Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_07-cv-01714/USCOURTS-azd-2_07-cv-01714-1/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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After he filed his initial response, the Court sent Plaintiff a Notice pursuant to Wyatt

v. Terhune, 315 F.3d 1108, 1120 n. 14 (9th Cir. 2003). (Doc. #19.) Plaintiff filed an

additional response, Defendants filed a supplemental reply, and Plaintiff filed a response to

the supplemental reply. (Doc. ##22, 35, 37.)

WO SVK

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Thomas Edmond Cochran, 

Plaintiff, 

vs.

Bennie Rollins, et al., 

Defendants. 

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No. CV 07-1714-PHX-MHM (JRI)

ORDER

Plaintiff Thomas Edmond Cochran, who is confined at the Arizona State Prison

Complex-Florence, filed this civil rights action against various officials of the Arizona

Department of Corrections (ADC). Defendants Rollins, Haley, and Moen move to dismiss

on the grounds that (1) Plaintiff did not exhaust prison administrative remedies before filing

this lawsuit and that (2) claims in Counts I and II are barred by the statute of limitations.

(Doc. #18.) The motion is fully briefed.1

 (Doc. ##20, 22, 27, 35, 37.)

The Court will grant the motion in part and deny it in part. The Court will dismiss

Defendants Moen and John Doe #1. 

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2 Lakey has not yet been served. (Doc. ##14, 28, 37.) 

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I. Background

Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint raised four grounds for relief alleging that his Eighth

Amendment rights were violated. In Count I, Plaintiff alleged that Moen and Haley failed

to prevent an attack on Plaintiff by another inmate in October 2004, and in Count II he

alleged that John Doe #1 and Haley failed to protect Plaintiff from an attack by another

inmate in June 2005. Plaintiff alleged that in each incident, he provided the named

Defendants with detailed information about inmates who were a threat to him (after he

renounced his gang affiliation) but that Defendants failed to place those inmates on Plaintiff’s

“do not house with” (DNHW) list and also failed to place Plaintiff in protective segregation,

resulting in Plaintiff suffering multiple assaults by those inmates. 

In Count III, Plaintiff alleged that Lakey, Haley, Rollins, and John Doe #1failed to

protect Plaintiff from an attack by another inmate in May 2007, and that Lakey, Haley and

Rollins denied Plaintiff placement in protective segregation. In Count IV, Plaintiff alleged

that John Doe #2 and John Doe #3 failed to protect Plaintiff from other inmates by refusing

to place Plaintiff in protective segregation. 

The Court ordered service on Rollins, Moen, Haley, and Lakey;2

 the Court did not

dismiss the John Doe Defendants but did not order service on them. (Doc. #13.)

II. Miscellaneous Motions

Plaintiff made a motion to dismiss Counts III and IV, with leave to amend upon

exhaustion. (Doc. #24.) He now moves to withdraw the motion; Defendants do not oppose.

(Doc. ##30, 34.) The Court will grant Plaintiff’s motion to withdraw his motion to dismiss.

Defendants move to strike Plaintiff’s response to Defendants’ supplemental reply.

(Doc. #38.) The Court will deny the motion. Defendants raise for the first time in their

supplemental reply that there is a separate grievance process for denials of placement in

protective segregation. Although Defendants initially sought dismissal of the entire

Complaint, in their reply they state that they take no position as to Count IV (refusal to place

in protective segregation). (Doc. #18 at 1; Doc. #22 at 2 n. 2) It appears to the Court that

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some allegations in Count III also raise separate claims regarding denial of protective

segregation. Plaintiff submits documents showing that he availed himself of this other

grievance process. The Court will, therefore, consider his response to Defendants’

supplemental reply. 

III. Motion to Dismiss for Failure to Exhaust

1. Legal Standard

Plaintiff must first exhaust “available” administrative remedies before bringing this

action. See 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a); Vaden v. Summerhill, 449 F.3d 1047, 1050 (9th Cir.

2006); Brown v. Valoff, 422 F.3d 926, 934-35 (9th Cir. 2005). He must complete the

administrative review process in accordance with the applicable rules. See Woodford v.

Ngo, 126 S. Ct. 2378, 2384 (2006). Exhaustion is required for all suits about prison life,

Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 523 (2002), regardless of the type of relief offered through

the administrative process, Booth v. Churner, 532 U.S. 731, 741 (2001). 

Exhaustion is an affirmative defense. Jones v. Bock, 127 S. Ct. 910, 919-21 (2007).

Defendants bear the burden of raising and proving the absence of exhaustion. Wyatt v.

Terhune, 315 F.3d 1108, 1119 (9th Cir. 2003). Because exhaustion is a matter of abatement

in an unenumerated Rule 12(b) motion, a court may look beyond the pleadings to decide

disputed issues of fact. Id. at 1119-20. Further, courts have broad discretion as to the

method to be used in resolving the factual dispute. Ritza v. Int’l Longshoremen’s &

Warehousemen’s Union, 837 F.2d 365, 369 (9th Cir. 1988) (citation omitted). 

2. Parties’ Contentions

Defendants assert that Plaintiff did not properly exhaust his administrative remedies.

In support of their motion, Defendants submit the affidavit of Aurora Aguilar, ADC Hearing

Officer (Doc. #18, Ex. A, Aguilar Aff. ¶ 1); and ADC Department Order (DO) 802, Inmate

Grievance System—the procedures for the standard inmate administrative grievance process

(id., Aguilar Aff., Attach. 1).

The DO provides a four-step standard-grievance process, which is generally as

follows: (1) an inmate must submit an inmate letter to his assigned Correctional Officer

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(C.O.) III, attempting to informally resolve a complaint within 10 days after becoming aware

of a problem; (2) if the inmate is not satisfied with the response, he may file a formal

grievance to the Grievance Coordinator within 10 calendar days of receipt of the response

to the inmate letter; (3) if the inmate is not satisfied with that response, he may file a

grievance appeal to a higher official—the Deputy Warden or Warden—within 10 calendar

days of the receipt of the Coordinator’s response; and (4) if the inmate is not satisfied with

the response to his grievance appeal, he may appeal to the ADC Director within 10 calendar

days of receipt of the response from the Warden or Deputy Warden. The Director has 30

days from receipt to respond to an appeal. (Id.) DO 802.07 § 1.2.4 provides that expiration

of the time limit at any level of the grievance process entitles the inmate to proceed to the

next level of review. (Id.) 

Aguilar attests that, during the period from January 2001 to January 2008, Plaintiff

did not complete any grievance all the way through to an appeal to the Director. (Id., Ex. A,

Aguilar Aff. ¶ 11.) Defendants argue that because Plaintiff did not file a Director’s Appeal

regarding the claims in the Complaint, Plaintiff failed to exhaust his remedies. (Doc. #18 at

6.) 

In his response, Plaintiff asserts that he exhausted the remedies available to him, but

that ADC staff prevented him from appealing. (Doc. # 20 at 3.) Plaintiff asserts that on July

3, 2007, he wrote an informal resolution to CO III Woods, who did not respond. Plaintiff

then filed a grievance, which stated that he was proceeding to the next level. (Id.) Staff

refused to process the grievance for failure to attempt an informal resolution. (Id.) Plaintiff

proceeded to the next level—appeal to the Warden. ADC staff again refused to process the

grievance appeal. Plaintiff submits an Inmate Letter, dated July 7, 2007 (id., Ex. A); a

Grievance, dated July 24, 2007 (id., Ex. B); Grievance response, dated July 30, 2007 (id., Ex.

C); Grievance Appeal dated August 14, 2007 (id., Ex. D); and Inmate Letter response dated

August 16, 2007 (id., Ex. E). 

In his supplemental response, Plaintiff submits additional documentation: Protective

Segregation Appeal, dated February 28, 2006 (Doc. #27, Ex. H); Inmate Letter Response,

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dated March 17, 2008 (id., Ex. I); and Inmate Letter Response dated March 14, 2008 (id., Ex.

J). In the Protective Segregation Appeal, Rollins indicates that he reviewed Plaintiff’s appeal

dated February 16, 2006. The March 17, 2008 Inmate Letter Response states that Plaintiff

has been through the DI 67 process four times and “appealed the decision to the highest

authority. You received the last appeal from Deputy Division Director Rollins. You have

exhausted your administrative remedies with this process.” The Inmate Letter Response

dated March 14, 2008, states that the grievance in reference to a request for DI 67 is being

returned unprocessed because DI 67 has its own appeals process.

In their reply, Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s attempts at exhaustion are not related

to the incidents in Counts I through III of the Amended Complaint. (Doc. #22 at 3.) They

argue that Plaintiff’s exhibit A, for example, relates to his multiple requests to be placed in

protective segregation, does not specify any of the assaults about which Plaintiff complained

in the Amended Complaint, and was commenced well after the time to begin the

administrative process. (Id.) They assert that the Inmate Letter and Grievance, both dated

July 2007, are not timely as to the specific incidents of October 2004, June 2005, or May

2007 and do not put prison officials on notice of the events of those dates. (Id. at 4-5,

referring to Doc. #20, Ex. A, B.) 

In their supplemental reply, Defendants assert that Plaintiff’s exhibits H, I, and J show

that Plaintiff appealed the denial of a request for protective segregation through the ADC

“Director’s Instruction 67” (DI 67) process but that this process is unrelated to the process

required for the allegations in Counts I through III of the Amended Complaint. (Doc. #35

at 2.) They assert that DI 67, “Protective Segregation,” provides procedures for identifying

and safeguarding inmates who need protection and contains its own appeal process. (Id.)

They submit a copy of DI 67, which includes § 805.07 setting forth the procedures for

appealing a protective segregation determination. (Id., Ex. A “Appeals on PS Issues.”) They

argue that the allegations in Counts I through III do not concern placement in or release from

protective segregation; rather, these allegations concern conditions of confinement for which

Plaintiff must use DO 802 procedures. 

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Exhibit F is the Court’s initial screening Order, dated September 28, 2007. (Doc.

#20, Ex. F.)

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Plaintiff submits a response to Defendants’ supplemental reply in which he argues that

Plaintiff’s DI 67 appeal was denied by Rollins on February 28, 2006 resulting in Plaintiff

being housed at Ryman where he was assaulted on May 25, 2007; Plaintiff argues that this

makes the document relevant and related to the claims before the Court. (Doc. #37 at 3.). 

IV. Analysis

A. Counts I, II, and IV

As to Counts I and II, the Court finds that Defendants have established the availability

of a grievance process and that the Plaintiff failed to exhaust his remedies. The gravamen

of each of these counts is the assault, which resulted from the failure to protect Plaintiff when

Defendants failed to place him in protective segregation and housed him with inmates on his

DNHW list. He alleges that the assaults occurred in October 2004 and June 2005. 

 Plaintiff offers no evidence that he exhausted his remedies as to these matters.

Plaintiff asserts that in July 2007, he submitted an informal grievance to CO II Woods, who

did not respond. The Court has examined the documents that Plaintiff submits with his

responses to the Motion to Dismiss; grievance documents exhibits A through E and G

contain no reference to these assaults.3

 Thus, they provide Defendants with no notice

regarding the assaults. See Porter, 534 U.S. at 525 (PLRA’s purpose is to allow officials

time and opportunity to address the complaint prior to the filing of a lawsuit). Moreover, as

Defendants point out, the grievances are not timely as to the allegations in Counts I and II

because they were filed much later than 10 days from the dates of the 2004 and 2005

assaults. Nor does Plaintiff assert or submit evidence that he exhausted, or attempted to

exhaust, claims for denial of protective segregation using the DI 67 grievance process. The

Court will, therefore, dismiss Counts I and II.

With regard to Count IV, the Court notes that Defendants now take no position as to

exhaustion of claims in this count against John Does ## 2 and 3. (Doc. #35 at 1 n.2.) Count

IV will not be dismissed.

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B. Count III

Count III is more problematic because the allegations in this Count are slightly

different than those in Counts I and II and because Defendants provide different grievances

processes for very similar types of claims. Specifically, Defendants contend that a failure

to protect that leads to assault must be exhausted under DO 802 but a denial of protective

segregation, including one that leads to assault, must be exhausted under DI 67. In addition,

the record shows that both Plaintiff and prison officials confused the applicable grievance

processes. 

Like Counts I and II, Count III also alleges that Defendants failed to place Plaintiff

in protective segregation and housed him with inmates on his DNHW list and that he was

assaulted as a result. But the allegations in paragraphs 4 and 8 through 11 allege not only

that Plaintiff was assaulted in May 2007, but specifically and separately allege that Lakey,

Haley, and Rollins failed to place Plaintiff in protective segregation. Moreover, Plaintiff

specifically refers to his February 16, 2006 protective segregation appeal. Thus, Count III

contains claims regarding both a failure to protect resulting in an assault and a denial of

protective segregation resulting in an assault. See Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519 (1972)

(pro se pleadings are liberally construed).

1. Failure to Protect

The Court finds that to the extent that Count III alleges that Defendants’ failure to

protect Plaintiff resulted in an assault in May 2007, Defendants have met their burden to

show that Plaintiff did not exhaust the standard grievance procedure. Plaintiff’s Inmate

Letter, dated August 21, 2007, and labeled “DI 67 Appeal,” does, in fact, mention the May

27, 2007 assault. (Doc. #20, Ex. G.) This document appears to be Plaintiff’s attempt to

appeal previous grievances and responses—exhibits A through E, dated from July 3, 2007

through August 16, 2007. (Id. Ex. A-E.) But these earlier grievance documents do not

mention the May 2007 assault or housing Plaintiff with inmates on his DNHW list. (Id.) As

Defendants contend, in these additional grievance documents, Plaintiff complained about

failure to place him in protective segregation, not about a general failure to protect him or

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Because Count IV refers to a May 2007 protective segregation investigation, it

appears that the denial of protective segregation referred to in Count III is for a different

protective segregation request. 

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assault. The Court notes that prison officials’ responses seem to have muddled this matter

by referring Plaintiff to DO 802 grievance procedures instead of DI 67 procedures. (Id., Ex.

C and E.) Nevertheless, as Defendants point out, all of these grievance documents were filed

well after the time permitted to file a grievance regarding failure to protect leading to the

May 2007 assault. Plaintiff’s additional exhibits—H through J—do not refer to the May

2007 assault. Thus, Plaintiff failed to properly exhaust the standard grievance procedure as

to the alleged failure to protect that resulted in the May 2007 assault. 

2. Denial of Protective Segregation

But the allegations in paragraphs 4 and 8 through 11 of Count III allege that Lakey,

Haley, and Rollins denied Plaintiff’s request to be placed in protective segregation, that this

led to Plaintiff’s assault, and that Plaintiff appealed this determination. Defendants have not

met their burden to establish that Plaintiff failed to exhaust these claims. They do not claim

or submit evidence that Plaintiff’s February 2006 appeal was untimely regarding the denial

of placement in protective segregation. Section 805.07 1.1.4 ( the actual appeals process for

protective segregation and contained in DI 67) indicates that the final level of appeal is to the

Deputy Director of Prison Operations. (Doc. #35, Ex. A.) The Protective Segregation

Appeal response from Rollins indicates that he is the Southern Region Operations Director.

(Doc. #27, Ex. H.) Although not conclusive, it appears that Plaintiff exhausted the DI 67

process as to the denial of protective segregation referred to in Count III. Defendants have

not met their burden to demonstrate otherwise.4

C. Dismissed Claims and Defendants

In sum, the Court will dismiss, without prejudice, the claims in Counts I and II. The

Court will also dismiss Count III to the extent that it alleges that Defendants’ failure to

protect Plaintiff resulted in his assault in May 2007. However, the Court will not dismiss

paragraphs 4 and 8 through 11 of Count III, which allege that Defendants’ denial of

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Plaintiff’s request for placement in protective segregation resulted in his assault in May 2007.

Because no claims remain against Moen, the Court will dismiss him.

Plaintiff has not yet served Defendant John Doe #1. The claims regarding John Doe

#1 arise out of the same facts as claims that will be dismissed for failure to exhaust. The

Court finds that because Plaintiff did not exhaust his remedies as to such claims, it would be

futile to permit an extension of time for service of the Amended Complaint in order to

proceed against John Doe #1, and the Court will dismiss him.

IT IS ORDERED:

(1) Plaintiff’s Motion to Withdraw his Motion to Dismiss (Doc. #30) is granted

and his Motion to Dismiss (Doc. #24) is denied as moot.

(2) Defendants’ Motion to Strike (Doc. #38) is denied.

(3) Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss (Doc. #18) is granted in part as follows:

(a) Counts I and II are dismissed without prejudice;

(b) Count III is dismissed without prejudice to the extent that it alleges that

Defendants’ failure to protect Plaintiff resulted in his assault in May 2007. 

(c) Defendants Moen and John Doe #1 are dismissed.

(4) Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss (Doc. #18) is denied to the extent that 

paragraphs 4 and 8 through 11 in Count III allege denial of Plaintiff’s request for placement

in protective segregation, which resulted in his assault in May 2007.

(5) The remaining claims are (a) paragraphs 4 and 8 though 11 of Count III 

alleging denial of placement in protective segregation and (b) Count IV. 

(6) The remaining Defendants are Lakey, Haley, Rollins, John Doe #2, and John

Doe #3. 

DATED this 25th day of July, 2008.

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