Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-1_08-cv-01500/USCOURTS-caed-1_08-cv-01500-30/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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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

John Fratus, 

Plaintiff, 

vs.

Sergeant Peterson, et al., 

Defendants. 

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No. CV-08-1500-ROS

ORDER

Plaintiff John Fratus claims he was assaulted by prison guards on January 10, 2007.

Defendants Beer, Lloren, McRobers, and Pightling (“Defendants”) argue Fratus did not file

a timely administrative appeal regarding that assault. Based on the evidence presented by

the parties, Fratus pursued all administrative remedies available to him. Thus, this case can

proceed.

FINDINGS OF FACT

At all relevant times Fratus was incarcerated at the California State Prison-Corcoran.

Prior to January 10, 2007 Fratus filed numerous grievances and staff complaints. On January

10, 2007, Officers Beer and McRoberts allegedly decided to retaliate against Fratus for filing

those grievances and complaints. According to Fratus, Beer and McRoberts took him to the

prison shower and “brutally assaulted” him. (Doc. 173 at 18). Officers Lloren and Pightling

knew of this assault and “failed to intervene” to prevent or stop it. (Doc. 173 at 1). After the

assault, Fratus “began to receive severe harassment and retaliation by all ‘floor officers . . .

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due to the 1-10-07 incident.” (Doc. 173 at 18). That harassment led him to claim to be

suicidal such that he would be transferred to a different building away from the officers

targeting him. Fratus was transferred to a different building but was transferred back a week

later. 

After returning to his original building, Fratus “submitted a 602 inmate appeal form

in the mail on Sunday 1-21-07 concerning the 1-10-07 incident.” (Doc. 173 at 19). Fratus

claims the form was picked up by an “Officer Bailey.” Officer Bailey does not remember

whether he was working on that date nor does he remember having any interactions with

Fratus. However, Officer Bailey was working in Fratus’s housing unit during the relevant

time and it is possible he was responsible for collecting mail on January 21, 2007.

Fratus did not receive a response regarding the appeal submitted on January 21, 2007.

On February 25, 2007, he “submitted another copy of [his] 602 appeal in the mail with

Officer Bailey.” The second appeal was accompanied by a letter explaining Fratus had

“previously attempted to file this 602 appeal with no response.” (Doc. 173 at 20). Again

Fratus did not receive a response. On March 8, 2007, Fratus submitted another copy of his

602 appeal to Officer Bailey along with a letter explaining his previous attempts.

While Fratus was attempting to submit an appeal regarding the January 10, 2007

incident, he was submitting other appeals regarding other types of mistreatment. For

example, on February 22, 2007, Fratus submitted an appeal alleging officers were stealing

his magazines. (Doc. 173 at 31). In that appeal, Fratus explained he had been “assaulted and

threatened by staff” on January 10 and ever since that date he had stopped receiving his

magazines. Based on the testimony presented at the evidentiary hearing, the February 22,

2007 appeal should have been rejected as attempting to grieve more than one issue. That is,

the appeal can reasonably be read as complaining about both the January 10, 2007 assault

and the missing magazines, as was conceded by a defense witness at the evidentiary hearing.

There is no clear explanation why prison staff limited the February 22 appeal to only the

magazines issue. In addition to the appeal regarding his magazines, Fratus also submitted

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1

 During the evidentiary hearing, Fratus testified he filed a state court motion in the

spring of 2007 referencing the prison’s alleged refusal to process his complaints regarding

the January 10, 2007 incident. Defendants did not dispute that testimony. Therefore, the

October 2007 state court filing was the second time Fratus asked the state court to intervene

to require the prison process his appeal.

2

 The prison officials substantially confused matters by claiming this investigation was

based on construing Fratus’s complaint as a “citizen’s complaint.” (Exhibit 29). The

regulations regarding a “citizen’s complaint” state such complaints “shall be filed within

twelve months of the alleged misconduct.” (Exhibit 35). But, if deemed a “citizen’s

complaint,” Fratus had until January 2008 to file a timely appeal. Thus, even in October

2007 when Fratus filed his state court lawsuit, he still had time to submit a timely “citizen’s

complaint.” Moreover, given the representation that an internal investigation would be

conducted, it is unclear why prison officials argued that investigation would not suffice to

exhaust administrative remedies. After all, the purpose of the administrative exhaustion

requirement is to allow “corrections officials time and opportunity to address complaints

internally before allowing the initiation of a federal case.” Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516,

525 (2002). If an internal investigation would be pursued, it is unclear what purpose would

be served by allowing prison officials to claim administrative remedies could not be

exhausted.

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appeals seeking access to the law library and copies of medical records. (Doc. 171-2 at 2).

In brief, Fratus was not hesitant to use the appeal process for relatively minor issues.

Despite receiving responses to his other appeals, Fratus never received a response to

his numerous appeals regarding the January 10 incident. On October 17, 2007, he filed a

“writ of mandate/habeas corpus in Kings County Superior Court.”1

 (Doc. 173 at 7). That

filing alleged the prison was “failing and/or refusing to file an inmate appeal that challenges

his alleged January 10, 2007 beating at the hands of Correctional Department employees.”

(Doc. 173 at 27). Prison officials responded in state court by claiming there was “no record

of [Fratus’s] January 10, 2007 administrative appeal concerning the alleged attack.” (Doc.

173 at 27). The officials agreed, however, to conduct an “investigation into the incident

involving staff misconduct.” (Doc. 173 at 27). Prison officials stressed this investigation

was not to be construed as appropriate administrative exhaustion.2

The state court’s ruling on Fratus’s request began with a note that the prison claimed

“it has no record of [Fratus’s] January 10, 2007 administrative appeal concerning the alleged

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attack” but the prison was “in receipt of [Fratus’s] October 17, 2007 appeal regarding the

same issue.” (Exhibit 30). This statement is puzzling for two reasons. First, Fratus never

claimed to have submitted an appeal on January 10, 2007. Instead, Fratus has always

claimed he submitted an appeal a little over a week later. And second, there is no record of

any appeal dated October 17, 2007. Thus, it is unclear how the state court arrived at these

dates. But regardless of that confusion, the state court relied on the prison officials’

representation that they would conduct an internal investigation and refused to enter a formal

order requiring the officials process Fratus’s appeal.

After the state court ruling prison officials initiated an investigation into Fratus’s

allegations. On April 11, 2008, Fratus was interviewed by “Sergeant Battle” regarding the

events of January 10, 2007. Sergeant Battle told Fratus to “submit something in writing.”

(Doc. 173 at 23). Fratus submitted appeals “every week” thereafter but it was not until

August 11, 2008 that Fratus received a response. That response stated his appeal was

untimely because he only had 15 days after January 10 to submit an appeal. Fratus submitted

an appeal of that decision but the appeal was returned to him on August 28, 2008 with no

explanation. (Doc. 173 at 24). Fratus filed this suit approximately five weeks later. 

ANALYSIS

I. Factual Findings After Denial of Summary Judgment

As recently established by the Ninth Circuit, when an alleged failure to exhaust

administrative remedies is not clear on the face of the complaint, defendants must “present

probative evidence . . . that the prisoner has failed to exhaust available administrative

remedies.” Albino v. Baca, 747 F.3d 1162, 1169 (9th Cir. 2014). The presentation of such

evidence must come in the form of a motion for summary judgment. If that motion “is

denied, disputed factual questions relevant to exhaustion should be decided by the judge, in

the same manner a judge rather than a jury decides disputed factual questions relevant to

jurisdiction and venue.” Id. at 1171. To assist in making factual findings in this case, the

Court held a one-day evidentiary hearing at which a prison official and Fratus testified.

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II. Remedies Not Available or Fratus was Preclued from Exhausting

Defendants argue Fratus did not submit a timely appeal regarding the January 10,

2007 incident. The sole support for this is that the prison’s records do not reflect such an

appeal being filed. But the facts show the prison’s records are not reliable and the

surrounding circumstances make it more likely than not that Fratus took all “reasonable

appropriate steps to exhaust” his claim but he was prevented from doing so. Nunez v.

Duncan, 591 F.3d 1217, 1224 (9th Cir. 2010).

Fratus’s testimony at the evidentiary hearing was persuasive. Therefore, as a factual

matter, he submitted an appeal in the mail picked up from his cell on January 21, 2007. That

appeal was never logged into the prison records and there is no information about what

ultimately happened to it. As explained at the evidentiary hearing, an unknown number of

officers had access to the mail and it is unclear whether Fratus’s appeal was innocently

misplaced or maliciously destroyed. For present purposes, it does not matter. The only issue

of importance is that Fratus attempted to file a timely appeal and he was prevented from

doing so. Three aspects of the record support this conclusion. 

First, Fratus did clearly submit appeals regarding all types of alleged mistreatment.

Shortly after the January 10 incident, Fratus submitted appeals complaining his magazines

were missing, he was being denied copies of medical records, and he was not being allowed

to use the law library. It seems unlikely Fratus would file and pursue an appeal regarding the

fate of his magazines while forgoing an appeal complaining of being “sadistically [and]

brutally beaten” by guards. (Doc. 173 at 40). 

Second, Fratus went to great lengths to try to get any response regarding the January

10 incident. A few months after the incident, Fratus asked a state court for help in having

his appeal processed. And nine months after the incident, Fratus again asked a state court

to order prison officials to process his appeal. The allegations in the second state court suit

are consistent with Fratus’s present allegations. Repeatedly going to state court to have his

appeal processed shows a great deal of persistence. It is unlikely Fratus would have been so

insistent if he had never submitted an appeal.

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3

 This “screening out” policy also was applied to prevent appeals complaining of more

than one issue. This policy was applied inconsistently in that Fratus’s February 22, 2007

appeal apparently realleged the January 10 assault as well as the magazine issue. Instead of

being screened out, that appeal was processed merely on the topic of magazines.

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Third, the evidence established the prison’s records were fallible. As Fratus

highlighted at the hearing, the state court noted the prison had conceded it had an appeal

dated October 17, 2007. But the prison’s records presented at the evidentiary hearing contain

no such appeal. Thus, the prison’s records must not reflect all the appeals filed by Fratus.

In fact, Defendants admitted as much when they conceded that appeals that were “screened

out” were not logged in the system. If, for example, the appeal Fratus filed on January 21,

2007 was deemed deficient on its face, that appeal would not have been recorded in the

records.3

 While screened out appeals were returned to inmates, the failure to log such

appeals created an opportunity for appeals to be misplaced or otherwise mishandled. 

Moreover, the basic premise of Defendants’ argument is faulty. That is, the simple

fact that the records do not reflect an appeal does not prove the lack of administrative

exhaustion. As explained by another court addressing a similar dispute, an attempt to rely

on potentially fallible prison records is not convincing: 

Merely because the Appeal Coordinator has no record of having

received Plaintiff’s [appeal] does not establish that Plaintiff, in fact,

failed to timely submit his [appeal] to the Appeal Coordinator in the

first instance. At most, it shows non-receipt rather than nonsubmission.

Badwi v. Hedgpeth, 2012 WL 479192, at *4 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 14, 2012). 

In summary, Fratus routinely appealed all manner of issues, he engaged in a long

campaign to have prison officials process his appeal regarding the incident, and the prison’s

records have serious gaps in them. Accordingly, the grievance procedures either were

unavailable or Fratus was precluded from exhausting “through no fault of his own.” McCoy

v. Stratton, 2014 WL 6633319, at *8 (E.D. Cal. Nov. 21, 2014) (excusing exhaustion when

prisoner was precluded from exhausting “through no fault of his own”). This suit can

proceed.

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Accordingly,

IT IS ORDERED Fratus is found to have exhausted the claims presented in this suit.

Defendants shall file their answer no later than February 20, 2015.

DATED this 11th day of February, 2015.

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