Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_05-cv-04447/USCOURTS-cand-4_05-cv-04447-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Prisoner Civil Rights

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

RODNEY BLACH,

Plaintiff,

 v.

SCOTT KERNAN, Director, Division of

Adult Institutions, California Department

of Corrections and Rehabilitation; and

DOES 1-100, 

Defendants. /

No. C 05-4447 PJH (PR)

ORDER GRANTING MOTION

TO DISMISS

This is a civil rights case filed pro se by a state prisoner. Plaintiff contended in his

first amended complaint that a regulation of the California Department of Corrections and

Rehabilitation limiting inmates’ papers in their cells to six or seven square feet violated his

right of access to the courts, because he has far more paper than that and needs it to

pursue his court cases. He demands injunctive relief only. 

The court concluded that plaintiff’s first amended complaint stated a claim against

the Director of the CDCR and ordered service. 

Defendant Kernan has moved to dismiss on grounds (1) plaintiff has not exhausted

his administrative remedies and (2) the complaint is barred by the statute of limitations. He

has abandoned a third ground. Reply at 2 n.1. Plaintiff has opposed the motion and

moved for summary judgment, and defendant has replied. The court granted defendant’s

motion to extend the time for him to oppose the motion for summary judgment until after the

motion to dismiss is ruled upon, if it is not mooted by the motion being granted.

For the reasons set out below, the motion to dismiss will be granted and the motion

for summary judgment will be denied as moot.

Case 4:05-cv-04447-PJH Document 51 Filed 09/29/08 Page 1 of 4
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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DISCUSSION 

I. Exhaustion

 The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 amended 42 U.S.C. § 1997e to provide

that "[n]o action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under [42 U.S.C. § 1983],

or any other Federal law, by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional

facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted." 42 U.S.C. §

1997e(a). Although once within the discretion of the district court, exhaustion in prisoner

cases covered by § 1997e(a) is now mandatory. Porter v Nussle, 122 S. Ct. 983, 988

(2002). All available remedies must now be exhausted; those remedies "need not meet

federal standards, nor must they be 'plain, speedy, and effective.'" Id. (citation omitted). 

Even when the prisoner seeks relief not available in grievance proceedings, notably money

damages, exhaustion is a prerequisite to suit. Id.; Booth v Churner, 532 U.S. 731, 741

(2001). Similarly, exhaustion is a prerequisite to all inmate suits about prison life, whether

they involve general circumstances or particular episodes, and whether they allege

excessive force or some other wrong. Porter, 122 S. Ct. at 992. 

The State of California provides its inmates and parolees the right to appeal

administratively "any departmental decision, action, condition or policy perceived by those

individuals as adversely affecting their welfare." Cal. Code Regs. tit. 15, § 3084.1(a). It

also provides its inmates the right to file administrative appeals alleging misconduct by

correctional officers. See id. § 3084.1(e). In order to exhaust available administrative

remedies within this system, a prisoner must proceed through several levels of appeal: (1)

informal resolution, (2) formal written appeal on a CDC 602 inmate appeal form, (3) second

level appeal to the institution head or designee, and (4) third level appeal to the Director of

the California Department of Corrections. See id. § 3084.5; Barry v. Ratelle, 985 F. Supp.

1235, 1237 (S.D. Cal. 1997). A final decision at the director’s level satisfied the exhaustion

requirement under § 1997e(a). Id. at 1237-38. 

Nonexhaustion under § 1997e(a) is an affirmative defense. Wyatt v Terhune, 315

F.3d 1108, 1119 (9th Cir 2003). It should be treated as a matter of abatement and brought

Case 4:05-cv-04447-PJH Document 51 Filed 09/29/08 Page 2 of 4
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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in an “unenumerated Rule 12(b) motion rather than [in] a motion for summary judgment.” 

Id. (citations omitted). In deciding a motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust administrative

remedies under § 1997e(a), the court may look beyond the pleadings and decide disputed

issues of fact. Id. at 1119-20. If the court concludes that the prisoner has not exhausted

California’s prison administrative process, the proper remedy is dismissal without prejudice. 

Id. at 1120.

Defendant has provided a declaration from N. Grannis, Chief of the Inmate Appeals

Branch of the CDCR, sufficient to establish that plaintiff has not exhausted his claim by

appealing it through the third and final formal level. Decl. Grannis at ¶ ¶ 6-7. Plaintiff does

not contest this, but contends that administrative remedies were not available to him, and

thus that he did not fail to exhaust “available” remedies.

 Plaintiff has failed to provide an evidentiary basis for his contentions, in that his

opposition is not verified, so the facts alleged in it are not evidence. Leaving that aside, his

arguments in opposition to the exhaustion claim, to extent they can be extracted from the

thicket of verbiage, are that he was not permitted to file more than one grievance a week

and that his use of the grievance system was deterred by mistreatment by prison guards.

 Plaintiff has completely failed to establish that the one-grievance-a-week limit

prevented him from exhausting – after all, he had two years to get his complaint on file, and

at one a week, he easily could have filed a grievance regarding the limit on papers in cells. 

As to the contention that he was deterred from filing by misconduct of guards, it is

completely unsupported by specifics applicable to grievances. If anything, the references

on pages eighteen and nineteen of his opposition to his filing many grievances suggest that

he was well able to do so. Quite why someone so vociferous as plaintiff failed to file a

grievance attacking the limitations on papers in cells, or why, if he did file one at a lower

level, he did not pursue it to the end, is unclear. But he did not. The motion to dismiss on

this ground will be granted.

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II. Statute of Limitations

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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The statute of limitations for Section 1983 claims brought in California is the twoyear period set forth at California Civil Procedure Code § 335.1. See Maldonado v. Harris,

370 F.3d 945, 954 (9th Cir. 2004). In his first amended complaint plaintiff alleges that the

property regulation had an impact on his litigation activities starting on July 15, 2003. 

Corrected First Amended Compl. (document 35) at 7. As he does not contend that his 

rights were violated earlier than that, it is clear that the claim accrued on that date.

Because plaintiff asks only for injunctive relief, he is not entitled to tolling under

sections 352.1(a) and (c) of the California Code of Civil Procedure, which otherwise

provides tolling for prisoners serving terms of less than life. This case was not filed until

November 1, 2005, more than two years after it accrued, so unless plaintiff is correct that

he is entitled to equitable tolling, it is barred. 

The court may grant a motion to dismiss based on the running of the statute of

limitations "only if the assertions in the complaint, read with the required liberality, would not

permit the plaintiff to prove that the statute was tolled." Pisciotta v. Teledyne Industries,

Inc., 91 F.3d 1326, 1331 (9th Cir. 1996). The allegations of the complaint, read with the

required liberality, might permit plaintiff to establish equitable tolling. For that reason this

claim would have to be resolved on a motion for summary judgment, not a motion to

dismiss. Because the motion to dismiss will not be granted on this ground, the dismissal,

being based only on failure to exhaust administrative remedies, will be without prejudice. 

CONCLUSION

The motion to dismiss (document number 37) is GRANTED. Plaintiff’s motion for

summary judgment (document 40) is DENIED as moot. This case is DISMISSED without

prejudice. The clerk shall close the file. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: September 29, 2008. 

 PHYLLIS J. HAMILTON

United States District Judge

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