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

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14-3406

DARREYLL T. THOMAS,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

MICHAEL REESE, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Western District of Wisconsin.

No. 13-cv-597-wmc—William M. Conley, Chief Judge.

____________________

SUBMITTED APRIL 7, 2015∗ — DECIDED JUNE 1, 2015

____________________

Before EASTERBROOK, WILLIAMS, and HAMILTON, Circuit 

Judges.

∗ After examining the briefs and the record, we have concluded that 

oral argument is unnecessary. Thus the appeal is submitted on the briefs 

and the record. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

 

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HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. Darreyll Thomas, a Wisconsin 

prisoner, alleges in this lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 that 

when he was in the Dane County Jail, several county correctional officers unlawfully used excessive force in the course 

of handcuffing him after he disobeyed an order. The district 

court granted summary judgment for the defendants on the 

ground that Thomas had not exhausted his available administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act. See 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). We conclude that administrative remedies were not actually available to Thomas, so 

we reverse and remand for proceedings on the merits. Our 

reasoning requires us to consider the relationship between 

the Dane County Jail’s disciplinary procedures and its grievance procedures for complaints by prisoners.

At the time of the incident in 2012, Thomas alleges, he 

had a severe neck and back injury that, according to prison 

medical staff, required that he not sleep on a top bunk bed 

and that he be handcuffed only in front of his body. The day 

after Thomas was transferred to a jail in Dane County in July 

2012, deputy sheriff Michael Reese assigned him to a top 

bunk. Believing that Reese knew about but ignored his bottom-bunk restriction, Thomas refused the bunk assignment. 

He then asked to be moved to the segregation unit, which he 

knew did not have bunk beds. Reese replied by ordering 

Thomas to place his hands behind his back to be handcuffed. 

Thomas protested this order, too, thinking that Reese was 

also ignoring his front-only cuffing restriction.

The conflict then escalated as two other deputy sheriffs, 

Robin Hampton and Rob Van Norman, came over to assist 

Reese. Eventually, Thomas alleges, Hampton slammed his 

face into a wall, and then all three officers shoved him onto 

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No. 14-3406 3

the floor. Thomas alleges that Reese kneed him in the head 

twice while Hampton and Van Norman forced his hands together behind his back. Reese then kneed Thomas in the 

head two or three more times and repeatedly punched him 

in the face, Thomas alleges. Bleeding profusely, Thomas was 

taken by ambulance to an emergency room to treat his injuries.

Disciplinary proceedings against Thomas followed. 

Pending his hearing, Thomas was placed in punitive segregation at the jail, where, he alleges, he did not have access to 

the 50-page inmate handbook he had received just the day 

before when he was transferred to the jail. The jail charged 

Thomas with violating several major rules, including those 

prohibiting physically contacting staff, acting in a disorderly 

manner, and expelling bodily fluids at another person. 

Thomas waived a disciplinary hearing and received ten days 

of segregation as punishment, although he was transferred

back to state custody four days after the incident.

About a year later, Thomas sued the officers involved in 

the incident. Upon screening under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, the 

district court dismissed some claims (a ruling that Thomas 

does not challenge on appeal) and allowed his excessiveforce claim and his related claims for failure to intervene, retaliation, and battery to proceed. 

The defendants moved to dismiss for failure to exhaust 

administrative remedies. The district court treated the motion as one for summary judgment and then granted it. The 

defendants cited a portion of the inmate handbook that provides: “Grievances may not be filed for issues involving major discipline (i.e., disciplinary hearings) because a separate 

appeal process is available.” Because Thomas had waived 

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his presence at the disciplinary hearing, the defendants argued, he did not exhaust. Thomas responded that no administrative remedies had been available to him. He explained, 

and the defendants do not dispute, that although he had received the handbook when he arrived at the jail, he did not 

have it the next day when he was put in segregation and 

therefore could not consult it. While in segregation, Thomas 

continued, he had asked three officers to explain the jail’s 

procedure so he could grieve about “how staff beat my ass 

just because I asked for a bottom bunk.” Two gave him no 

information. The third—whose statement the defendants do 

not dispute—told Thomas: “You can’t file a grievance on 

that. That’s what you’re in seg [segregation] for.” The district 

court ruled that Thomas had failed to exhaust.

Under the PLRA, Thomas had to exhaust all available 

administrative remedies before suing in federal court. See 42 

U.S.C. § 1997e(a); Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 93 (2006). 

States may specify the precise administrative remedies that

their inmates must exhaust, see King v. McCarty, 781 F.3d 

889, 894 (7th Cir. 2015), and Wisconsin allows county facilities to define the grievance procedures for their jails, Wis. 

Admin. Code DOC § 350.26. But the PLRA “requires exhaustion only of remedies that are ‘available.’ Prison authorities 

cannot immunize themselves from suit by establishing procedures that in practice are not available because they are 

impossible to comply with or simply do not exist.” King, 781 

F.3d at 893. Because exhaustion is an affirmative defense, the 

defendants must establish that an administrative remedy 

was available and that Thomas failed to pursue it. See Jones 

v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 216 (2007); Pavey v. Conley, 663 F.3d 899, 

903 (7th Cir. 2011). 

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We conclude for two independent reasons that Thomas 

did not have an available administrative remedy. First, we 

must assume that after Thomas was confined to segregation, 

he did not have access to the handbook, which according to 

the defendants sets forth the proper grievance procedure. 

The parties agree that he had the 50-page handbook before 

the incident for less than one day, but the Prison Litigation 

Reform Act imposed no duty on Thomas to memorize it during that time. Then when Thomas, lacking the handbook, 

asked three officers how he could file a grievance, only one 

answered. He told Thomas that he could not file a grievance. 

“[W]hen prison officials prevent inmates from using the administrative process ... the process that exists on paper becomes unavailable in reality.” Kaba v. Stepp, 458 F.3d 678, 684 

(7th Cir. 2006); see also Dole v. Chandler, 438 F.3d 804, 809 (7th 

Cir. 2006) (remedy is unavailable when prison employees 

“use affirmative misconduct to prevent a prisoner from exhausting”); Dale v. Lippin, 376 F.3d 652, 656 (7th Cir. 2004) 

(remedy is unavailable when officials refuse to give prisoner 

the form required to file grievance).

Second, the handbook itself shows that Thomas did not 

have an administrative remedy available. Thomas was 

charged with “major” rule violations. The handbook instructs: “Grievances may not be filed for issues involving 

major discipline (i.e., disciplinary hearings) because a separate appeal process is available” (Emphasis added.) Presumably this rule allows (and requires) Thomas to grieve at his 

disciplinary hearing any dispute about the charges or the 

proposed discipline. But Thomas is not contesting his discipline or the conduct that generated the charges. Rather, he is 

challenging the officers’ conduct that occurred after his offenses.

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The defendants essentially want to revise the handbook 

to add a “compulsory counterclaim” rule comparable to 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 13(a). Defendants argue that 

when the jail considers disciplining an inmate for misconduct, the inmate not only can but must raise against jail 

guards any grievances about their reaction to the misconduct. But neither the handbook nor Thomas’s signed waiver 

of his hearing says this. The defendants “cannot defeat the 

suit by retroactively amending” the handbook. King, 781 

F.3d at 896. Prison officials may not “change their grievance 

rules once litigation beg[ins] or simply keep prisoners in the 

dark about the real rules.” Id. Likewise, Thomas did not 

need to exhaust remedies he had not been told about, nor 

did he need to divine the availability of other procedures. 

Id.1

The nature of the jail’s disciplinary process reinforces our 

view that Thomas could not raise his grievance about the jail 

guards at his disciplinary hearing. The handbook says: “The 

purpose of inmate discipline is to correct inappropriate behavior and to aid inmates in their attempt to comply with 

jail rules and regulations.” At the hearing, the handbook 

cautions, inmates may only “dispute the alleged violations.” 

Restricting inmates to disputing only the “alleged violations” implements Wisconsin’s rule that inmates may pre1 Defendants have not argued that the issues Thomas raises were so 

distinct from the disciplinary proceeding that he should have raised 

them in a separate grievance. Such an argument would be inconsistent 

with their actual argument that Thomas should have raised them in the 

disciplinary proceeding. If jail or prison authorities intend to allow for 

such grievances of distinct issues, we would expect that option to be 

spelled out in the relevant information given to inmates.

 

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sent only “relevant evidence” at disciplinary hearings. 

See Wis. Admin. Code DOC §§ 303.87(2)(a), 350.24(3)(d)(2). 

Wisconsin defines that term as “evidence [that] makes it appear more likely or less likely that the inmate committed the 

offense of which the inmate is accused.” Id. § 303.87(1).

But Thomas’s evidence for his claim that the officers used 

excessive force after he broke prison rules would not make 

his denial that he broke those rules appear more likely true 

or not. Cf. Gilbert v. Cook, 512 F.3d 899, 901–02 (7th Cir. 2008) 

(disciplinary finding that inmate violated prison rule is not 

inconsistent with inmate’s claim that guards used excessive 

force in responding to the violation). We therefore conclude 

that administrative remedies were not actually available to 

Thomas. See Hurst v. Hantke, 634 F.3d 409, 411 (7th Cir. 2011); 

Strong v. David, 297 F.3d 646, 650 (7th Cir. 2002). The case 

should proceed to the merits to determine if his allegations 

are true.

We end with one final point. Thomas protests the district 

judge’s denial of his motion for recusal, but we reject this 

challenge. Thomas asserts without any support that the 

judge had “personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary 

facts.” 28 U.S.C. § 455(b)(1). When a judge decides a contested issue, whether correctly or not, at least one side will be 

disappointed. Adverse rulings do not constitute evidence of 

judicial bias. See Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 555 

(1994); Williams v. Illinois, 737 F.3d 473, 476 (7th Cir. 2013).

We REVERSE the district court’s judgment and 

REMAND the case for further proceedings.

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