UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

ALFRED BROOKS, 

 Plaintiff - Appellant, 

v. 

MARIA ROBINSON; SHIRLEY MAY; 

JIMMY MARTIN, 

 Defendants - Appellees. 

No. 22-6057 

(D.C. No. 5:18-CV-01014-G) 

(W.D. Okla.) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

_________________________________ 

Before McHUGH, MORITZ, and CARSON, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

Alfred Brooks, pro se,1

 appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment 

to defendants on his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims against Oklahoma prison officials due 

* After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined 

unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of 

this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore 

ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding 

precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral 

estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with 

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

1

 Because Mr. Brooks proceeds pro se, we construe his arguments liberally, but 

we “cannot take on the responsibility of serving as [his] attorney in constructing 

arguments and searching the record.” Garrett v. Selby Connor Maddux & Janer, 

425 F.3d 836, 840 (10th Cir. 2005). 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

November 30, 2022

Christopher M. Wolpert 

Clerk of Court

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to his failure to exhaust available administrative remedies prior to bringing suit. 

Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm. 

BACKGROUND 

Mr. Brooks is an inmate incarcerated at North Fork Correctional Center 

(NFCC) in Sayre, Oklahoma. Ms. Robinson is a certified medication aide at NFCC, 

Ms. May is the Correctional Health Services Administrator at NFCC, and Mr. Martin 

is the warden at NFCC. Mr. Brooks alleged Ms. Robinson, Ms. May, and Mr. Martin 

violated his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights when, on March 17, 2017, 

Ms. Robinson gave him the wrong eye medication. He alleged this caused damage to 

his eye, extreme pain, and loss of vision. He further alleged Ms. Robinson acted 

intentionally in retaliation for his refusal to identify another inmate who made 

disparaging remarks about her. He alleged Ms. May refused to purchase the correct 

medication or to implement stop orders that would have prevented the prison from 

dispensing the wrong medication to him. He alleged Mr. Martin failed to 

appropriately hire and supervise NFCC staff. 

Before bringing suit, Mr. Brooks pursued grievances consistent with 

Oklahoma Department of Corrections policy OP-090124 (2016).2

 Under that policy, 

an inmate must first pursue informal resolution before submitting a grievance. 

OP-090124 § IV. If an oral request to staff does not resolve an inmate’s issue, the 

inmate must submit a written request to staff (RTS). Id. § IV(B),(C). If this does not 

2

 We cite the 2016 version of OP-090124 because that was the version in effect 

when Mr. Brooks submitted his grievances. 

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resolve the issue, the inmate may submit a written grievance “to the appropriate 

reviewing authority.” Id. § V(A). Finally, an inmate may appeal an adverse decision 

on a formal written grievance to the “Administrative Review Authority” (ARA). Id. 

§ VII(B). 

Mr. Brooks submitted an RTS to Ms. May on April 23, 2017. On June 22, he 

filed grievance 17-28, stating he had not received an answer to his RTS. NFCC 

Medical Services Manager Buddy Honaker responded to Mr. Brooks on July 26, 

stating he was extending the time to consider the grievance. On August 25, 

Mr. Honaker notified Mr. Brooks by letter he was returning the grievance 

unanswered because Mr. Brooks should have submitted it to Ms. May as the proper 

reviewing authority. Mr. Brooks appealed this disposition, but the ARA returned the 

appeal unanswered. The ARA advised Mr. Brooks he “may correct the errors within 

10 days of receipt of the notice,” and that failure to do so would result in the return of 

the grievance unanswered and the forfeiture of the opportunity to participate in the 

grievance process. R. vol. 1 at 132 (underline omitted). Mr. Brooks did not resubmit 

grievance 17-28. 

Instead, Mr. Brooks filed a separate grievance, 17-53,3

 on October 13. In 

grievance 17-53, Mr. Brooks acknowledged Ms. May had answered the April 23 RTS 

he filed, but he did not agree with her disposition. The “reviewing authority,” who in 

3

 As the district court noted, this grievance was, at times in the record, referred 

to as grievance 17-55, but there is no indication that any potential misnumbering 

affected the grievance’s disposition. 

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this case was also Ms. May, responded to the grievance on November 2, but NFCC 

did not deliver the response to Mr. Brooks until December 21. The response included 

statements headed “Partial Relief” and “Partial Denial.” R. vol. 1 at 136. In the 

“Partial Relief” section, the decision stated the medication Mr. Brooks requested had 

been ordered but was awaiting approval from the NFCC health care provider. Id. In 

the “Partial Denial” section, the decision stated the grievance improperly included 

“[m]ore than one issue or incident.” Id. Mr. Brooks appealed to the ARA, which 

notified him it was returning his grievance to the reviewing authority “for further 

investigation and an amended response.” Id. at 139. The reviewing authority—

Ms. May—issued an amended response, again granted only partial relief, and stated 

he “may appeal to the [ARA].” Id. at 141. Mr. Brooks did not appeal or further 

pursue grievance 17-53. 

Mr. Brooks sued Ms. Robinson, Ms. May, and Mr. Martin under 

42 U.S.C. § 1983. The defendants filed motions to dismiss, arguing Mr. Brooks 

failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. Adopting the recommendations of a 

magistrate judge, the district court converted the motions to dismiss into motions for 

summary judgment and granted them. This appeal followed. 

DISCUSSION 

We review the grant of summary judgment de novo. May v. Segovia, 

929 F.3d 1223, 1234 (10th Cir. 2019). Summary judgment is appropriate “if the 

movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant 

is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). Similarly, “[w]e 

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review de novo the district court’s finding of failure to exhaust administrative 

remedies.” Jernigan v. Stuchell, 304 F.3d 1030, 1032 (10th Cir. 2002). 

Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), “[n]o action shall be brought 

with respect to prison conditions under [§ 1983] . . . by a prisoner . . . until such 

administrative remedies as are available are exhausted.” 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). The 

doctrine of administrative exhaustion “provides that no one is entitled to judicial 

relief for a supposed or threatened injury until the prescribed administrative remedy 

has been exhausted.” Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 88–89 (2006) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Exhaustion is mandatory and applicable “even where the 

relief sought—monetary damages—cannot be granted by the administrative process.” 

Id. at 85. “[T]o properly exhaust administrative remedies prisoners must complete 

the administrative review process in accordance with the applicable procedural 

rules—rules that are defined not by the PLRA, but by the prison grievance process 

itself.” Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 218 (2007) (internal quotation marks and 

citation omitted). 

Mr. Brooks presents four arguments on appeal. He asserts (1) prison officials 

hindered him from exhausting his administrative remedies, (2) he was not required to 

further appeal the partial denial of grievance 17-53 after the ARA remanded it to the 

reviewing authority, (3) he did, in fact, exhaust his administrative remedies, and 

(4) the district court should have required the defendants to “prove the existence of a 

remedy,” Aplt. Opening Br. at 13 (typeface normalized), still available to him in the 

grievance process. We consider these arguments in turn. 

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Regarding the first argument, although we have held that “[w]here prison 

officials prevent, thwart, or hinder a prisoner’s efforts to avail himself of an 

administrative remedy, they render that remedy ‘unavailable’ and a court will excuse 

the prisoner’s failure to exhaust,” Little v. Jones, 607 F.3d 1245, 1250 

(10th Cir. 2010), Mr. Brooks did not show such hinderance occurred here. As the 

magistrate judge observed, despite a number of unexplained deficiencies in NFCC’s 

initial handling of Mr. Brooks’s grievances, there nevertheless came a time where 

Mr. Brooks declined to appeal the partial denial of his grievance, and therefore failed 

to exhaust his remedies: 

[T]he handling of Plaintiff’s attempts to exhaust certainly 

leaves room for improvement on the part of Defendants 

and/or NFCC administrators. For example, it is unclear why 

Mr. Honaker required an additional month to investigate 

Plaintiff’s initial grievance, only to return it unanswered 

because Plaintiff submitted it to the wrong individual. 

Additionally . . . Defendant Robinson has offered no 

explanation as to why Plaintiff did not receive Defendant 

May’s November 2, 2017 response to Plaintiff’s grievance 

until December 21, 2017. Defendant Robinson does not 

address the undersigned’s previous remarks on NFCC’s 

failure to efficiently address Plaintiff’s administrative 

procedure efforts. Instead, she attempts to gloss over the 

mismanagement of the same. Nevertheless, the fact remains 

that based on the record presented, Plaintiff never appealed, 

and thereby failed to exhaust, the denial of [grievance 17-53]. 

R. vol. 1 at 303 (citations omitted). 

Regarding Mr. Brooks’s second, third, and fourth arguments, the partial 

resolution of his grievance at an intermediate stage did not relieve him of the 

obligation to complete the administrative process. See Jernigan, 304 F.3d at 1032 

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(“An inmate who begins the grievance process but does not complete it is barred 

from pursuing a § 1983 claim under PLRA for failure to exhaust his administrative 

remedies.”). This is so even if the relief Mr. Brooks sought was unavailable through 

the grievance process. Woodford, 548 U.S. at 85. Mr. Brooks had an available 

remedy—§ VII(C)(4) of OP-090124 expressly contemplated appeal to the ARA of a 

reviewing authority’s amended response—but he did not pursue it. So, the district 

court correctly concluded Mr. Brooks did not exhaust his administrative remedies and 

dismissed his claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). 

CONCLUSION 

We affirm the judgment of the district court. 

Entered for the Court 

Nancy L. Moritz 

Circuit Judge 

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