Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_05-cv-01842/USCOURTS-azd-2_05-cv-01842-0/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

SEAN ROY SHARKEY, 

Plaintiff, 

v.

MARICOPA COUNTY BOARD OF

SUPERVISORS, JOE ARPAIO, in

his official capacity as

Maricopa County Sheriff, 

Defendants.

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No. CV-05-1842 PHX SMM (VAM)

ORDER

Before the Court is Defendant’s motion to dismiss

Plaintiff’s complaint. (Doc. 10). For the reasons set forth

below, the Court will deny the motion without prejudice.

Background

Plaintiff filed a pro se civil rights complaint on June

17, 2005, alleging Defendants violated his civil rights while

Plaintiff was detained at the Maricopa County Durango Jail.

(Doc. 1). On August 10, 2005, the Court ordered Defendant

Arpaio to answer Plaintiff’s allegation that Defendant

violated Plaintiff’s Eighth Amendment rights by subjecting him

to overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions at the jail

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and by denying him adequate medical treatment. (Doc. 5).

 Defendant waived service and filed a motion to dismiss on

October 19, 2005. (Doc. 8). Defendant asserts that the

complaint must be dismissed pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a)

because Plaintiff failed to fully exhaust his administrative

remedies by pursuing his claims through the entire Maricopa

County jail inmate grievance process prior to filing his §

1983 complaint. Id. Plaintiff filed a response to the motion

to dismiss on November 21, 2005, stating that he did not

exhaust administrative remedies with regard to two of his

claims because he was prevented from doing so by jail

officials. (Doc. 11). Plaintiff also asserts that his

administrative grievance with regard to his other claim was

pursued to the highest level available to him and that the

claim was not resolved by the administrative procedure. Id.

Defendant filed a reply to Plaintiff’s response on November

23, 2005. (Doc. 12). 

Discussion

Exhaustion of administrative remedies is governed by the

Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a).

This statute provides that “[n]o action shall be brought with

respect to prison conditions under section 1983 ... 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) (2003 & Supp. 2005). An

inmate must exhaust available remedies “irrespective of the

forms of relief sought and offered through administrative

avenues.” Booth v. Churner, 532 U.S. 731, 741 n.6 (2001).

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The exhaustion requirement “applies to all inmate suits about

prison life, whether they involve general circumstances or

particular episodes.” Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 532

(2002). To fully exhaust a section 1983 claim, a prisoner

must pursue his grievance to the highest administrative level

available to him. See Thomas v. Woolum, 337 F.3d 720, 726

(6th Cir. 2003); Harper v. Jenkin, 179 F.3d 1311, 1312 (11th

Cir. 1999); Morgan v. Maricopa County, 259 F. Supp. 2d 985,

990-91 & n.13 (D. Ariz. 2003).

Exhaustion is an affirmative defense and Defendant has

“the burden of raising and proving the absence of exhaustion.”

Wyatt v. Terhune, 315 F.3d 1108, 1119 (9th Cir. 2003). The

failure to exhaust administrative remedies under the PLRA is

treated as a matter in abatement and is properly raised in an

unenumerated Rule 12(b) motion. Id. “In deciding a motion to

dismiss for a failure to exhaust nonjudicial remedies, the

[C]ourt may look beyond the pleadings and decide disputed

issues of fact.” Id. at 1119-20. If the Court concludes that

Plaintiff “has not exhausted nonjudicial remedies, the proper

remedy is dismissal of the claim without prejudice.” Id. at

1120.

The PLRA only requires that administrative remedies which

are “available” to a prisoner be exhausted prior to bringing

suit. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) (2003 & Supp. 2005). Because the

statute requires the remedy to be “available” to the prisoner,

it is possible for a prisoner to exhaust his administrative

remedies without his claims being denied at the highest level

of administrative review specified by the relevant inmate

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grievance policies. See Mitchell v. Horn, 318 F.3d 523, 529

(3d Cir. 2003) (holding that the district court erred by

dismissing an inmate’s § 1983 claim based on his failure to

exhaust because the court did not consider the inmate’s

allegation that prison officials refused to provide him

grievance forms). Federal courts have held that “a remedy

that prison officials prevent a prisoner from ‘utilizing’ is

not an ‘available’ remedy under § 1997e(a)[.]” Miller v.

Norris, 247 F.3d 736, 740 (8th Cir. 2001) (alteration

omitted); see also Brown v. Valoff, 422 F.3d 926, 935 (9th

Cir. 2005) (“The obligation to exhaust ‘available’ remedies

persists as long as some remedy remains ‘available.’”)

(emphasis in original).

In the motion to dismiss, Defendant contends that

Plaintiff did not exhaust his administrative remedies because

he did not file an external grievance appeal, i.e., an appeal

of any adverse decision by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s

Office Hearing Officer, the final step in the grievance

process, regarding any of the claims stated in his § 1983

action. (Doc. 11). Defendant acknowledges that Plaintiff

filed several grievances regarding medical treatment. Id.,

Exh. 1. Defendant avers that inmate grievances are not

ignored, and that inmates are not limited with regard to the

issues they may grieve. Id., Exh. 1. Defendant produces

inmate grievances regarding jail overcrowding and unsanitary

living conditions which jail inmates pursued to the highest

level of the grievance process, by pursuing an external

grievance appeal. Id., Exh. 1, Attach. B.

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 In his complaint, Plaintiff asserts he was told the

issues of unsanitary living conditions and jail overcrowding

were not grievable issues, and that he pursued a grievance

regarding his medical treatment claim as far as he was

allowed. (Doc. 1). In response to Defendant’s motion to

dismiss, Plaintiff asserts he repeatedly asked for grievance

forms to complain of the conditions at the jail and that he

was denied grievance forms 

because [the jail detention officers] claimed that

my issues were in the process of being remedied in

the form of the opening of the Lower Buckeye Jail

and thus not grievable. When I did manage to obtain

the paperwork, the officers simply refused to sign

or accept it and this was an effective “roadblock”

that I had no way around.

Furthermore, the Defendants motion claims that in

Count II of my complaint I did file a grievance but

failed to exhaust all administrative remedies. In

this case I took the process all the way to step

five, which is the final step in the grievance

process...I was told that the captain...would make

the final decision because in step 5 the Bureau

Hearing Officer was unable to make a decision...I

was later told that no further decision was coming

and that the time limit to appeal the Hearing

Office[r]s “decision” had expired. 

(Doc. 11). 

Plaintiff attaches a copy of a grievance regarding

inadequate medical treatment which he appealed to the Bureau

Hearing Officer; Plaintiff received a response from the Bureau

Hearing Officer on March 8, 2005, indicating no resolution of

the issue was reached. Id., Attach. The grievance form

signed by Plaintiff on March 8, 2005, states that, if an

inmate “is not satisfied with the Hearing Officer’s

resolution,” he should “submit an inmate institutional

Grievance Appeal Form within 24 hours of receipt to the

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Jail/Division Commander through the Hearing Officer.” Id.,

Attach.

In his reply to Plaintiff’s response, Defendant asserts

that Plaintiff has presented no evidence that his right to due

process was denied. (Doc. 12). Defendant avers that jail

inmates are not limited with regard to the issues they may

grieve and that detention officers “liberally” distribute

grievance forms. Id. With respect to Plaintiff’s specific

evidence, Defendant states that Plaintiff did not fully grieve

his medical treatment claim because he did not pursue an

external grievance appeal regarding this claim. Id.

Plaintiff does not assert under oath that he attempted to

pursue grievances regarding his section 1983 claims by

requesting grievance forms from Defendant’s employees, and

that Defendant’s employees thwarted his efforts to grieve

these complaints. Plaintiff does not provide any specific

allegation regarding a specific instance during which he

requested a grievance form from a specific jail officer and

was denied this access to the grievance process. Defendant

produces evidence that contradicts Plaintiff’s assertion that

administrative remedies were not available to Plaintiff with

regard to his complaints about jail overcrowding and

unsanitary living conditions. Plaintiff acknowledges that he

did not grieve his medical treatment claim to the highest

administrative level available to him by filing an external

grievance appeal of the Hearing Officer’s decision within the

24 hour time period dictated by grievance policy and stated on

the grievance form.

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The Court concludes that, as a matter of law, Plaintiff

had administrative remedies available to him regarding his

complaints about medical treatment and overcrowded and

unsanitary jail living conditions, which he did not fully

exhaust although an administrative process was available to

him. See Booth, 532 U.S. at 735; Brown, 422 F.3d at 936-37;

cf. Jones v. Smith, 266 F.3d 399, 399 (6th Cir. 2001)

(concluding that dismissal for failure to exhaust was proper

because the plaintiff failed to allege that the prison

official who refused to provide a grievance form was the only

source of those forms or that plaintiff made other attempts to

obtain a form or file a grievance without a form); Chelette v.

Harris, 229 F.3d 684, 688 (8th Cir. 2000) (concluding that

section 1997e(a) does not permit the court to consider an

inmate’s subjective beliefs in determining whether

administrative procedures are “available.”). Although

Plaintiff grieved his medical treatment claim, Plaintiff

admits that he did not file an external grievance appeal

regarding this claim within the time allowed by the jail’s

grievance procedures. Compare Ngo v. Woodford, 403 F.3d 620,

629-31 (9th Cir.), cert. granted, 126 S. Ct. 647 (2005).

Conclusion

Plaintiff concedes that he did not fully exhaust his

administrative remedies regarding the claims stated in his

section 1983 complaint, and Defendant has presented evidence

to the Court that administrative remedies were available to

Plaintiff and that Plaintiff did, in fact, partially pursue an

administrative remedy related to one of the claims stated in

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the complaint, but that Plaintiff did not fully exhaust this

claim. Plaintiff does not present any admissable evidence

indicating that administrative remedies were not available to

him. Therefore, the Court concludes that Plaintiff’s

complaint must be dismissed without prejudice pursuant to

section 1997e because Plaintiff failed to exhaust his

administrative remedies regarding his claims prior to filing

his section 1983 suit.

THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED THAT Defendants’ Motion to

Dismiss is GRANTED. (Doc. 10.) Plaintiff’s complaint is

hereby dismissed without prejudice.

DATED this 15th day of May, 2006.

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