Opinion ID: 642
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: The parties devote considerable argument to the question of whether Williams adequately exhausted his administrative remedies through the prison grievance system. It is well established that, in the absence of outstanding questions of material fact, we have jurisdiction over interlocutory appeals regarding denials of qualified immunity. White v. McKinley, 519 F.3d 806, 812-13 (8th Cir. 2008). That jurisdiction, however, is limited and does not extend to other issues unless those issues are free of material factual disputes and inextricably intertwined with the legal issues involved in the qualified immunity analysis. Id. at 815. Issues are not inextricably intertwined if different legal analyses or standards apply to resolution of the issues. Id.; see also Kincade v. City of Blue Springs, 64 F.3d 389, 395 (8th Cir.1995) (Both issues require application of the same constitutional test, and therefore, the question concerning... constitutional protection is coterminous with, or subsumed in the qualified immunity issue.) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, the failure-to-exhaust affirmative defense involves an entirely separate and distinct legal standard and analysis than the qualified immunity issue. Accordingly, it is not inextricably intertwined with the qualified immunity issue, and we may not address it at this time. Further, we note as an aside that all of the defendants' arguments on this point appear to rely on disputed facts, providing a separate basis for refusing to review this issue on an interlocutory basis.