Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/380/680/533517/
Timestamp: 2020-08-13 21:06:15
Document Index: 562907772

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1983', '§ 1997', '§ 701', '§ 701', '§ 701', '§ 1997', '§ 701', '§ 701']

John Hemphill, Plaintiff-appellant, v. State of New York, C.o. Surber, C.o. William E. Kelly, C.o. Daniel J. Gunderman, C.o. Carola Straley, C.o. Miller, C.o. Thomas W. Boss, and C. Sgt S.j. Williams, Defendants-appellees, 380 F.3d 680 (2d Cir. 2004) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Second Circuit › 2004 › John Hemphill, Plaintiff-appellant, v. State of New York, C.o. Surber, C.o. William E. Kelly, C.o. D...
John Hemphill, Plaintiff-appellant, v. State of New York, C.o. Surber, C.o. William E. Kelly, C.o. Daniel J. Gunderman, C.o. Carola Straley, C.o. Miller, C.o. Thomas W. Boss, and C. Sgt S.j. Williams, Defendants-appellees, 380 F.3d 680 (2d Cir. 2004)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit - 380 F.3d 680 (2d Cir. 2004) Argued: May 27, 2004
John Hemphill, an inmate at Green Haven Correctional Facility ("Green Haven") in Stormville, New York, filed suit, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging, inter alia, that the defendants used excessive force against him and denied him medical attention in violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. After the Supreme Court held in Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 122 S. Ct. 983, 152 L. Ed. 2d 12 (2002), that the Prison Litigation Reform Act's exhaustion requirement, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a), applies to excessive force claims, the defendants moved for summary judgment as to Hemphill's excessive force claim. In a judgment dated April 26, 2002, the district court (McMahon, J.) found that Hemphill had not exhausted that claim as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA"), because he had failed to file a formal grievance complaining of defendants' conduct. The court, having earlier and on the same ground dismissed Hemphill's medical indifference claim, therefore dismissed Hemphill's complaint in its entirety.
Hemphill appealed, and his suit was argued alongside several other cases concerning the nature and scope of the PLRA's exhaustion requirement (the "consolidated cases").2 After the parties submitted briefs in this appeal, our court held in Ziemba v. Wezner, 366 F.3d 161 (2d Cir. 2004) (per curiam), that certain actions by defendants "may ... estop [] the State from asserting the exhaustion defense," id. at 163. At oral argument, counsel for the defendants requested leave to file a supplemental letter brief addressing the applicability of Ziemba to this case and to the cases heard together with Hemphill's. We granted his motion, and allowed the other parties to this action and to the other consolidated cases to reply. Today, based upon our holdings in Ziemba and in the other consolidated cases, we vacate the district court's grant of summary judgment to the defendants, and remand the case for further proceedings.
The regular DOCS grievance procedure consists of three tiers. First, the inmate files a level 1 grievance (either on an Inmate Grievance Complaint Form, or on plain paper if the form is not readily available) with the Inmate Grievance Resolution Committee ("IGRC"), which is composed of fellow inmates and prison officials.3 The IGRC must convene a hearing, if necessary, within seven working days, and issue a written decision within two days of the hearing. Next, the inmate has four days to appeal the IGRC decision to the superintendent of the facility, who must respond within ten days and must provide "simple directions" on how to appeal to the next level, the Central Office Review Committee ("CORC"). The inmate's final opportunity for resolution of his grievance is to appeal to the CORC within four working days of the superintendent's decision. The CORC then has 20 working days to render a decision. 7 N.Y.C.R.R. § 701.7(c) (4).4
After some time passed, CO Straley allegedly went to Hemphill's cell and told him he was not, in fact, under keeplock. Hemphill says he asked Straley for medical attention, but she ignored his request. Subsequently, he obtained a pass to the clinic from another officer. On his way to the clinic, he encountered CO Gunderman, who allegedly demanded, "What do you think you're doing?" When Hemphill presented his pass and indicated he was on his way to the clinic, Gunderman allegedly responded, "No you're not, get in here." Gunderman then took Hemphill back to the room where he initially had been assaulted. Surber was there, and punched Hemphill in the stomach, saying, "I gave you a break by not writing you up for sexual harassment on a female officer, but you want to be stupid." At some point during the assault, Hemphill asked what he had done, and Surber told Hemphill that he knew Hemphill had "sexually harassed" Straley by "ask [ing] her for a kiss." Surber and Gunderman then allegedly "beat [ ] plaintiff down to the ground."
According to Hemphill, Sergeant Williams entered the room at this point but did not intervene when Hemphill requested his help in calling off the officers. After Surber allegedly punched Hemphill again in the ribs, Williams left the room. Sergeant Keyser came into the room and Hemphill was ordered to place his hands against the wall. He says Surber then pressed his head into the wall and stated, "if [you] want to write this up you do it from SHU [Special Housing Unit]." Surber said he had given the plaintiff "a break by not bringing charges against him" and threatened that if Hemphill "pursue [d] this any further," Surber would bring criminal charges against him for assaulting an officer. Surber warned that he had "officers who would testify to that effect." Straley subsequently entered the room, and said, "That's him. He asked me for a kiss." Surber then stated, "You better make up your mind right now, drop it or go to the box and face criminal charges. You don't go to the clinic, you don't do nothing but drop it; if you [`re] lying I will have all my night officers watching your every move. If you go to the clinic, I will know about it and then I'll make your life a living hell throughout this penal system because I have friends all over." Hemphill asserted in his complaint that "with fear of being assaulted by the defendants [he] agree [d] to their threats so that he wouldn't be tortur [ed] any more."
Hemphill thereafter brought this suit against the State of New York, COs Surber, Kelly, Gunderman, Straley, Miller, Boss, and Sergeant Williams. The defendants denied Hemphill's allegations in their answer. On July 12, 1999, the district court, on sovereign immunity grounds, dismissed Hemphill's claims against the state of New York and against the individual defendants to the extent that he sought money damages against them in their official capacities. But it left standing Hemphill's claims brought against the individual defendants, in their private capacities. On December 28, 1999, the defendants moved for summary judgment as to these, arguing that Hemphill had not satisfied the PLRA's exhaustion requirement. The magistrate judge recommended granting summary judgment on Hemphill's medical indifference claims, but denying it on Hemphill's excessive force claim both on the merits and because, before the Supreme Court decided Porter v. Nussle, the PLRA's exhaustion requirement was inapplicable to excessive force claims in this circuit. See Nussle v. Willette, 224 F.3d 95 (2d Cir. 2000).
In her July 12, 2001 Report and Recommendation the magistrate judge, adhering to the earlier recommendation, pointed out that Hemphill had acknowledged in his deposition that he had not filed a grievance. She also stated that Hemphill had "not suggested that he was unaware of the Grievance Procedure, or that he was directly prevented from utilizing the process." The magistrate judge concluded, inter alia, that Hemphill's letter to Artuz "fail [ed] to comply with the specific and detailed process which an inmate must follow in order to exhaust his or her administrative remedies."
In an April 2002 decision and order dismissing Hemphill's medical indifference claim, Judge McMahon agreed with the magistrate judge, and rejected Hemphill's argument that his letter to Artuz sufficed to exhaust his remedies. Artuz's failure to respond to Hemphill's letter did not matter, the court ruled, since Hemphill had not followed either the three-tiered regular grievance procedure, or the expedited process for harassment claims. "Under this expedited procedure," Judge McMahon wrote, "a grievance is filed with both the Inmate Committee and the harassing employee's supervisor. If the grievance raises a bona fide harassment issue (as this one would have), Level 1 review is bypassed and the matter is sent directly to the Superintendent for review. Had plaintiff utilized this procedure, any failure by Artuz to render a decision on his matter within twelve working days could have been appealed to Albany, thus completing the grievance cycle and exhausting his remedies in a matter of weeks." Hemphill v. State of New York, 198 F. Supp. 2d 546, 549 (S.D.N.Y. 2002). Even if plaintiff's letter could be interpreted as a grievance, the judge observed, it was untimely, and Hemphill did not file for an extension of time. Id. The district court did not address the question of whether Hemphill's allegations that COs threatened retribution should he complain about his treatment might excuse his failure to comply with normal procedures.
On April 15, 2004, appellees' counsel sent a Rule 28(j) letter notifying the court that DOCS had, as of April 14, 2004, amended 7 N.Y.C.R.R. § 701.11(b) (1), the regulatory provision describing the expedited grievance procedure for complaints about "employee harassment," to add the underlined text and delete the bracketed text:
An inmate who wishes to file a grievance complaint that alleges employee harassment shall follow the procedures set forth in section 701.7(a) (1) above. Note: An inmate who feels that s(he) has been the victim of employee misconduct or harassment should [first] report such occurrences to the immediate supervisor of that employee. However, this is not a prerequisite for filing a grievance with the IGP. [This does not preclude submission of a formal grievance.]
The letter stated that, " [a]s amended, section 701.11(b) (1) confirms DOCS's view, at issue in this appeal ... that a prisoner cannot obtain the expedited review provided by section 701.11 without first submitting a formal grievance pursuant to 7 N.Y.C.R.R. § 701.7(a) (1). DOCS intends the amendments to ... clarify, not change, the requirements for section 701.11 review. These amendments are among various amendments to the IGP regulations that [, in the words of DOCS's Notice of Proposed Rule Making,]
Read together, our recent decisions, and our holdings today in the other consolidated cases, suggest that a three-part inquiry is appropriate in cases where a prisoner plaintiff plausibly seeks to counter defendants' contention that the prisoner has failed to exhaust available administrative remedies as required by the PLRA, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). Depending on the inmate's explanation for the alleged failure to exhaust, the court must ask whether administrative remedies were in fact "available" to the prisoner. Abney v. McGinnis, 380 F.3d 663, 2004 WL 1842647. The court should also inquire as to whether the defendants may have forfeited the affirmative defense of non-exhaustion by failing to raise or preserve it, Johnson v. Testman, 380 F.3d 691, 2004 WL 1842669, or whether the defendants' own actions inhibiting the inmate's exhaustion of remedies may estop one or more of the defendants from raising the plaintiff's failure to exhaust as a defense, Ziemba, 366 F.3d at 163. If the court finds that administrative remedies were available to the plaintiff, and that the defendants are not estopped and have not forfeited their non-exhaustion defense, but that the plaintiff nevertheless did not exhaust available remedies, the court should consider whether "special circumstances" have been plausibly alleged that justify "the prisoner's failure to comply with administrative procedural requirements." Giano v. Goord, 380 F.3d 670, 2004 WL 1842652 (citing Berry v. Kerik, 366 F.3d 85, 88 (2d Cir. 2003); Rodriguez order).
It is well-established that "when [a] plaintiff proceeds pro se ... a court is obliged to construe his pleadings liberally, particularly when they allege civil rights violations." McEachin v. McGuinnis, 357 F.3d 197, 200 (2d Cir. 2004). Hemphill's complaint specifically recounted Surber's threatening statements, and the plaintiff's acquiescence. So the question of forfeiture turns on whether Hemphill needed expressly to reiterate his claim concerning threats in his opposition to defendants' summary judgment motion. We hold that he did not, for two reasons.
Defendants also argue, however, that the fact that Hemphill sent a letter to Superintendent Artuz and filed this suit means that he was not — as a matter of law — sufficiently frightened as to render normal grievance procedures unavailable. This contention too must be rejected. The test for deciding whether the ordinary grievance procedures were available must be an objective one: that is, would "a similarly situated individual of ordinary firmness" have deemed them available. Cf. Davis v. Goord, 320 F.3d 346, 353 (2d Cir. 2003) (articulating the "individual of ordinary firmness" standard in the context of a prisoner retaliation claim). Moreover it should be pointed out that threats or other intimidation by prison officials may well deter a prisoner of "ordinary firmness" from filing an internal grievance, but not from appealing directly to individuals in positions of greater authority within the prison system, or to external structures of authority such as state or federal courts. This may be so, if for no other reason, because seeking a criminal investigation or filing a civil rights complaint may enable an inmate to draw outside attention to his complaints, thereby neutralizing threatened retaliatory conduct from prison employees.
Hemphill contends that, under Ziemba, Surber's threats should estop the defendants from presenting an affirmative defense of non-exhaustion. In Ziemba, the plaintiff alleged that prison officials prevented him from exhausting his administrative remedies by beating him, threatening him, denying him grievance forms and writing implements, and transferring him to another correctional facility. 366 F.3d at 162. We vacated and remanded the district court's judgment on the pleadings "because the district court erroneously did not address [the plaintiff's] claim that defendants' actions may have estopped the State from asserting the exhaustion defense." Id. at 163. Similarly, Hemphill argues that Surber told Hemphill that " [he]'d better drop it," warned that if Hemphill "pursue [d] this any further," Surber would bring criminal charges against him, and promised that if Hemphill sought medical attention, Surber would "know about it and ... make your life a living hell throughout this penal system." In the face of such alleged verbal and physical threats, and "with fear of being assaulted [further] by the defendants," Hemphill asserts that he "agree [d] to their threats so that he would not be torture [d] any more."
Those cases included;Ortiz v. McBride, 380 F.3d 649, 2004 WL 1842644; Giano v. Goord, 380 F.3d 670, 2004 WL 1842652; Johnson v. Testman, 380 F.3d 691, 2004 WL 1842669; and Abney v. McGinnis, 380 F.3d 663, 2004 WL 1842647.
The inmate has fourteen days from the date of the incident complained of to file a complaint, but "mitigating circumstances" may toll the deadline. 7 N.Y.C.R.R. § 701.7(a) (1)
The regulations advise inmates "to attempt to resolve a problem on [their] own" before resorting to formal procedures. 7 N.Y.C.R.R. § 701.3(a). We have stated that an inmate who obtains a favorable resolution of his complaint through informal processes has exhausted available administrative remedies under the DOCS scheme See Marvin v. Goord, 255 F.3d 40, 43 n. 3 (2d Cir. 2001) (per curiam).
The magistrate judge also indicated in her Report and Recommendation that Judge McMahon had attached the letter to her March 7, 2001 Decision and Order, but the letter does not appear in the plaintiff's appendix
We note, however, that if Hemphill wrote in a timely fashion to the Superintendent pursuant to a possibly valid interpretation of DOCS grievance procedures, there might be a question as to the availability of remedies, since Hemphill received no response to his letter, and there is no indication in the record that his grievance was ever recorded, as required by DOCS regulations Cf. Jernigan v. Stuchell, 304 F.3d 1030, 1032 (10th Cir. 2002) ("agree [ing with other circuits] that the failure to respond to a grievance within the time limits contained in the grievance policy renders an administrative remedy unavailable"); Lewis v. Washington, 300 F.3d 829, 833 (7th Cir. 2002) (stating that prison's failure timely to respond renders administrative remedies unavailable); Foulk v. Charrier, 262 F.3d 687, 698 (8th Cir. 2001) (holding that defendants failed to prove non-exhaustion where they presented no evidence to refute plaintiff's contention that he could not pursue grievance further after warden did not respond to his grievance); Underwood v. Wilson, 151 F.3d 292, 295 (5th Cir. 1998) (holding that "available administrative remedies are exhausted when the time limits for the prison's response set forth in the prison Grievance Procedures have expired"). We express no view on whether Hemphill's allegations can support such a theory.
The plaintiff also points to statements by DOCS official Thomas Eagen, which, according to Hemphill, indicate that the DOCS regulations in effect at the time of the alleged assault on him did not require prisoners both to file a formal grievance and to report staff misconduct to the offending employee's immediate supervisor.
The consequences of finding a justification (based on threats) for failing to file an ordinary grievance are different from those of a finding that threats rendered ordinary grievance procedures unavailable. The latter automatically means that the PLRA requirements have been met. The former results in the rather more complicated "conditional" decree we issued in Giano. It seems likely, therefore, that facts sufficient to support a conclusion that an inmate was "justified" in not following ordinary procedures will be less powerful than those which would lead to a holding that those procedures were not available. Because we need not decide that question at this time, however, we do not do so.