Opinion ID: 787967
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Which defendants?

Text: 42 Johnson has sued fifteen prison officials, but the defendants contend that he has not exhausted his claims against many of them. In particular, they argue that a claim against a person has been exhausted only if that person was identified in the prisoner's Step 1 grievance. 43 We are mindful that the primary purpose of a grievance is to alert prison officials to a problem, not to provide personal notice to a particular official that he may be sued; the grievance is not a summons and complaint that initiates adversarial litigation. Cf. Brown, 212 F.3d at 1207-10 (rejecting a rule that a prisoner must always name defendants in his grievance). But, at the same time, the grievance must provide administrators with a fair opportunity under the circumstances to address the problem that will later form the basis of the suit, and for many types of problems this will often require, as a practical matter, that the prisoner's grievance identify individuals who are connected with the problem. 44 Non-UCC defendants. Two of the defendants in this case, Paul and Willingham, are prison guards who are accused of failing to protect Johnson on a few discrete occasions. The character of Johnson's formal grievances is that he is frequently being assaulted and has repeatedly but unsuccessfully sought a change in housing status through the established administrative channels. Nowhere does he mention or describe Paul or Willingham. Johnson's grievances would alert administrators particularly to problems regarding the prison's housing and classification practices, but we do not think that they can fairly be read to alert them to, or give them an opportunity to remedy, the discrete conduct that forms the basis of Johnson's claims against these two officers, which is of a different character. (In addition, as observed above, all of the conduct concerning Willingham occurred before March 2001, which is an independent reason to hold it unexhausted.) 45 Johnson has also sued three supervisory-level officials who never sat on a UCC: Treon, Wright, and Executive Director Johnson. Johnson specifically named Treon and Wright, but only in Step 2 grievances. The defendants contend that this is insufficient, for TDCJ rules instruct inmates not to bring up new grievance issues on appeal. But cf. Burton, 321 F.3d at 574 (permitting a prisoner to provide additional factual detail at appellate stages of grievance process). Johnson's grievances did not mention Executive Director Johnson, but Johnson says that there is no need to mention the Executive Director. See Brown, 212 F.3d at 1209 (observing that [e]veryone involved in the grievance process knows who the warden and [state prison] commissioner are). We need not struggle with these matters here, however, because we determine in Part III of our opinion that these three supervisory defendants are clearly entitled to dismissal based on qualified immunity. 14 46 UCC defendants. We held above that Johnson had not exhausted any claims related to UCC meetings before March 2001. We now ask whether, regarding the exhausted UCC meetings, Johnson's grievances adequately identified the relevant defendants. 47 The defendants conceded at oral argument, and we agree, that a grievance can sufficiently identify a person even if it does not provide an actual name; functional descriptions and the like — e.g., a reference to the guards in the shower room on a certain date — would suffice. Cf. id. at 1209-10 & n. 4 (noting prison administrators' superior access to personnel information and records). As we have already said, Johnson's grievances repeatedly refer to the UCC committees and their failure to believe his pleas and take measures to protect him. This was adequate to put the prison administrators on notice that members of the UCCs were connected, indeed most closely connected, with Johnson's problem.