Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-02894/USCOURTS-ca7-14-02894-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Jeff Ballenger
Appellee
Joseph Cottman
Appellant
Thomas Richardson
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted April 21, 2015*

Decided April 22, 2015 

Before 

WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge 

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge 

JOHN DANIEL TINDER, Circuit Judge

No. 14-2894 

 Appeal from the 

JOSEPH COTTMAN, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

THOMAS RICHARDSON and 

JEFF BALLENGER, 

 Defendants-Appellees.

 United States District Court for the 

Southern District of Indiana, 

Indianapolis Division. 

No. 1:13-cv-01793-JMS-DML 

Jane Magnus-Stinson, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

Joseph Cottman, an Indiana prisoner, appeals the denial of his civil-rights 

complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that the defendant prison officials interfered 

with his access to the courts when they did not allow him to use the prison’s law 

 

*

 After examining the briefs and record, we have concluded that oral argument is 

unnecessary. Thus, the appeal is submitted on the briefs and record. See FED. R. APP.

P. 34(a)(2)(C). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 

Case: 14-2894 Document: 42 Filed: 04/22/2015 Pages: 3
No. 14-2894 Page 2 

library. After an evidentiary hearing, the district court concluded that Cottman did not 

exhaust administrative remedies and dismissed his suit. We affirm. 

Cottman, a prisoner at Pendleton Correctional Facility, alleged that he was not 

provided library passes and access to his legal materials between March and May of 

2013. Repeatedly, he said, his requests for a library pass to work on his appellate brief in 

a state-court case were rebuffed by Thomas Richardson, a unit team manager at the 

prison. Requests for help to caseworker Jeff Ballenger were similarly unsuccessful. 

Cottman alleged that he submitted formal grievances about the actions of both officials. 

After receiving no response to either grievance, he alleged that he submitted appeals 

but received no response. Cottman attached to his complaint copies of the grievances 

and appeals that he said he filed. 

In their answer the defendants raised the affirmative defense of failure to exhaust 

administrative remedies, see 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a), asserting that Cottman never 

submitted the forms attached to his complaint. After taking Cottman’s deposition, the 

defendants acknowledged a factual dispute relating to Cottman’s attempts at 

exhaustion and requested a hearing under Pavey v. Conley, 544 F.3d 739, 742 (7th Cir. 

2008). 

At the hearing the defendants elicited testimony to show that Cottman did not 

follow grievance procedures as required by the Indiana Department of Correction. 

Specifically, they pointed out that Cottman did not comply with either the second or 

third step of the Department’s three-step administrative-remedy process for inmates: 

filing a written, formal grievance with the prison’s executive assistant or filing an 

administrative appeal. Pendleton’s executive assistant, Jessica Hammack, testified that 

she had no record of Cottman submitting either a correctly completed grievance or a 

grievance form that was returned. According to her testimony, Hammack would log a 

properly completed grievance into a database and assign it a grievance number; any 

incomplete grievance would be returned to the inmate along with an explanation for 

the grievance’s deficiency (and Hammack would keep a copy of the explanation in her 

files). As for appeals, she follows a similar process, and she testified that she has no 

record of the appeals attached to Cottman’s complaint. 

The district court found Hammack’s testimony credible and determined that 

Cottman never submitted the grievances or appeals he attached to the complaint. The 

court therefore concluded that Cottman had not exhausted available remedies and 

dismissed his suit. 

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No. 14-2894 Page 3 

On appeal Cottman maintains that he tried to follow the prison’s grievance 

procedure by submitting both grievances and appeals. But the district court credited 

Hammack’s testimony that she had not received either from Cottman. We review this 

finding for clear error, see FED. R. CIV. P. 52(a)(6); Pavey v. Conley, 663 F.3d 899, 904 

(7th Cir. 2011), and “determinations of witness credibility can virtually never be clear 

error,” United States v. Biggs, 491 F.3d 616, 621 (7th Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks 

and citation omitted); see Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, N.C., 470 U.S. 564, 575 (1985). 

The court adequately substantiated its credibility finding, which Cottman does not 

seriously challenge. 

AFFIRMED. 

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