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

Heading: Adequacy of Griffin's Grievance under Strong

Text: Under the Strong standard, Griffin's failure to grieve deliberate indifference does not invalidate his exhaustion attempt. A grievance need not include legal terminology or legal theories unless they are in some way needed to provide notice of the harm being grieved. A grievance also need not contain every fact necessary to prove each element of an eventual legal claim. The primary purpose of a grievance is to alert the prison to a problem and facilitate its resolution, not to lay groundwork for litigation. See Johnson v. Johnson, 385 F.3d at 522, cited with approval in Jones, 549 U.S. at 219, 127 S.Ct. 910. Griffin's problem concerned his unsatisfactory bunking situation. Notifying the prison of that problem did not require him to allege that the problem resulted from deliberate indifference. Nonetheless, Griffin failed to exhaust properly. He did not provide notice of the prison staff's alleged disregard of his lower bunk assignments. The officials responding to his grievance reasonably concluded that the nurse's order for a lower bunk assignment solved Griffin's problem. Rather than clarifying the situation, Griffin repeatedly demanded a ladder. His grievance did not provide enough information... to allow prison officials to take appropriate responsive measures. Johnson v. Testman, 380 F.3d at 697.