Opinion ID: 787440
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Legislative History; Practical and Policy Considerations

Text: 43 We follow Rose 's guidance by looking first to section 1997e's legislative history. But the parties have not identified, and we are not otherwise aware of, any legislative history suggesting that Congress directly considered the question or had any particular intent with respect to whether mixed actions should be dismissed in their entirety. See Alexander v. Davis, 282 F.Supp.2d 609, 610 (W.D.Mich.2003) ([T]he legislative history of the statutory section demonstrates no concern with this issue.). 44 Looking at the statute's legislative history in a more general sense, the purpose of the PLRA, originally enacted as Pub.L. No. 104-134, 110 Stat. 1321 (1996), which sets forth a broad set of rules governing litigation by prisoners in federal courts, was plainly to curtail what Congress perceived to be inmate abuses of the judicial process. See generally 3 Michael B. Mushlin, Rights of Prisoners § 16:1 (3d ed.2003); Margo Schlanger, Inmate Litigation, 116 Harv. L.Rev. 1555, 1565-69 (2003). To effect this goal, Congress erected an array of procedural barriers designed to make it more difficult for inmates to bring suit in federal court, including what is now codified as section 1997e(a), requiring that only administratively exhausted actions be brought. See id. at 1627-28. It is [b]eyond doubt that Congress enacted § 1997e(a) to reduce the quantity and improve the quality of prisoner suits. Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 524, 122 S.Ct. 983, 152 L.Ed.2d 12 (2002); see also 141 Cong. Rec. 26,553 (1995) (statement of Sen. Hatch) ([The PLRA] will help bring relief to a civil justice system overburdened by frivolous prisoner lawsuits.). 45 We do not think that a requirement that district courts dismiss mixed actions in their entirety would help achieve Congress's goal of improving the quality of, or judicial efficiency in disposing of, prisoners' section 1983 suits. 46 First, there is the danger that such a regime would create an incentive for prisoners to file section 1983 claims, if they have more than one, in more than one lawsuit. 7 This obviously would not assist in lessening the burden on district courts. 47 Second, as several district courts have pointed out when addressing this issue, it is doubtful that action-dismissal rather than claim-dismissal will do more than require plaintiffs who bring mixed actions to refile their claims with the claims that were held by the district court to be unexhausted simply omitted. 48 Given the short period of time allotted to prisoners to file grievances, see e.g., Woodrich v. Greiner, 2003 WL 22339264, at  (S.D.N.Y. Oct.10, 2003) [, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18256, at ] (an inmate in a New York state prison must file his or her grievance within fourteen days of the alleged grievance), a prisoner may not be able to raise or resolve unexhausted claims within state and local institutions. Jenkins [ v. Toombs, ] 32 F.Supp.2d [955,] 959 [(W.D.Mich.1999)]; see also Cole [ v. Miraflor ], 2003 WL 21710760, at  (S.D.N.Y. July 28, 2003) [, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12641, at -8] (holding that by failing to file grievance within the appropriate time period, prisoner had failed to exhaust administrative remedies). As a result, 49 prisoners are likely to simply amend their complaints to eliminate the unexhausted claims and refile. In that case, courts would be faced with exactly the same claims they could have resolved at the outset. 50 Id. 51 Scott v. Gardner, 287 F.Supp.2d 477, 488 (S.D.N.Y.2003); accord Blackmon v. Crawford, 305 F.Supp.2d 1174, 1179 (D.Nev.2004); Hattley v. Goord, No. 02 Civ. 2339, 2003 WL 1700435, at  (S.D.N.Y. Mar.27, 2003), 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4856, at . 52 Third, prisoners' actions may present questions as to whether one or more claims have been exhausted that are not only genuine, but challenging for the courts to decide. See, e.g., Abney v. McGinnis, 380 F.3d 663, 2004 WL 1842647 (2d Cir.2004) (considering whether an inmate who obtains a favorable ruling that prison administrators subsequently do not implement has exhausted available remedies); Hemphill v. New York, 380 F.3d 680, 2004 WL 1842658 (whether alleged threats to plaintiff by prison guard rendered administrative remedies not available); and Johnson v. Testman, 380 F.3d 691, 2004 WL 1842669 (2d Cir.2004) (whether successfully prosecuting a grievance contesting a disciplinary sanction was sufficient to exhaust remedies with respect to an Eighth Amendment claim against a prison guard arising from events related to the conduct for which discipline was imposed). In any such action, the district court must first familiarize itself with the case and hear the positions of the parties in order to decide the exhaustion issue as a preliminary matter. It hardly seems to aid efficiency to require that, if the court decides the claim-exhaustion issue against the prisoner, it must then dismiss any remaining exhausted claims only to allow the same case, absent the unexhausted claims, to be reinstituted, heard again on the exhausted issues, and then decided. This is all the more true when the exhausted and unexhausted claims are factually interrelated and the district court is therefore required to familiarize itself with the same factual background of the case twice. 8 53 We are not the first Circuit to address the complete exhaustion issue based on considerations of policy and practicality. In Ross v. County of Bernalillo, supra, the Tenth Circuit concluded, contrary to our view, that section 1997e(a) requires dismissal of every action that contains unexhausted claims. The court relied largely on an analogy to the requirement of complete exhaustion in 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas corpus cases first established by the Supreme Court in Rose v. Lundy, supra. 9 According to Ross, Emphasizing comity principles, the [ Rose ] Court reasoned that the total exhaustion doctrine would 1) encourage prisoners to seek full relief first from the state courts, thus giving states the first opportunity to review claims of error, 2) create a more complete factual record that will aid federal courts in their review, and 3) relieve district courts of the difficult task of deciding whether multiple claims are severable. 54 Ross, 365 F.3d at 1189 (citing Rose, 455 U.S. at 518-19, 102 S.Ct. 1198). Also, [u]nder a total exhaustion rule `both the courts and the prisoners should benefit, for as a result the district court will be more likely to review all of the prisoner's claims in a single proceeding, thus providing for a more focused and thorough review.' Id. at 1190 (quoting Rose, 455 U.S. at 520, 102 S.Ct. 1198). The Ross court also concluded that policies underlying the PLRA supported the requirement that mixed petitions be dismissed in their entirety because doing so would encourage prisoners to make full use of inmate grievance procedures and thus give prison officials the first opportunity to resolve prisoner complaints. Id. (citing Porter, 534 U.S. at 524-25, 122 S.Ct. 983). 55 The Tenth Circuit's carefully reasoned argument does not, however, convince us, primarily because we think its heavy reliance on Rose and habeas total exhaustion principles is misplaced. 56 The principles underlying habeas corpus exhaustion and section 1983 exhaustion differ significantly, making analogies between them problematic. The habeas exhaustion requirements, for example, arise out of fundamental principles of sovereignty. 57 The [habeas] exhaustion doctrine is principally designed to protect the state courts' role in the enforcement of federal law and prevent disruption of state judicial proceedings. Under our federal system, the federal and state courts are equally bound to guard and protect rights secured by the Constitution. Because it would be unseemly in our dual system of government for a federal district court to upset a state court conviction without an opportunity to the state courts to correct a constitutional violation, federal courts apply the doctrine of comity, which teaches that one court should defer action on causes properly within its jurisdiction until the courts of another sovereignty with concurrent powers, and already cognizant of the litigation, have had an opportunity to pass upon the matter. 58 Rose, 455 U.S. at 518, 102 S.Ct. 1198 (citations, internal quotation marks, alterations, and footnote omitted). There is no comity issue of equivalent gravity involved in prisoner civil rights actions, since prisoners are not required to press their claims in state courts and prison administrators generally limit their review to determining whether prison policy has been violated. Scott, 287 F.Supp.2d at 488 (quoting Jenkins v. Toombs, 32 F.Supp.2d 955, 959 (W.D.Mich.1999)). 59 And unlike the state court proceedings to which we defer in habeas proceedings, in prison administrative proceedings prison officials are generally not required to adhere to rules of evidence or other standards employed by courts of law in an attempt to assure accurate fact-finding. See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 556, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974) (Prison disciplinary proceedings are not part of a criminal prosecution, and the full panoply of rights due a defendant in such proceedings does not apply.); id. at 566-70, 94 S.Ct. 2963 (discussing differences between what due process requires in criminal trials and prison disciplinary proceedings); Sira, 380 F.3d at 660, 2004 WL 1719285, at , 2004 U.S.App. LEXIS 15897, at - (same); 2 Mushlin, Rights of Prisoners, § 9:1 (explaining that, in the context of prison disciplinary proceedings, [m]any of the traditional safeguards associated with criminal trials ... such as the right to a lawyer and the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses, may not be available.). Prison proceedings, conducted according to much less exacting procedural standards than those applicable to courts, are thus much less likely than are state court proceedings to create a more complete factual record that will aid federal courts in their review. Ross, 365 F.3d at 1189. 10 60 In any event, a rule permitting the dismissal of unexhausted claims does indeed defer to state administrative proceedings by insisting that prison administrators adjudicate each prisoner's section 1983 claim in the first instance. The fact that it does so on a claim-by-claim basis does not seem to us to have significant implications for state/federal comity. For similar reasons, we do not find persuasive the Ross court's observation that dismissing mixed actions in their entirety will encourage prisoners to make full use of inmate grievance procedures. Ross, 365 F.3d at 1189. Under a contrary rule permitting the exhausted claims to be pursued in federal courts, prisoners are also encouraged to make full use of such procedures: Unless they exhaust a claim in the prison system, it will not be heard in the courts. 61 Two other differences between section 2254 habeas applications and section 1983 prisoner actions also inform our judgment. 62 First, section 2254 applications are usually about a singular event — the petitioner's conviction in state court. The applicant's claims, exhausted or not, are likely to be different legal challenges to an interconnected series of facts raised as alternative methods to attack that conviction. 63 Prisoners' section 1983 actions, by contrast, routinely seek to address more than one grievance — sometimes a laundry list of grievances — relating to different events or circumstances. 11 [T]he claims raised in a single complaint are [thus] less likely to deal with interrelated or intermingled factual issues than the claims raised in habeas petitions. Scott, 287 F.Supp.2d at 488 (quoting Jenkins, 32 F.Supp.2d at 959). 64 Second, a claim in a habeas application dismissed by a federal court because it is unexhausted may well yet be capable of exhaustion in the state courts and subsequent reassertion in a federal habeas proceeding. Rose, 455 U.S. at 520, 102 S.Ct. 1198 (Those prisoners who ... submit mixed petitions nevertheless are entitled to resubmit a petition with only exhausted claims or to exhaust the remainder of their claims.); see also, e.g., Rodriguez v. Bennett, 303 F.3d 435, 438-39 (2d Cir.2002) (discussing status of a habeas petition initially dismissed for failure to exhaust and subsequently refiled following exhaustion of remedies in state court). In such a case, the originally unexhausted claim would thus be capable of eventual federal court review after state court exhaustion is completed. 65 Because of the short time-limits ordinarily applicable to prison grievance procedures, by contrast, it is unlikely that, in prisoners' section 1983 actions, the unexhausted claims will be exhausted after they are dismissed, and then brought before the federal courts for an eventual decision. See Blackmon, 305 F.Supp.2d at 1179; Scott, 287 F.Supp.2d at 488; Hattley, 2003 WL 1700435, at , 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4856, at ; Jenkins, 32 F.Supp.2d at 959. Once they are dismissed they are usually forever gone. 12 66 There is thus a prospect that a district court that proceeds with exhausted habeas claims but dismisses unexhausted claims will be required to examine twice, separately, the same interconnected series of facts underlying the conviction — once when the initially exhausted claims are heard and once when the subsequently exhausted claims are heard. Under those circumstances, as the Supreme Court observed, both the courts and the prisoners should benefit from a requirement that all claims be dismissed so that all claims can later be heard at the same time, for as a result the district court will be more likely to review all of the prisoner's claims in a single proceeding, thus providing for a more focused and thorough review. Rose, 455 U.S. at 520, 102 S.Ct. 1198. 13 67 But unexhausted prisoners' 1983 claims, once dismissed, are unlikely ever to be revived in the district court. And even if they are, they may well be about facts unrelated to those underlying the claims of which the court has already disposed. Addressing them in a separate proceeding may therefore involve relatively little duplication of effort. [R]esolving all of a prisoner's civil rights claims together may [therefore] be less important in section 1983 cases than in habeas cases. Scott, 287 F.Supp.2d at 488 (quoting Jenkins, 32 F.Supp.2d at 959). Indeed, it may not be important at all. 68 At the end of the day, then, we do not think that requiring district courts to dismiss the entirety of any prison-conditions action that contains exhausted and unexhausted claims, and thereby requiring prisoners to institute their actions containing only the exhausted claims in federal court all over again, is a meaningful way to reduce the quantity and improve the quality of prisoner suits, Porter, 534 U.S. at 524, 122 S.Ct. 983, or to help bring relief to a civil justice system overburdened by frivolous prisoner lawsuits, 141 Cong. Rec. 26,553 (1995) (statement of Sen. Hatch). We therefore conclude that the presence of the unexhausted Eighth Amendment claim in Ortiz's complaint when he brought it did not require the district court to dismiss the action in its entirety. 69 We note, finally, that we expect that, in the ordinary case, once the district court dismisses the unexhausted claims, it will proceed directly to decide the exhausted claims without waiting for the plaintiff to attempt to exhaust available administrative remedies with respect to the dismissed claims. We see no reason to doubt that this is such an ordinary case.