UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA 

SOUTH BEND DIVISION 

JAMES E. MANLEY, 

 Plaintiff, 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

)

v. Cause No. 3:13-CV-1308 JD 

MARK SEVIER, KOPPENSPARGER, 

THOMAS, KELLI BRADLEY, R. 

HOBBS, J. LARIMORE, R. BEEMER, 

and ROBERT EUTZ, 

 Defendants. 

OPINION AND ORDER 

 James E. Manley, a prisoner without a lawyer, filed a motion pursuant to Federal Rule of 

Civil Procedure 59(e). “Altering or amending a judgment under Rule 59(e) is permissible when 

there is newly discovered evidence or there has been a manifest error of law or fact.” Harrington 

v. City of Chicago, 433 F.3d 542, 546 (7th Cir. 2006). Summary judgment was granted, and this 

case dismissed, because Manley did not exhaust his administrative remedies before filing suit as 

required by 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). Manley now argues that “[i]n the Third Amended complaint 

[ECF 30], Plaintiff stated that prison officials had refused to provide him necessary forms to 

exhaust his administrative remedies.” ECF 80. However, he did not present that argument in either 

his response (ECF 71) or his sur-reply (ECF 73) to the motion for summary judgment. 

 In response to the summary judgment motion, Manley presented four arguments. First he 

argued Angela Heishman wrote and told him he had exhausted all of his administrative remedies. 

ECF 71 at 1. Second, he argued the grievance process could not provide him with a meaningful 

remedy. ECF 71 at 1. Third, he argued the claims raised in this case were exhausted because he 

mentioned them in the appeal from the denial of a grievance which did not originally include them. 
2 

ECF 71 at 2. Fourth, he argued he alerted prison officials of his concerns in ways other than the 

grievance process. ECF 71 at 2. None of these arguments even hint that he had any difficulty 

getting a grievance form. Evidence and arguments which “could have been submitted along with 

[the] response to the motion for summary judgment [are] not properly presented for the first time 

in a motion for reconsideration.” King v. Ford Motor Co., No. 16-3391, 2017 WL 4349308, at *3, 

__ F.3d __, __ (7th Cir. Oct. 2, 2017). 

 Moreover, Manley did not say in his Third Amended Complaint that he was unable to get 

a form to grieve the claims he was raising. Rather, he wrote, “in some situations, staff at the Miami 

Correctional Facility has refused to provide the appropriate forms when requested by Manley, 

thereby foreclosing that process to Manley.” ECF 30 at 10. The vague assertion that there had been 

some situations where he had been unable to get a form is particularly insufficient given that he 

did not mention the unavailability of forms in either of his two responses to the summary judgment 

motion. Given the detailed summary judgment responses that he filed, it is implausible that he 

merely forgot to include this argument in either filing. Moreover, given that he filed seven 

grievances in 2013 before the events at issue and two more in 2014 only months thereafter, the 

record does not demonstrate that he had difficulty obtaining grievance forms when he wanted 

them. See ECF 62-1 at 42-43. 

 For these reasons, the Rule 59(e) motion (ECF 80) is DENIED. 

SO ORDERED. 

ENTERED: October 5, 2017 

 

 /s/ JON E. DEGUILIO 

Judge 

United States District Judge