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Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 

---

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14-3289

CHRISTOPHER PYLES,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

SAMUEL NWAOBASI, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Southern District of Illinois.

No. 13-CV-0770-MJR-SCW — Michael J. Reagan, Chief Judge.

____________________

ARGUED JANUARY 13, 2016 — DECIDED JULY 21, 2016

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and BAUER and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Chief Judge. Christopher Pyles, a state prisoner at 

the Menard Correctional Center, brought a lawsuit alleging 

that Dr. Samuel Nwaobasi, Dr. Robert Shearing, and their employer, Wexford Health Sources, Inc., provided him constitutionally inadequate medical care. This appeal is about 

whether he can step up to the plate and take a cut at his case—

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something he may do only if he properly exhausted his administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act. Two grievances are at issue. Pyles does not claim to 

have completed the grievance procedure for either one. Instead, he argues that his lack of compliance should be excused, in the first case because he had good cause for his actions, and in the second because he never received a response 

to his grievance. After an evidentiary hearing, the magistrate 

judge found that he had failed properly to exhaust both grievances and recommended summary judgment for the defendants. The district court agreed with that recommendation, but 

we do not, and so we reverse the district court’s judgment in 

the defendants’ favor. 

I

According to Pyles’s complaint, whose allegations we accept for present purposes, his problems can be traced to July 

2009, when he fell down a wet staircase and injured his back

while incarcerated at Menard. Since that time he has experienced numbness and radiating pain. On September 24, 2012, 

Pyles was seen by Dr. Samuel Nwaobasi, an employee of Wexford, the private company that furnishes medical care at 

Menard. Although Pyles complained that his current treatment regimen was ineffective, Dr. Nwaobasi refused to order 

additional testing or specialist care. Pyles saw Dr. Nwaobasi 

again on November 2, 2012. During that appointment, Pyles 

again questioned the effectiveness of Dr. Nwaobasi’s approach. Dr. Nwaobasi told Pyles to “shut the hell up” and 

again refused to order additional testing or specialist care.

The Illinois Administrative Code sets out a three-stage 

grievance process that Pyles tried to invoke. He began by filing a grievance on November 13, 2012, with respect to both 

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appointments with Dr. Nwaobasi. A grievance counselor received Pyles’s grievance on November 30, 2012, and Pyles received the counselor’s response on December 3, 2012. Fearing 

that the document setting forth his grievance might be lost in 

the administrative shuffle, Pyles wanted to photocopy his

original document before filing it with a grievance officer. According to Pyles’s uncontroverted testimony, copies could be 

made only by the law library, and it did not accept new photocopying orders until December 21, 2012. On that day, Pyles 

submitted his grievance to the law library for photocopying. 

By the time he received it back on January 3, 2013, the 60-day 

window for filing his grievance had passed. Pyles nonetheless 

submitted the grievance that day. On January 8, 2013, a grievance officer acknowledged receipt of Pyles’s grievance against 

Dr. Nwaobasi. On January 13, 2013, Pyles filed a separate 

grievance against the library for its delay. Ironically, that 

grievance was lost in the prison administrative system. 

On March 1, 2013, Pyles saw Dr. Robert Shearing, another 

Wexford employee. He again requested a change in treatment. Dr. Shearing told Pyles that there was “[n]o showing of 

Neurological Deficit in the x-ray,” and that “if medication 

[didn’t] help there [was] nothing [Shearing] could do.” Pyles 

requested an MRI and an examination by a specialist, but Dr. 

Shearing refused to approve or seek approval for either step, 

nor did he prescribe any medication that provided effective 

relief. Pyles filed a grievance against Dr. Shearing on March 

27, 2013. On April 11, 2013, the grievance was timely received 

by the grievance officer. That grievance was denied on June 

12, 2013. This time, Pyles says, the problem was that he never 

received word that the grievance was denied.

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On July 30, 2013, Pyles filed this civil rights action in the 

Southern District of Illinois, alleging that Dr. Nwaobasi, Dr. 

Shearing, and Wexford violated his right to be free of cruel 

and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to 

the U.S. Constitution. As directed by Pavey v. Conley, 544 F.3d 

739 (7th Cir. 2008), the magistrate judge conducted a hearing 

to determine whether Pyles had exhausted the administrative 

remedies available to him, as required by the Prison Litigation 

Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e.

At that hearing, Pyles testified that his grievance against 

Dr. Nwaobasi was untimely for reasons outside his control, 

namely, because of the law library’s delay in copying and returning it to him. He testified that he actually submitted the 

grievance the same day it was returned to him: January 3, 

2013. The library’s delay, he contended, constituted good 

cause for his failure to file the grievance within the allotted 

time period, and that it therefore should have been considered under ILL. ADMIN. CODE tit. 20, § 504.810(a). Unpersuaded, the magistrate judge found that he had not shown 

good cause under § 504.810(a).

Pyles also testified that he did not submit his grievance 

against Dr. Shearing to the Administrative Review Board because, after submitting it to the grievance officer on March 27, 

2013, he never received a response. The defendants offered 

evidence that the grievance was received by the grievance officer on April 11, 2013, and denied on June 5, 2013; the chief 

administrative officer confirmed the grievance officer’s denial 

on June 12, 2013. 

The defendants, however, submitted no direct evidence 

that anyone sent the response to Pyles or that he received it. 

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They relied instead on the assumption that Pyles’s past practice of asking about the status of the grievances when they 

were not returned to him, and his failure to do so in this case, 

meant something. Pyles admitted that he had followed up on

previous grievances. But this time, he explained, “[a]fter three 

months having received no response, I just assumed that that 

was it, I wasn’t going to receive a response, and filed the lawsuit.” Based only on this, the magistrate judge found it “implausible” that Pyles did not receive a response to his grievance against Dr. Shearing, and therefore held that Pyles had 

failed to exhaust his administrative remedies.

II

We review a dismissal for failure to exhaust de novo, construing the facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving 

party—here, Pyles. Hernandez v. Dart, 814 F.3d 836, 840 (7th 

Cir. 2016) (collecting cases). Because exhaustion is an affirmative defense, it is the defendants’ burden to show Pyles’s failure to exhaust. See Maddox v. Love, 655 F.3d 709, 720 (7th Cir. 

2011). Summary judgment is appropriate only when there is 

no dispute of material fact, and the moving party is entitled 

to judgment as a matter of law. FED. R. CIV. P. 56(a).

Under the PLRA, a prisoner must exhaust “such administrative remedies as are available” before bringing a suit “with 

respect to prison conditions under section 1983 ... or any 

other federal law.” 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). The exhaustion requirement is interpreted strictly; thus, a “prisoner must comply with the specific procedures and deadlines established by 

the prison’s policy.” King v. McCarty, 781 F.3d 889, 893 (7th Cir. 

2015). Unexhausted claims are procedurally barred from consideration. See Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 93 (2006). 

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The PLRA does not, however, demand the impossible. 

Remedies that are genuinely unavailable or nonexistent need 

not be exhausted. A remedy becomes unavailable “if prison 

employees do not respond to a properly filed grievance or 

otherwise use affirmative misconduct to prevent a prisoner 

from exhausting.” Dole v. Chandler, 438 F.3d 804, 809 (7th Cir. 

2006). In such cases, the prisoner is considered to have exhausted his administrative remedies. See Turley v. Rednour, 

729 F.3d 645, 650 n.3 (7th Cir. 2013) (collecting cases). 

State law determines the administrative remedies that a 

state prisoner must exhaust for PLRApurposes. King, 781 F.3d 

at 894. As we noted, Illinois has created a three-stage process 

for its inmates. Step one requires the inmate to attempt to resolve the problem through his or her counselor. See ILL.

ADMIN. CODE tit. 20, § 504.810(a). If that does not resolve the 

problem, the inmate must invoke step two, which involves the 

filing of a written grievance with a grievance officer. Id. This 

written grievance must be filed within 60 days after discovery 

of the problem, unless the inmate can “demonstrate that [it] 

was not timely filed for good cause.” Id. Properly submitted 

grievances are considered by the grievance officer and the 

chief administrative officer. Id. § 504.830(d). Where doing so 

“is reasonably feasible under the circumstances,” the chief administrative officer must advise the grievant of the outcome 

within two months of having received the grievance. Id. If unsatisfied with the chief administrative officer’s decision, the 

inmate may, within 30 days after the date of decision, appeal 

to the director of the Illinois Department of Corrections (step 

three). Id. § 504.850(a). If the director determines that further 

review is required, the Administrative Review Board evaluates the appeal. Id. § 504.850(b).

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Pyles admits that he did not properly complete all three 

stages of the Illinois administrative procedure for either of the 

two grievances at issue here (the Nwaobasi grievance and the 

Shearing grievance—his grievance against the library is not 

part of this suit). Instead he argues that good cause excused 

his failure to file a timely grievance against Dr. Nwaobasi, and 

that the grievance he did file should therefore have been considered under § 504.810(a). As for the grievance against Dr. 

Shearing, Pyles alleges that he never received a response at 

the step two stage and thus there was no additional administrative remedy “available” to him. Dole, 438 F.3d at 809. 

A

We begin with Pyles’s grievance against Dr. Nwaobasi. Illinois, to its credit, does not have a hard-and-fast ban against 

considering untimely grievances. Instead, it provides that a 

grievance filed after the expiration of 60 days “shall be considered” if it “was not timely filed for good cause.” ILL.

ADMIN. CODE tit. 20, § 504.810(a). Pyles submitted his step one

grievance to his counselor on November 27, 2012, and she responded on December 3. Pyles’s problem arose because he 

wanted a copy of his grievance for his records, knowing that 

things sometimes get lost. He had to rely on the law library 

for his copy, but that was easier said than done. Pyles alleges, 

without contradiction from the defendants, that the next 

available day after December 3 on which the law library 

would collect orders for photocopying was December 21.

Pyles submitted his grievance for photocopying on that date, 

but he did not get the grievance and copy back until January 

3, 2013, two days after the 60-day filing period had elapsed. 

He submitted his grievance that same day. Pyles argues that 

the library’s nearly two-week delay in returning his grievance, 

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coupled with his prompt action thereafter, constitutes good 

cause for his failure to file the step two grievance on time.

The defendants argue that Pyles’s untimeliness should not 

be excused because “[t]his circuit has taken a strict compliance approach to exhaustion” of the state prison’s grievance 

process. Dole, 438 F.3d at 809. But the task here is to interpret 

what the state process itself requires, and in particular, what 

“good cause” means under the regulation. Only after we 

know what the state requires can we apply the rule, strictly or 

otherwise.

The regulation does not define good cause. Where a regulatory term is undefined, we ask first “whether the language 

at issue has a plain and unambiguous meaning with regard to 

the particular dispute in the case.” Exelon Generation Co., LLC 

v. Local 15, Int’l Bhd. of Elec. Workers, AFL-CIO, 676 F.3d 566, 

570 (7th Cir. 2012). In doing so, we “giv[e] the words used 

their ordinary meaning.” Lawson v. FMR LLC, 134 S. Ct. 1158, 

1165 (2014) (internal citation omitted). Courts frequently look 

to dictionary definitions, the construction of similar terms in 

other statutes or regulations, and the purpose of the statute 

being interpreted. See United States v. Patel, 778 F.3d 607, 613 

(7th Cir. 2015). 

All three of these resources weigh in favor of finding that 

§ 504.810(a)’s “good cause” exception is a flexible, equitable 

one. First, the dictionary definition of “good cause” is “a cause 

or reason sufficient in law: one that is based on equity or justice or that would motivate a reasonable [person] under all the 

circumstances.” WEBSTER’S THIRD NEW INT’L DICTIONARY 978 

(1986); see also MERRIAM WEBSTER’S DICTIONARY OF LAW 69 

(1996) (“a substantial reason put forth in good faith that is not 

unreasonable, arbitrary, or irrational and that is sufficient to 

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No. 14-3289 9

create an excuse under the law,” synonymous with “cause 

that a person of ordinary intelligence would consider a fair 

and reasonable justification for an act”). 

Importantly (since this is an Illinois regulation), Illinois 

law treats good cause as a flexible, fact-based determination 

in other deadline provisions. See, e.g., Vision Point of Sale, Inc. 

v. Haas, 875 N.E.2d 1065, 1078–79 (Ill. 2007) (noting that “good 

cause” is “fact-dependent and rests within the sound discretion of the circuit court,” and demands that a party provide 

“clear, objective reasons why it was unable to meet the original deadline and why an extension of time should be 

granted”).

Federal law takes the same approach. Interpreting the 

“good cause” provision of Rule 4 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, federal courts have found it “in practice ...

the same standard as ‘due diligence’ before the rule” existed. 

Del Raine v. Carlson, 826 F.2d 698, 704 (7th Cir. 1987). It “applies 

in situations where there is no fault—excusable or otherwise.” 

Sherman v. Quinn, 668 F.3d 421, 425 (7th Cir. 2012). Usually, 

“good cause” is “occasioned by something that is not within 

the control of the movant.” Bishop v. Corsentino, 371 F.3d 1203, 

1207 (10th Cir. 2004) (quoting FED. R. APP. P. 4(a)(5) cmt. note

(2002)); see also United States v. Hirsch, 207 F.3d 928, 929–30 

(7th Cir. 2000) (suggesting that a clerk’s “failure to perform a 

ministerial act whose omission could have serious adverse 

consequences for a criminal defendant” would qualify as 

“good cause” for untimely appeal). Similarly, this court has 

found that a U.S. Marshal’s failure properly to serve a prisoner’s notice of appeal “is automatically ‘good cause.’” Sellers 

v. United States, 902 F.2d 598, 602 (7th Cir. 1990).

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We have interpreted the term this way in the context of 

PLRA exhaustion. Where an inmate “has no unexhausted administrative remedies” but “the failure to exhaust was innocent (as where prison officials prevent a prisoner from exhausting his remedies),” he must be permitted to exhaust any 

existing remedies. Pavey, 544 F.3d at 742. Although the cases

in which we have found good cause have dealt only with the 

actual filing of grievances, their logic extends to Pyles’s situation. 

In Dole v. Chandler, a prisoner submitted his grievance by 

the only procedure available to him: leaving it in his “chuckhole.” 438 F.3d at 807. The grievance never made it to the 

grievance officer. Id. We held that where the prisoner 

“properly followed procedure and prison officials were responsible for the mishandling of his grievance, it cannot be 

said that [he] failed to exhaust his remedies.” Id. at 811. The

inmate’s grievance, we said, “remains unresolved through no 

apparent fault of his own,” and that “[i]n this limited context, 

prison authorities may not employ their own mistake to 

shield them from possible liability.” Id.

We have also recognized “physical incapacitation” as a 

possible basis for good cause. See Hurst v. Hantke, 634 F.3d 

409, 412 (7th Cir. 2011). The federal analog to the Illinois regulation defines “a valid reason” excusing delay as “a situation 

which prevented the inmate from submitting the request 

within the established time frame.” 28 C.F.R. § 542.14(b). It includes as examples “an extended period in-transit during 

which the inmate was separated from [necessary] documents” and a verified showing that “a response to the inmate’s request for copies” of certain documents “was delayed.” Id.

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If Pyles’s expectation that the library would return his 

grievance to him within the 60-day window was reasonable,

he has demonstrated good cause. According to the record on 

summary judgment, Pyles submitted his grievance to the law 

library on the first possible date and filed it on the same day 

he received it back. The only reason he was two days late was 

the library’s glacial pace in returning his original document 

(plus copy) to him. The defendants have not shown that this 

was the library’s customary processing time. Nothing shows 

that Pyles had any reason to expect such a long delay. 

The defendants note that there were four days of scheduled holidays between December 21, 2012, and January 3, 

2013. They argue that Pyles should therefore have expected 

the delay, and that thus that the fault for the untimely filing 

remains with him. We cannot draw that conclusion on summary judgment. Even subtracting those days, the record suggests no reason why Pyles should have expected that it would 

take nine days to photocopy several pages. The defendants 

have provided no evidence otherwise. The defendants also 

note that the inmate in Dole made a written (as opposed to 

photocopied) copy of his grievance, and argue that Pyles 

should have done likewise. But Pyles “cannot be expected to 

do more than the state’s regulations required of him,” Dole, 

438 F.3d at 809, and we are given no reason to think that the 

prison would have accepted a handwritten, unauthenticated 

copy as genuine. Pyles started the grievance process with 35 

days remaining before the due date. This was enough time to 

demonstrate his diligence in pursuing the grievance. 

The defendants also rely on Cannon v. Washington, 418 F.3d 

714 (7th Cir. 2005), but the circumstances there were different. 

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The inmate in Cannon failed to follow the Administrative Review Board’s instructions for the late grievance procedure. Id.

at 718. While Cannon held that the confiscation of the inmate’s 

legal papers for three weeks did not constitute good cause for 

late filing, it emphasized that the inmate had not needed them 

to file a grievance. Id. In contrast, Pyles had only one copy of 

his grievance signed by his counselor. Because it was in the

possession of the law library, there was no way for him to submit it before it was returned to him. 

The defendants also suggest that it was irresponsible of

Pyles to have submitted his grievance for photocopying. But 

as the disappearance of Pyles’s separate grievance about the 

law-library delay demonstrates, grievances and other paperwork are not infrequently lost in the prison administrative 

system. It was thus reasonable for Pyles to take the precaution 

of making a copy of his grievance. In fact, encouraging prisoners to do so effectuates one of the purposes of the PLRA’s 

exhaustion requirement: improving the quality of prisoner 

suits by “the creation of an administrative record that is helpful to the court.” Ngo, 548 U.S. at 94–95. The fact that copying 

a grievance is not a required step in the administrative process 

says nothing about whether Pyles did everything in his power 

to comply with that process. There is no reason that Pyles 

should be faulted for taking entirely reasonable action just because the process did not explicitly require it. The purpose of 

the exhaustion requirement is to ensure that prisons have “a 

fair opportunity to correct their own errors” through the 

grievance process. Id. at 94. Finding good cause in this case 

would not interfere with that purpose. 

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Finally, there is little reason to fear the parade of horribles 

predicted by the defendants. There is little incentive for prisoners to try to evade due dates by last-minute photocopying: 

they would almost certainly gain nothing by it. (In any event, 

this was not an instance of “last-minute” action.) Moreover, 

evidence that the prisoner either was not diligent or had reason to believe he might not receive his photocopies back in 

time would preclude a finding of exhaustion. Pyles failed to

file his grievance in time through no fault of his own. The lateness was caused by circumstances outside Pyles’s control—

and within the prison’s. According to the record, he was diligent throughout the process and followed the Illinois administrative procedures to the greatest extent possible; this adds

up to good cause for his two-day delay. The defendants therefore failed to show that he did not exhaust his administrative 

remedies with respect to the grievance against Dr. Nwaobasi. 

B

The Shearing grievance presents a different problem: what 

happens when a response to a grievance does not reach the 

prisoner, and so he does not know when to move along to the 

next step? Pyles testified that he never received a response to 

his grievance against Shearing, but the magistrate judge (and 

then the district court) found that Pyles “lack[ed] credibility 

on this issue.” The defendants contend that this determination is binding. We have no quarrel with the normal rule that 

findings of fact, including credibility determinations, are reviewed for clear error. See Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 

N.C., 470 U.S. 564, 573–74 (1985). But a finding of fact is clearly 

erroneous if it is “based on errors of fact or logic.” Allord v. 

Barnhart, 455 F.3d 818, 821 (7th Cir. 2006). Where the evidence 

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underlying a fact, including credibility, supports only speculation about the existence or nonexistence of the contested 

point, it is clear error to conclude that the point has been established. 

That is the case here. The magistrate judge’s finding that 

Pyles lacked credibility was based on inferences from tangentially relevant evidence: (1) that four of Pyles’s previous grievances were returned, and (2) that Pyles had followed up on at 

least some other grievances, but had not in this case. We must 

consider whether this, standing alone (as it did), is enough to 

support the judge’s finding that it was “implausible” that 

Pyles’s failure to follow up on the Shearing grievance was because he never received a response.

Those two facts are at best very weak evidence for the 

proposition at issue. The fact that other grievances were returned to Pyles says nothing about whether this grievance was 

returned to Pyles. (We do not know how many grievances are 

filed each year at Menard, but it houses almost 3,700 male inmates, see https://www.illinois.gov/idoc/facilities/Pages/men

ardcorrectionalcenter.aspx.) Because the defendants have 

provided no evidence that they timely and accurately transmitted a response, they do not enjoy a presumption of receipt. 

In re Nimz Transp., Inc., 505 F.2d 177, 179 (7th Cir. 1974). 

Worse, there is evidence in the prison’s own records that 

undermines the court’s finding and supports Pyles. True, the 

records show that grievance officers responded to some earlier grievances. In fact, Pyles’s Cumulative Counseling Summary shows that some were returned to him. But this supports Pyles’s account, not the defendants’: while the Counseling Summary contains an entry documenting the Shearing 

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grievance, there is no record anywhere indicating that a response to it was given or sent to Pyles. In fact, the Shearing 

grievance does not appear at all in Pyles’s “IGRV Inmate History” of grievances. These holes in the record indicate that 

Pyles never received a response.

The magistrate judge thought that Pyles’s inquiries about 

other pending grievances (and the lack of any such inquiry 

about the Shearing grievance) made it implausible to think 

that he did not receive a response to the Shearing grievance. 

This, in our view, is too much of a stretch, especially in the 

face of the explanation Pyles gave for why he did not send a 

status inquiry for the Shearing grievance: “After three months 

having received no response, I just assumed that that was it, I 

wasn’t going to receive a response, and filed the lawsuit.” The 

magistrate judge pointed to nothing in Pyles’s testimony that 

gave him (or us) reason to doubt this account. 

As we have emphasized, it was the defendants’ burden to 

prove that Pyles failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. 

See Maddox, 655 F.3d at 720. The defendants, we conclude, did 

not meet that burden. They practically admitted this at the 

Pavey hearing, where the defendants’ counsel conceded that 

there was “no proof [about exhaustion of the Shearing grievance] in either direction.” But there was competent proof that 

Pyles never received a response, in the form of his own testimony. The magistrate judge’s conclusion to the contrary cannot stand on this record. Pyles exhausted such remedies as 

were available to him, and so summary judgment for the defendants on the basis of failure to exhaust was inappropriate. 

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III

Pyles has shown that, under ILL. ADMIN. CODE tit. 20, 

§ 504.810(a), he had good cause for failing to timely file his 

grievance against Dr. Nwaobasi. In addition, the defendants 

did not meet their burden of proving that Pyles failed to exhaust his available administrative remedies for his grievance 

against Dr. Shearing. The district court’s judgment is therefore 

REVERSED as to both grievances, and this case is REMANDED for 

proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

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