Opinion ID: 1433946
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Appropriate Standard of Factual Specificity

Text: The Supreme Court held in Jones v. Bock that a prison's own grievance process, not the PLRA, determines how detailed a grievance must be to satisfy the PLRA exhaustion requirement. 549 U.S. at 218, 127 S.Ct. 910. The Maricopa County jail's procedures, however, provide little guidance as to what facts a grievance must include. The jail's Inmate Grievance Form merely instructs the grievant to [b]riefly describe [the] complaint and a proposed resolution. We have not yet articulated the standard of factual specificity required when a prison's grievance procedures do not specify the requisite level of detail. Defendants propose that we adopt the standard propounded by the Eleventh Circuit in Brown v. Sikes, 212 F.3d 1205, 1207-08 (11th Cir. 2000). The Brown standard requires the grievant to include all relevant information about his claims that he can reasonably obtain. Id. The district court applied this standard in dismissing Griffin's complaint. Griffin argues that the Seventh Circuit articulated the proper standard in Strong v. David, 297 F.3d 646, 650 (7th Cir.2002). Strong held that, when a prison's grievance procedures are silent or incomplete as to factual specificity, a grievance suffices if it alerts the prison to the nature of the wrong for which redress is sought. Id. We adopt Strong as the appropriate standard. See Kikumura v. Osagie, 461 F.3d 1269, 1285 (10th Cir.2006), overruled on other grounds by Robbins v. Oklahoma, 519 F.3d 1242 (10th Cir.2008); Johnson v. Johnson, 385 F.3d 503, 517 (5th Cir.2004); Johnson v. Testman, 380 F.3d 691, 697 (2d Cir.2004); Burton v. Jones, 321 F.3d 569, 575 (6th Cir.2003), abrogated on other grounds by Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. at 217, 127 S.Ct. 910; Strong, 297 F.3d at 650. It advances the primary purpose of a grievance: to notify the prison of a problem. See Johnson v. Johnson, 385 F.3d at 522, cited with approval in Jones, 549 U.S. at 219, 127 S.Ct. 910. It comports with the Supreme Court's holding in Jones that a prison's own procedures define the contours of proper exhaustion. See 549 U.S. at 218, 127 S.Ct. 910. Strong provides a low floor that clarifies exhaustion requirements, but is unlikely to demand more information than prison procedures permit.