Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_07-cv-02451/USCOURTS-azd-2_07-cv-02451-5/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Prisoner Civil Rights

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1

 The Court also dismissed that portion of Count IV alleging that Provencio, Weerts,

and Kimble denied Plaintiff’s grievances in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment (Doc.

# 77 at 4, adopting Doc. # 55 at 5). 

WO JWB

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Ernie Pete Ortega, 

Plaintiff, 

vs.

Dora Schriro, et al., 

Defendants.

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No. CV 07-2451-PHX-MHM (JCG)

ORDER

Plaintiff Ernie Pete Ortega brought this civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983

against various employees of the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) (Doc. # 78).

The Court ordered a response to Counts I through V of the Second Amended Complaint

(SAC) and dismissed Count VI for failure to state a claim (see Doc. # 77 at 4, adopting Doc.

# 55 at 7).1

 The Court then dismissed Count I and II (in part) (Doc. # 107 at 7). Defendants

Childs, Provencio, Antonelli, and Carrillo have now moved to dismiss Count II (in part) and

Count V of the SAC (Doc. # 97). The motion is fully briefed (Doc. ## 105, 116). The Court

will grant the motion. 

I. Background

Plaintiff’s claims stem from his incarceration at the Arizona State Prison ComplexEyman Rynning Unit in Florence, Arizona (Doc. # 78 at 1). The surviving claims in Count

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2 Counts III and IV also remain (Doc. # 77 at 4, adopting Doc. # 55 at 7). 

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II are that (1) Childs refused to issue Plaintiff his Native American items, (2) Provencio

delayed Plaintiff’s grievances, and (3) Henderson refused Plaintiff’s request for a special

religious diet (id. at 8). And in Count V, Plaintiff claimed that Antonelli and Carrillo were

deliberately indifferent to Plaintiff’s safety when they moved him to the East Yard, where

he was assaulted due to his race (id. at 12).2

Defendants Childs, Provencio, Antonelli, and Carrillo now move to dismiss Counts

II (in part) and V on the ground that Plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies

(Doc. # 97). 

II. Exhaustion

A. Legal Standard

The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) provides that a prisoner may not bring a

lawsuit with respect to prison conditions under § 1983 unless all available administrative

remedies have been exhausted. See 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a); Vaden v. Summerhill, 449 F.3d

1047, 1050 (9th Cir. 2006); Brown v. Valoff, 422 F.3d 926, 934-35 (9th Cir. 2005). He must

complete the administrative review process in accordance with the applicable rules. See

Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 92 (2006). Exhaustion is required for all suits about prison

life, Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 523 (2002), regardless of the type of relief offered

through the administrative process, Booth v. Churner, 532 U.S. 731, 741 (2001).

Exhaustion is an affirmative defense. Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 216 (2007).

Defendant bears the burden of raising and proving the absence of exhaustion. Wyatt, 315

F.3d at 1119. Because exhaustion is a matter of abatement in an unenumerated Rule 12(b)

motion, a court may look beyond the pleadings to decide disputed issues of fact. Id. at 1119-

20. Further, a court has broad discretion as to the method to be used in resolving the factual

dispute. Ritza v. Int’l Longshoremen’s & Warehousemen’s Union, 837 F.2d 365, 369 (9th

Cir. 1988) (quotation omitted).

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B. Parties’ Contentions

1. Defendants

In support of their motion, Defendants submit the declaration of Aurora Aguilar, ADC

Hearing Officer (Doc. # 97, Ex. 1, Aguilar Decl. ¶ 1). Aguilar attests the following: her

responsibilities include investigating and tracking grievance appeals to the ADC Director’s

Office and maintaining the ADC Central Office Grievance Log, which records all nonmedical, final grievance appeals (id.). ADC has promulgated Department Order (DO) 802

Inmate Grievance Procedure, which establishes and governs the inmate grievance procedure

(id. ¶ 3, Attach. A). Inmates may use the grievance procedure for issues related to property,

staff, visitation, mail, food service, institutional procedures, Department Written Instructions,

program access, medical care, religion, and conditions of confinement (Aguilar Aff. ¶ 4, DO

802.01 § 1.1.1). A copy of the grievance procedure is available at each unit’s Inmate

Resource Library (Aguilar Decl. ¶ 7). The grievance procedure is a four-step process, which

is generally as follows: (1) an inmate must submit an inmate letter to his assigned

Correctional Officer (CO) III, attempting to informally resolve a complaint within 10 days

after becoming aware of a problem; (2) if the inmate is not satisfied with the response, he

may file a formal grievance to the Grievance Coordinator within 10 calendar days of receipt

of the response to the inmate letter; (3) if the inmate is not satisfied with that response, he

may file a grievance appeal to a higher official—the Deputy Warden or Warden—within 10

calendar days of the receipt of the Coordinator’s response; and (4) if the inmate is not

satisfied with the response to his grievance appeal, he may appeal to the ADC Director

within 10 calendar days of receipt of the response from the Warden or Deputy Warden (id.

¶ 5). Expiration of the time limit for a response at any level in the process entitles the inmate

to proceed to the next level of review (DO 802.07 § 1.2.4). Aguilar further attests that she

reviewed the ADC Central Office Grievance Appeal Log for any final grievance appeals by

Plaintiff addressing: (1) the denial of Native American Religious Church items; (2) failure

to provide grievance forms at the Eyman-Rynning Unit; and (3) deliberate indifference to

Plaintiff’s safety by Defendants Antonelli and Carrillo after being moved to the East Yard,

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but no final grievance appeals were filed (Aguilar Decl. ¶ 9).

2. Plaintiff’s Response

The Court issued an Order informing Plaintiff of his obligation to respond and the

evidence necessary to successfully rebut Defendants’ contentions pursuant to Wyatt v.

Terhune, 315 F.3d 1108, 1120 n. 14 (9th Cir. 2003) (Doc. # 99). In response, Plaintiff first

alleges that he attempted to file a grievance as to his claims against Provencio and Child but

various ADC employees took advantage of the grievance system, which precluded Plaintiff

from exhausting his claims (Doc. # 105 at 1). As for Plaintiff’s claims against Antonelli and

Carrillo, Plaintiff argues that his claims are not grievable as conditions of confinement or

staff complaints, but are actually disciplinary complaints, which are not grievable (id. at 3).

In support of his response, Plaintiff submits 285 pages of various documents and

grievances (Doc. # 106, Exs.).

3. Defendants’ Reply

Defendants maintain that Plaintiff failed to specifically reference any grievances in

his voluminous response that would support his contention that he was prevented from

exhausting (Doc. # 116). Further, Defendants reiterate that Plaintiff failed to fully exhaust

his claims against Childs, Provencio, Antonelli, and Carrillo and they should be dismissed.

III. Analysis

As articulated above, Defendants have the burden of proving lack of exhaustion and

therefore must demonstrate that there were remedies available to Plaintiff. See Wyatt, 315

F.3d at 1119; Brown, 422 F.3d at 936-37. Defendants submit evidence that a grievance

procedure was available at the prison and that Plaintiff did not file any final grievance

appeals as to his allegations that: (1) Childs retaliated against him by denying him Native

American Religious Church items; (2) Provencio retaliated against him by failing to provide

grievance forms at the Eyman-Rynning Unit; and (3) Antonelli and Carrillo were deliberately

indifferent to Plaintiff’s safety when they moved him to the East Yard where he was

immediately assaulted by gang members (Doc. # 97, Ex. 1, Aguilar Decl. ¶ 9).

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A. Count II against Childs and Provencio

In his response, Plaintiff does not dispute that he failed to fully exhaust these claims.

Rather, Plaintiff contends that he exhausted all the administrative remedies that were

available to him. The Court finds Plaintiff’s arguments unavailing for the following reasons.

First, with respect to Plaintiff’s claims that Childs refused to issue Plaintiff his Native

American items and Provencio intentionally delayed Plaintiff’s grievances or denied him

forms, Plaintiff merely states that “in previously submitted documents as exhibits the

Plaintiff shows that Provencio and Sambora took unfair advantage of the grievance system”

(Doc. # 105 at 1). This conclusory and self-serving statement is patently insufficient to rebut

Defendants’ evidence that Plaintiff failed to exhaust his retaliation claims against Childs and

Provencio. Plaintiff appears to reference generally documents submitted to the Court at

Dockets ## 36 and 50, which total 377 pages (Doc. # 105 at 2). Additionally, Plaintiff

submitted 285 additional pages of largely irrelevant exhibits with his response to Defendants’

motion (Doc. # 106). In his response, Plaintiff failed to specifically reference a single

document in all these exhibits, and the Court declines to search through 662 pages of random

and unindexed documents in order to find evidence to support Plaintiff’s conclusory claims.

See Orr v. Bank of America, 285 F.3d 764, 775 (9th Cir. 2002) (quoting Huey v. UPS, Inc.,

165 F.3d 1084, 1085 (7th Cir. 1999) (“Judges need not paw over the files without assistance

from the parties.”)). 

But even a cursory review of Plaintiff’s exhibits belies his contention that he was

prevented from exhausting his administrative remedies as to his claims against Childs and

Provencio. Indeed, myriad grievance responses—as to unrelated issues—explicitly inform

Plaintiff how to remedy deficient grievances. And Defendants have identified an inmate

letter response instructing Plaintiff to file a formal grievance as to his claim against

Provencio (Doc. # 36-4 at 5). But Plaintiff did not ever file a grievance as to this claim and

has not shown that he could not. 

Moreover, Plaintiff’s argument that he was unable to exhaust is undercut by his

demonstrated ability to file literally hundreds of grievances and fully exhaust some of his

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3 Even if the Court were to accept Plaintiff’s argument that his claim in Count V is

really an ADC inmate disciplinary claim—which it does not—Plaintiff offers no evidence

that he fully appealed ADC disciplinary case No. 08-A17-008. 

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claims. In fact, Defendants concede exhaustion as to Plaintiff’s retaliation claim against

Henderson in Count II, Count III, and Count IV. In short, inmates are required to exhaust

their claims in compliance with the prison’s grievance procedure. Woodford, 548 U.S. at 92.

Plaintiff does not explain how he was prevented from exhausting his claims against Childs

and Provencio. Defendants’ motion to dismiss will therefore be granted.

B. Count V against Antonelli and Carrillo

Plaintiff contends that with respect to his deliberate indifference claim in Count V, he

could not exhaust because the ADC’s grievance procedure does not permit grievances as to

disciplinary issues (Doc. # 105 at 3). While Plaintiff is correct that the ADC grievance

procedure does not allow inmate complaints regarding inmate disciplinary issues, the

grievance procedure clearly accepts grievances as to conditions-of-confinement claims or

complaints regarding staff (Doc. # 31, Ex. 1, Attach. A, DO 802.01 § 1.1.1.1). Plaintiff’s

claim in Count V is that Antonelli and Carrillo were deliberately indifferent to a serious risk

to his safety when they placed him on the East Yard with gang members who immediately

assaulted him (Doc. # 78 at 12). The Court rejects Plaintiff’s tepid argument that his failureto-protect claim is really a non-grievable inmate disciplinary claim. Further, Plaintiff offers

no evidence that he ever attempted to file a grievance as to this claim and was told it was

non-grievable.3

 Consequently, the Court finds that Plaintiff failed to exhaust his claim

against Antonelli and Carrillo in Count V and Defendants’ motion to dismiss will be granted.

IV. Dismissal of Parties

In the Court’s December 23, 2009 Order, the Court dismissed Count I and Count II

(in part) for failure to exhaust (Doc. # 107). In this Order, Counts II (in part) and Count V

will be dismissed for failure to exhaust. As a result, Defendants Hewitt, Sikori, Kraicinski,

Owens, Sambora, Childs, Provencio, Antonelli, and Carrillo must be dismissed because no

claims remain against them. 

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IT IS ORDERED:

(1) The reference to the Magistrate Judge is withdrawn as to Defendants’ Motion

to Dismiss (Doc. # 97).

(2) Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss (Doc. # 97) is granted.

(3) The claims within Count II alleging that (1) Childs refused to issue Plaintiff

his Native American items and (2) Provencio delayed Plaintiff’s grievances are dismissed

without prejudice for failure to exhaust. 

(4) Count V is dismissed without prejudice for failure to exhaust.

(5) Defendants Hewitt, Sikori, Kraicinski, Owens, and Sambora, Provencio, 

Childs, Antonelli, and Carrillo are dismissed because no claims remain against them.

(6) The following claims remain: Count II alleging that Henderson retaliated 

against Plaintiff by refusing his request for a special religious diet; Count III alleging that

Durrenburg was deliberately indifferent to Plaintiff’s safety; and Count IV alleging that

Durrenburg filed false disciplinary reports against Plaintiff. 

DATED this 5th day of February, 2010.

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