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The HONORABLE JOHN A. JARVEY, United States District Judge for the

Southern District of Iowa.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

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No. 09-1912

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James Winn King, *

*

Plaintiff - Appellant, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Southern District of Iowa.

Iowa Department of Corrections, et al., *

*

Defendants - Appellees. *

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Submitted: January 14, 2010

Filed: March 26, 2010

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Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, JOHN R. GIBSON and WOLLMAN, Circuit Judges.

___________

LOKEN, Chief Judge.

James King, an inmate at the Newton Correctional Facility (NCF), was a

member of an inmate crew ordered to clean up effluents after a clogged toilet in one

of the cells caused a floor drain in the common area to overflow. He filed multiple

inmate grievances as a result of this incident and, some two months later, commenced

this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 seeking money damages and court-ordered testing

for diseases. The district court1

 dismissed the action, concluding that King failed to

exhaust “such [prison] remedies as are available.” 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). King
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appeals. Reviewing the court’s interpretation of § 1997e(a) de novo, we affirm. See

Gibson v. Weber, 431 F.3d 339, 341 (8th Cir. 2005) (standard of review).

Section 1997e(a), as amended by the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996,

provides that “[n]o action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under

[§ 1983] by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until

such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted.” “Congress enacted

§ 1997e(a) to reduce the quantity and improve the quality of prisoner suits; to this

purpose, Congress afforded corrections officials time and opportunity to address

complaints internally before allowing the initiation of a federal case.” Porter v.

Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 524-25 (2002). Available grievance procedures must be

exhausted even if the relief the inmate seeks under § 1983 was not available through

those procedures. Booth v. Churner, 532 U.S. 731, 737-41 & n.6 (2001).

NCF follows a mandatory four-step grievance procedure adopted by the State

of Iowa Department of Corrections. See Policy No. IO-OR-06. An inmate must first

seek to resolve the problem informally. If this fails, the inmate may file an Offender

Grievance Complaint on a prescribed form, stating the reason for the grievance and

the action requested. A grievance officer investigates the grievance and either replies

to the inmate in writing or refers the matter to a grievance committee. An inmate may

appeal the Grievance Response by the grievance officer or grievance committee to the

warden or superintendent, who must respond within fifteen days and state reasons for

his decision. If the inmate remains dissatisfied, he may appeal to the Grievance

Appeal Coordinator, who must ensure that there is a response to the appeal from the

appropriate source within thirty days. The entire process “will not exceed 103 days

unless extensions have been given.” 

King’s first grievance complained that he was required to clean raw sewage for

three-and-one-half hours, leaving him with burning eyes and a stomach ache. In the

“Action Requested” part of the grievance form, King wrote, “Check Health; Improve
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protocol on bio clean up.” Three weeks later, a grievance officer issued a Grievance

Response stating that King raised “valid issues” regarding training and protective

equipment that would be reviewed with the prison’s Safety and Health Consultant, and

suggesting that King “kite Health Services” if he was experiencing medical issues.

That same day, King filed a second grievance complaining that he was not trained and

should not have been ordered to perform “Bio hazard clean up.” The action King

requested was, “to have officers follow blood and body fluid policy on who is trained

and who isn’t trained.” The Grievance Response ten days later stated, “This issue has

been turned over to [the Iowa Occupational Safety and Health Bureau] for

investigation. NCF will act on IOSHA recommendations.” 

King did not appeal the grievance officer’s responses to his two grievances to

the NCF warden, the third step in the prison’s grievance process. The district court

dismissed the § 1983 complaint because King did not exhaust “such . . . remedies as

are available.” On appeal, King argues, as he did in the district court, that he

exhausted available grievance procedures because NCF’s Grievance Responses

granted him the relief he requested at the second step in the process. Defendants

respond that King failed to exhaust for two distinct reasons, first, because he did not

appeal either Grievance Response to the warden, and second, because neither of his

grievances requested the damage relief he seeks in this lawsuit.

We agree with defendants’ first contention. King’s first grievance complained

of burning eyes and a stomach ache. The grievance officer responded, “If you are

experiencing any medical issues or symptoms you may choose to kite Health

Services.” The Grievance Response form advised King of his right to appeal, but he

did not do so. King’s § 1983 complaint requests two types of relief. First, he seeks

an order that he be tested for “body fluid” and “blood born[e]” diseases. If this is a

new grievance, it is completely unexhausted. If it is relief encompassed by his first

grievance, then its denial should have been appealed. In either case, he failed to

exhaust this claim. 
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Some other circuits have held that inmate grievances need not seek, and the

inmate need not appeal the denial of, money damages that are not available through

the grievance procedures, so long as those procedures are fully exhausted. See Rosa

v. Littles, 336 F. App’x. 424, 428-29 (5th Cir. 2009); Thornton v. Snyder, 428 F.3d

690, 695-96 (7th Cir. 2005); Brown v. Valoff, 422 F.3d 926, 935-36 (9th Cir. 2005);

Abney v. McGinnis, 380 F.3d 663, 667 (2d Cir. 2004); Ross v. County of Bernalillo,

365 F.3d 1181, 1187 (10th Cir. 2004). However, Woodford established that proper

exhaustion requires compliance with the prison’s procedural rules.

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Second, King seeks money damages for being put on the clean-up crew. This

is relief necessarily encompassed by his two grievances, and not granted by the

grievance officer. If King was not satisfied by the grant of relief other than money

damages, § 1997e(a) required that he exhaust available prison procedures by

appealing to the warden. On this issue, Booth v. Churner is controlling. In that case,

the inmate filed a grievance, received non-monetary relief at the first stage of the

process, and then sued for money damages. The Supreme Court upheld the dismissal

of his complaint for failure to exhaust because he did not administratively appeal the

grant of partial relief. 532 U.S. at 739-41. 

We decline to consider defendants’ alternative argument that King failed to

exhaust because his grievances did not request money damages. In Woodford v. Ngo,

548 U.S. 81, 88 (2006), the Supreme Court held that § 1997e(a) requires “proper”

exhaustion, that is, “a prisoner must complete the administrative review process in

accordance with the applicable procedural rules, including deadlines, as a precondition

to bringing suit in federal court.” Where prison grievance procedures clearly require

an inmate to state all the relief he seeks, even monetary relief that may be beyond the

authority of grievance officials to grant, it is certainly arguable that “proper”

exhaustion requires compliance with that rule, even though the opinion in Woodford

did not expressly address this issue. Cf. Spruill v. Gillis, 372 F.3d 218, 233-34 (3d

Cir. 2003).2
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Here, the NCF grievance and appeal forms ask the grievant to state the “action

requested.” Is this enough to foreclose a § 1983 lawsuit for relief that the inmate did

not expressly seek even though he otherwise fully exhausted the available grievance

procedures? “The level of detail necessary in a grievance to comply with the

grievance procedures will vary from system to system and claim to claim, but it is the

prison’s requirements, not the PLRA, that define the boundaries of proper

exhaustion.” Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 218 (2007). As King failed to fully

exhaust the available grievance procedures, we leave this issue for another day. 

The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

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