exactly your honor and that of course an abuse of discretion occurs when a legal error is made and i think that's exactly correct so even analyzed in our abuse of discretion standard there would be an error here because the district court itself and the prison will make sure i understand your position i understand you to be not challenging the credibility finding directly but to be arguing with the district judge in effect reversed the burden of proof on the affirmative defense of food or exhaust that's right your honor although in a sense it's both the burden was on the defendants to prove that there were available remedies that mr pyles did not  the district court seemed to couch that as a credibility determination and certainly most credibility determinations are entitled to great deference in this court but that's only really when you're talking about witnesses demeanor on the stand saying that his testimony w not believe it or expensive than that but but ok but you certainly are arguing a reversal of burden of proof just to be clear yes your honor there was no evidence as to this particular grievance whatsoever and it was ever received and that really is the primary basi grievance which was challenge for the credibility finding related to dr sharing as well as watch for health sources maybe we could just start with that second line because i am very concerned about the shift of the burden of proof when the defense gets up and says we don't have any record that the grievance was returned to mr pyles we don't have any evidence one way or the other we have nothing they say that on the record  and the only thing that the district court does is it says to mr piles you can't show that you didn't behave in the way that you've behaved in the past despite mr pyles explanation that he thought it was pointless but but it's not mr pyles his burden to show that he exhausted their burden to show that he failed to exhaust and it seems to me they basically conceded that they could not carry that burden your honor i understand your concerns totally  i disagree however that be affected what took place in the district court level had the effect of shifting the burden to mr pyles to prove what whether or not he exhausted the grievances so the discussion that you're referencing in that mr plessis referenced in his brief so we have on page a thirty eight you saying so our contention is we believe mr pyles received this document but we have no proof either direction but we certainly have proof that the pass from mr pyle has not received a response from the grievance officer who's followed up directly with the a r b and you i mean that statement of yours that there's no proof in either direction you'll just strikes me as a concession that you can't carry your burden of proof that he received this one if you would had a record that he that it had been sent out to him and he claimed he didn't get it that would be an entirely different case there you'd have the presumption of regularity working in your favor and his saying he didn't get it you know maybe against his other history or something might mean something but you much understand her question or rather given his habit of taking the denial of every grievance to the a or b why shouldn't we simply why isn't a reasonable inference that he never got it because he never appealed  well legal errors such as misallocating the burden of proof that's a legal error correct or order and again i restate or allegation that we don't feel that this burden of proof was reversed instead the district court took into account the circumstantial evidence regarding mr pyle s usual behavior his knowledge of the system is the timing of his filing of his complaint only eighteen days after the expiration of the time period where he could have appealed that grievance in the a a r p and found it much more likely than not mr did in fact receive this prevents either lewis time or chose not to appeal this grievance and it's why would he change his regular practice like that you know this is the one prevents in mr piles as history that he's not going to he says i would have written to the error be that every time i do even if i forward a copy to them they're just going to tell me that there's nothing they can do because it wasn't properly exhausted so no sir i did not bother so you know and  is all about a burden he doesn't have by the way it just seems to me that this amounts to no evidence your honor and again i'll disagree that this amounts no evidence i feel that circumstantially at the district level we obviously presented enough evidence of the district court apply the evidence that was presented as being asked to review what the district court did i understand you know what the district court so what about it the district court determined that sending copies to a law library from plaintiff's own volition choosing to submit this to the law library and then suddenly blame the law library for delays constitutes good cause under this current jur foolish enough to trust the prison authorities that certainly was something you could light his feet but he and as a matter of fact the district court's opinion is sloppy enough that at one point he uses the wrong name for the plaintiffs which is not something ergo he didn't exhaust but the but the illinois rules include a good cause safety valve and i don't see the district court engaging or whether the district court in gauging this finding directly whether good cause existed or not in this interim record where does he do it indirectly i don't see it anywhere your honor it was then it i agree that maybe not directly but was implicitly found by the denial and based upon the record below it but i would like to know what is the district court think it takes a good cause to exist why isn't this at least with a month you know he puts it in sent in some area where the library will pick it up  and you would have cited him for a disciplinary violation if he had forged the signature of the grievance counselor on a handwritten copy that would have been entirely inappropriate behavior so and there's no record about substitute ways to get a copy i just don't see where the district judges in gauging in any of this and your honor it's we agree with you that the investigation below may have not been full however  the laying of good cause existed numerous levels in the prison system initially mr pyles claimed that his remit was fall to the grievance officer late with a letter which no one's been able to produce at this point how do you find the other grievance so it's but all this being said you know all these issues with the personal grievances this grievance was in fact retained by the present grievances appears in his records at every level and still mr pyles chose to submit his grievance to a third party where he's not a third party the prison library it's not like he mailed it off to his mother to have a copy made of it this is true our third party binyamin the relationship between him and the grievance officer his next step on it are to marty it all these an inmate he only has so many outlet that's correct your honor but he's taking actions here in excess of what are required by the wills he has chosen for his own records to create copies when i certainly knows if you're not telling me that he knows that there are issues and there the law library for copies and was in fact late because of it all right here's the paragraph that worries me and the district court's opinions at the bottom of page ten of the opinion which is that a lab and he states in some sense the right question he says just a prisoner to submit prior prior to january lani sale district comply that loses good cause that's where the clause discussion should started and instead it's dropped entirely complaint remains unresolved through no apparent fault of their own they've done all this reasonable to exhaust their administrative remedies in this instance mr pile did not follow proper procedure and that he did not comply with the timelines in place from the code and so you don't think there actually is any excuse for the january one time under the illinois administrative code in this instance you know you're going to go in ever you know what you don't recognize that because that would be a failure to comply  many of the cases specifically can to deal specifically with complying with institutional procedures and as long as you've complied with every procedure up to that point that no it's not like he violated any procedure by asking the library to copy it no your honor  thank you your honor i just want to pick up on the last point that counsel was discussing and it's the same point that the district court relied on as your honor noted the reasoning here is completely circular the idea is that there is no good cause for not meeting the sixty day deadline because you didn't meet the sixty day deadline and that simply is not good cause and that appears to be the reasoning of the district court and so in effect it did not recognize any good cause exception at all even though that could cause exception is explicit in the statute and the statute absolutely contemplates grievances being filed after the sixty day deadline when there is good cause and as to the grievance against dr sharing as well it's very clear that there was a burden of proof specifically with regard to th and the defendants did not submit any evidence on it at all and so in conclusion your honour's the bottom line is that the defendants either admitted all the relevant facts with respect to the grievance against dr no posse and submitted no relevant evidence where specter dr sharing and even if there were any genuine disputed material fact i see my time is up you please finish your time even if there were any genuine dispute on reasonable miss when it came to dr now by save the minimum this court would have to do would be to vacate and remit to determine that thank you all right