Opinion ID: 786604
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Measuring Procedural Default

Text: 37 Having concluded that, as a matter of statutory construction, § 1997e(a) includes a procedural default component, we must identify the source of the rules that a prisoner must follow to avoid procedurally defaulting his claim. Judge Easterbrook has aptly referred to this question as the choice of law issue. Strong v. David, 297 F.3d 646, 649 (7th Cir.2002). He elaborates: 38 Very few courts have addressed what things an administrative grievance must contain, and none has attended to the choice-of-law issue. Courts-and presumably litigants too-have assumed that the general objectives that inspired § 1997e(a) also determine how a prisoner must go about exhausting state remedies. The sixth circuit, for example, demands that the administrative grievance name each person who ultimately becomes a defendant. Curry v. Scott, 249 F.3d 493, 504-05 (6th Cir.2001). In contrast, the eleventh circuit requires only that a prisoner include in a grievance all the information the prisoner reasonably can be expected to know; failing to identify a specific person does not prevent a later suit against that person. Brown v. Sikes, 212 F.3d 1205, 1208 (11th Cir.2000). Presumably the sixth circuit likewise would require legal claims to be identified, while the eleventh would not. Yet both of these decisions skip over a vital question: what body of law governs the specificity inquiry? 39 Id. 40 We agree that this is a critical question: Is procedural default under § 1997e(a) governed by express federal law, federal common law, or by the law of the state prison grievance system (as stated in this case in the Grievance System Policy)? By federal common law we refer to some putative set of rules, or at least general standards, for assessing whether a grievance was timely, included a sufficiently detailed factual account, requested appropriate relief, etc. At all events, we agree with Judge Easterbrook's conclusion that prison grievance procedures supply the yardstick for measuring procedural default. Accord Pozo, 286 F.3d at 1025. This result is more in harmony with Congressional policy than creating ad hoc federal common law, and it is also fairer to inmates. 41 To begin with, there simply is no express federal law describing the procedural requirements with which prisoners must comply in satisfying § 1997e(a)'s exhaustion requirement. See Strong, 297 F.3d at 649. As between crafting judge-made law on this subject and looking to state prison grievance procedures, the latter will far better serve the policy interests of the PLRA. We have repeatedly noted above that the legislative history is clear that the PLRA was intended to return control of prisons to wardens; one aspect of this was a comprehensive program of returning control of the grievance process. Mandatory exhaustion (with a procedural default component) ensures that inmate grievances will be addressed first within the prison's own system-in this respect, the PLRA is thus appropriately defederalizing. Moreover, Congress repealed the portions of CRIPA that established federal standards-setting and certification for prison grievance systems. It would be anomalous, to say the least, to refuse to give effect to the very rules that the PLRA encourages state prison authorities to enact. 9 Indeed, the unintended result of making federal common law on this subject might even be that prisons would acquiesce in that federal common law by incorporating it into their grievance systems. 42 We also believe that, from a notice and due process point of view, it is fairer to hold inmates to a single, consistent set of procedural rules in pursuing their grievances. If we were to create our own common law on the subject, we would in effect be asking prisoners to both comply with prison grievance procedures (to ensure that the prison will hear their grievances), while keeping an eye on a separate set of federal requirements (to ensure that they will preserve a remedy in federal court if it comes to it). The better approach is to have federal courts recognize prisoners' procedural defaults within the applicable prison grievance system. 10 43 Finally, we note that just as procedural default in the federal habeas corpus context must be predicated on an adequate (and independent) state ground, see Ford v. Georgia, 498 U.S. 411, 423-24, 111 S.Ct. 850, 112 L.Ed.2d 935 (1991), so too must a prison grievance system's procedural requirements not be imposed in a way that offends the Federal Constitution or the federal policy embodied in § 1997e(a). We made the same observation (albeit in somewhat different terms) in Nyhuis, 204 F.3d at 77-78, where we explained that the policy of § 1997e(a) is that compliance with the administrative remedy scheme will be satisfactory if it is substantial. As the next Part makes clear, though, we have no occasion in this case to further elaborate on this aspect of § 1997e(a).