IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

FREDERICK T. RAY, III : CIVIL ACTION

 :

v. :

 : 

SGT. THOMAS A. MADONNA, et al. : NO. 04-cv-00805-JF

MEMORANDUM

Fullam, Sr. J. November 9, 2010

At an earlier stage of the proceedings, I granted the

defendants’ motion to dismiss, noting that plaintiff had failed

to respond to the motion. The plaintiff appealed, and a panel of

the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. Upon remand, I

converted the defense motion, which was accompanied by a

significant amount of evidentiary material, into a motion for

summary judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. The plaintiff was

granted several extensions of time in order to conduct discovery

and respond to the motions. 

This case, along with a number of others, arose from

the plaintiff’s pretrial detention at the Chester County Prison. 

In this action, the plaintiff alleged that he was assaulted by

members of the prison’s Cell Extraction Unit, who forcibly

removed the plaintiff from his cell and confiscated his legal

property. The plaintiff alleged that he was injured during the

extraction and wrongly found guilty of misconduct despite not

receiving written notice of the misconduct charge against him. 
The defendants moved for dismissal of the complaint on

several grounds, the first being that the plaintiff failed to

exhaust his administrative remedies as required by statute. 42

U.S.C. § 1997(e). According to the defendants and to the

allegations of the complaint, the plaintiff did file an initial

grievance, but he did not follow the prison’s required internal

process by filing an appeal with the warden within three weeks of

the denial of his grievance. 

In his response to the summary judgment motion, the

plaintiff states that he did not in fact file a grievance,

because the grievance form was denied to him. In his complaint,

however, the plaintiff requested initial review on January 28,

2004; he asked the prison authorities to “investigate grievance

of being assaulted”; the response he received was “denied”; and

no further review was sought. 

The plaintiff has attached to the summary judgment

response several inmate requests, in which he writes that he was

assaulted and his legal property was confiscated and requests

grievance forms. According to the prison’s policy, a grievance

is initiated by the submission of an inmate request slip to the

grievance officer, who forwards an official inmate complaint form

if the complaint contains valid grievance issues. The complaint

is then investigated, and a decision provided, after which the

inmate has three weeks to appeal in writing to the warden.

2
Regardless of whether the plaintiff properly alleged

that he was denied the opportunity to file a grievance, the

evidence submitted demonstrates that the plaintiff filed numerous

inmate request forms during the relevant time period, and no

evidence that he tried to appeal to the warden from the denial of

any of these requests or from a request for a grievance form. 

The plaintiff’s failure to exhaust his administrative remedies is

fatal to his case. Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 211 (2007)

(holding that "exhaustion is mandatory under the PLRA and ...

unexhausted claims cannot be brought in court").

An order will be entered.

BY THE COURT:

/s/ John P. Fullam 

Fullam, Sr. J.

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