Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_04-cv-03008/USCOURTS-azd-2_04-cv-03008-0/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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WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

WILLIE C. BURNS, 

Plaintiff, 

vs.

SERGEANT MATOS; CO II MIGUEL

CARBAJAL; CAPTAIN S.R. CONGER;

DEPUTY WARDEN JOHN

ONTIVEROS; ADMINISTRATOR TIM

LAWRENCE; CO II MONROE; LT.

HOLOCOMB, 

Defendants. 

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No. CV 04-3008-PHX-JAT (LOA)

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE

Pending before this Court is Defendants’ Non-Enumerated 12(b) Motion to Dismiss

Plaintiff’s Complaint (Doc. #17), in which Defendants allege that Plaintiff failed to exhaust

the administrative remedies available at the prison prior to filing this lawsuit. After

reviewing the parties’ arguments, exhibits, and affidavits, the Court rules as follows:

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff is currently an inmate incarcerated with the Arizona Department of

Corrections (“ADC”). On December 23, 2004, Plaintiff filed a complaint pursuant to 42

U.S.C. § 1983 against Defendant prison officials. In his complaint he alleged that his Eighth

Amendment rights were violated when: (1) Defendant Ontiveros failed to protect Plaintiff

by allowing dangerous inmates to be housed in the same area, (2) Sergeant Matos refused to

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move Plaintiff from a cell where an inmate threatened him and later attacked him, and (3)

Defendants Holocomb and Monroe failed to protect him from an inmate who they saw attack

him in the dining area. Plaintiff did not submit formal or informal grievances to prison

officials regarding his first two claims. Plaintiff alleges, however, that he filed an informal

grievance with his assigned Correctional Officer (CO) III regarding the attack in the dining

area. He claims that the CO III failed to respond to that grievance. Plaintiff further alleges

that he then proceeded to file a formal grievance. The grievance was then returned to him

as “unprocessed” after the time for submission of grievances had already expired, thereby

precluding him from refiling with the required corrections. As a result of his alleged efforts,

Plaintiff believes he has exhausted all administrative remedies available to him for resolving

his grievances and is thus properly before the Court. Defendants contend that the alleged

grievance forms related to the third claim and attached to Plaintiff’s Response and

Opposition to Defendants’ “Non-Enumerated Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Complaint”

(Doc. # 23) are forgeries. Defendants further allege that Plaintiff failed to exhaust all

administrative remedies for his first two claims by not submitting them through the inmate

grievance system at the prison.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Legal Standard

Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1997e(a) of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, a prisoner may

not file a lawsuit with respect to prison conditions under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 until such prisoner

has exhausted all administrative remedies available at the prison. Exhaustion is mandated,

“regardless of the relief offered through administrative procedures.” Booth v. Churner, 532

U.S. 731, 741 (2001). It is required in all inmate suits regarding prison life. Porter v. Nussle,

534 U.S. 516, 523 (2002). 

The Ninth Circuit has held that “the failure to exhaust nonjudicial remedies that are

not jurisdictional should be treated as a matter in abatement, which is subject to an

unenumerated Rule 12(b) motion rather than a motion for summary judgment.” Wyatt v.

Terhune, 315 F.3d 1108, 1119 (9th Cir. 2003). In deciding whether or not to dismiss this

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action, “the [C]ourt may look beyond the pleadings and decide disputed issues of fact.” Id.

at 1119-20. It may take into consideration facts outside the record, including affidavits

submitted by the parties. See Ritza v. Int’l Longshoremen’s & Warehousemen’s Union, 837

F.2d 365, 369 (9th Cir. 1988). The Ninth Circuit has recognized that “it is considerably

easier for a prison administrator to show a failure to exhaust than it is for a prisoner to

demonstrate exhaustion” and has thus placed the burden upon defendants to prove a lack of

exhaustion. Wyatt, 315 F.3d at 1119 (quoting Ray v. Kertes, 285 F.3d 287, 295 (3rd Cir.

2002)). Assuming that Plaintiff has failed to exhaust all available administrative remedies,

the proper action for the Court to pursue is to dismiss the claim without prejudice. Id. at

1120. 

B. Available Administrative Remedies

The Arizona Department of Corrections Inmate Grievance System is set forth in

Department Order (“DO”) 802. An inmate may use this grievance system for issues related

to “[p]roperty, staff, visitation, mail, food service, institutional procedures, Department

Written Instructions, program access, medical care, religion and conditions of confinement.”

(DO 802.01 § 1.1.1). Under both the Standard Grievance (DO 802.09) and the Staff

Grievance (DO 802.12) procedures, the inmate must first attempt to resolve the issues

informally by submitting a complaint to his assigned CO III. If the issue remains unresolved,

the inmate may then file a formal grievance by submitting an Inmate Grievance Form 801-1P

within ten calendar days from the date he receives a response from the CO III. (DO 802.09

§1.1.2; DO 802.12 § 1.1.2). If a grievance form is returned as “unprocessed” for failure to

supply required information, the form will provide the inmate with instructions for proper

completion. (DO 802.09 §1.1.6; DO 802.12 § 1.1.4). At least in the case of a Standard

Grievance, the inmate must still comply with the original time frames when resubmitting a

formal grievance. (DO 802.09 § 1.1.6). The subsequent steps of the process are not relevant

under the facts of this case.

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1. Claims One and Two

Plaintiff’s first two claims are related to an assualt arising out of decisions by prison

officials to place dangerous inmates in the same cell or in the same general area as Plaintiff.

He alleges that his first two claims were non-grievable issues under Departmental Order

802.01 §1.2.3 because the inmate who assaulted him in his cell was given a disciplinary

write-up and because the matter was related to decisions by prison officials to “classify” both

inmates in the same cell. Department Order 802.01 §1.2.3. states, “Inmates may not use the

inmate grievance system for classification, discipline issues, or any other system which has

its own unique appeal process.” Plaintiff’s belief as to the non-grievable nature of his claims

is erroneous. Plaintiff’s claims are directly related to the “conditions of [his] confinement”

and thus grievable under DO 802.01 §1.1.1. Because Plaintiff has not filed grievances

related to these first two claims, he has failed to exhaust all available administrative remedies

for the claims. 

Defendants have met their burden of proving Plaintiff’s lack of exhaustion as to the

first two claims. Accordingly, the first two claims must be dismissed under 42 U.S.C.

§1997e(a). Dismissal of these two unexhausted claims, however, does not require the Court

to dismiss other claims that may have been fully exhausted prior to initiation of this suit.

Lira v. Herrera, 427 F.3d 1164, 1170-75 (9th Cir. 2005).

2. Claim Three 

Plaintiff alleges that he submitted an informal grievance to resolve his complaints

regarding the attack in the dining area and that he never received a response from his

assigned CO III. He further alleges that as a result, he was unable to properly submit a

formal grievance within the time allotted. Assuming that prison officials did, in fact, prevent

Plaintiff from taking advantage of the remedies available by failing to respond to Plaintiff’s

grievance in a timely manner, Plaintiff would then have a fairly strong argument in support

of his claim of exhaustion. See Foulk v. Charrier, 262 F.3d 687, 698 (8th Cir. 2001) (finding

there were no further administrative remedies available when department of corrections

failed to respond to inmate’s grievance); Lewis v. Washington, 300 F.3d 829, 833 (7th Cir.

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2002) (refusing to interpret statute to allow prison officials to “exploit exhaustion

requirement” by refusing to respond to grievances); Powe v. Ennis, 177 F.3d 393, 394 (5th

Cir. 1999) (finding exhaustion when inmate has properly filed grievance and state’s time for

responding has expired).

In response to Plaintiff’s allegations, Defendants have presented persuasive evidence

to suggest that Plaintiff’s grievance relating to his third claim was never actually submitted

but rather forged in such a way as to appear that it had been submitted. The Court has

authority to decide this disputed fact. Wyatt v. Terhune, 315 F.3d 1108, 1119-20 (9th Cir.

2003). After reviewing the evidence presented by Defendants, the Court finds Plaintiff’s

alleged grievances to be works of forgery, thereby rendering his attempt to exhaust available

administrative remedies incomplete and invalid. The Court has arrived at this conclusion for

the following reasons: 1) Faith D. Lee, the Grievance Coordinator who allegedly signed

Plaintiff’s formal grievance, denies having signed the formal grievance in either the

“Grievance Coordinator’s Signature” box or the “Staff Member’s Signature” box (Lee Aff.

at 1); 2) Faith D. Lee was not a Grievance Coordinator at the time the document was signed

(Lee Aff. at 1); 2) the dates and “unprocessed” language on the grievance form were not

written in Faith D. Lee’s handwriting (Lee Aff. at 1); 3) the type-written information at the

bottom of the form is a typical response included on grievance forms returned to other

inmates (Lee Aff. at 1) and could thus be easily mimicked; 4) although grievances returned

as “unprocessed” are copied and placed in ADC’s records, no such record exists for

Plaintiff’s grievance (Lee Aff. at 1; Aguilar Aff. at 1); and 5) the number “4” as written in

the date next to Faith D. Lee’s alleged signature on the grievance form is consistent with

Plaintiff’s numerous handwritten number “4’s” in Plaintiff’s Response and Opposition to

Defendants’ “Non-Enumerated Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Complaint” (Doc. # 23),

whereas the number “4” written next to Plaintiff’s signature on the grievance form is not

consistent with his numerous “4’s” given in his response. In light of this evidence, it appears

that Plaintiff did not actually submitted a grievance form to prison officials and thus has not

exhausted all available administrative remedies relating to his third claim.

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III. CONCLUSION

Although Plaintiff’s first two claims could have been submitted through ADC’s

inmate grievance system, they were not. Thus, Plaintiff did not exhaust all available

remedies at the prison for those claims prior to filing with this Court. Until Plaintiff exhausts

such remedies, the federal courts cannot consider his claims. As to Plaintiff’s third claim,

the Court is not convinced that Plaintiff actually submitted his formal grievance form to

prison officials, as would have been required to exhaust all administrative remedies available

to him in the prison. 

Accordingly,

IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff's Motion to Strike (Doc. #42) Defendants' Notice of

Errata (Doc. #40) is denied because Defendants were merely correcting a deficiency in their

prior filing;

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendants' Motion to Dismiss (Doc. #17) is

granted in part to the extent that Plaintiff’s first two claims are dismissed without prejudice;

and,

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendant's Motion to Dismiss (Doc. #17)

remains under consideration with respect to Plaintiff's third claim and IT IS ORDERED that

Plaintiff show cause to this Court within fifteen days from this date why his third claim

should not also be dismissed. This is Plaintiff’s final opportunity to submit any evidence he

has to prove that the grievance form he attached in response to Defendants' motion was not

forged.

DATED this 4th day of April, 2006.

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