Opinion ID: 786604
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Exhaustion of Spruill's Claims

Text: 44 The first exhaustion question is whether Spruill has exhausted his administrative remedies in the literal sense-whether further avenues of relief are available to him within the prison's inmate grievance process. None are. DC-ADM-804 Part VI provides for three stages of review within Pennsylvania's Grievance System: Initial Review (DC-ADM-804 Part VI.B), which addresses the inmate's filed grievance; the first appeal from the Initial Review, known as Appeal to Facility Manager (DC-ADM-804 Part VI.C); and a second and final appeal, the Appeal to Secretary's Office of Inmate Grievances and Appeals (DC-ADM-804 Part VI.D). Spruill's grievances went through all stages and were denied. He has no further administrative process available. 45 We turn, then, to the procedural default component. Unlike federal habeas corpus procedural default inquiries under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b) and Coleman, where the federal court typically will have the benefit of a state-court ruling on whether a petitioner has procedurally defaulted his federal claim under state procedural law, a court reviewing a prisoner's § 1983 claim for compliance with § 1997e(a) will have, at best, a ruling from a prison grievance appellate body on whether the prisoner complied with the prison grievance system's procedural rules. 11 At worst, the state administrative body will not have passed at all on the prisoner's procedural compliance vel non, and the federal court must undertake an independent procedural default inquiry. This is what we must do here, for no ruling from the prison administrators addresses the procedural implications of Spruill's failure to specifically ask for money damages or his failure to name Brown in his grievances. 46 Because this exercise is essentially a matter of statutory construction-it turns on the interpretation of the Grievance System Policy-it is a question of law over which we have plenary review. See Stokes v. Dist. Attorney, 247 F.3d 539, 540-41 (3d Cir.2001). It is therefore appropriate for this Court to undertake the inquiry in the first instance. See Hudson United Bank v. LiTenda Mortgage Corp., 142 F.3d 151, 159 (3d Cir.1998) (When a district court has failed to reach a question below that becomes critical when reviewed on appeal, an appellate court may sometimes resolve the issue on appeal rather than remand to the district court. This procedure is generally appropriate when the factual record is developed and the issues provide purely legal questions, upon which an appellate court exercises plenary review. (citations omitted)). 47
48 We have reproduced in full the texts of Spruill's three grievances. See supra notes 3, 4 & 6. None requests money damages-or any other specific relief for that matter. As noted above, the defendants assert that Spruill cannot now in federal court seek money damages. As we concluded in the discussion above, we must look to the rules governing the prison's grievance system to ascertain whether Spruill has procedurally defaulted his claim for monetary relief. The portion of the Grievance System Policy that details what shall, should, and may be included in a grievance reads: 49 The inmate shall include a statement of the facts relevant to the claim. The text of the grievance shall be legible, presented in a courteous manner, and the statement of facts shall not exceed two (2) pages. The inmate should identify any persons who may have information that could be helpful in resolving the grievance. The inmate should also include information on attempts to resolve the matter informally. The inmate may also specifically state any claims he/she wishes to make concerning violations of Department directives, regulations, court orders, or other law. The inmate may include a request for compensation or other legal relief normally available from a court. 50 DC-ADM 804, Part VI.A.1.d (emphasis in original). 51 The verbs in this paragraph establish three tiers of grievance components: items that are mandatory (shall); items that are required to the extent practicable (should); and items that are optional (may). A request for money damages falls in the third category. Since an optional procedural provision cannot give rise to a procedural default, it appears that Spruill is not now precluded from seeking money damages. 52 There is, however, a possible alternative reading: The sentence at issue may be addressed not to the written contents of a grievance, but rather to the scope of relief available within the grievance system. This is not an unreasonable matter for a prison grievance system policy to address; indeed, it was the absence of a mechanism to recover monetary relief-in a prior version of the very grievance system here at issue-that generated the controversy in Booth, 532 U.S. 731, 121 S.Ct. 1819, 149 L.Ed.2d 958 (holding that the unavailability of monetary relief through a prison grievance system does not excuse a prisoner seeking only money damages from the PLRA's exhaustion requirement). See also id. at 734 & n. 1, 121 S.Ct. 1819 (noting that Pennsylvania's grievance system did not provide for recovery of money damages at the time of Booth's grievance, but that it had since been modified to permit such recovery). Interpreting the provision above as establishing the scope of available relief-and implicitly requiring that the prisoner identify the relief he seeks-would lead to the conclusion that Spruill did procedurally default his claim for monetary relief. 53 We reject this scope-of-available-relief reading for several reasons. First, grammatically the regulation reads may include a request for and not may request. Second, the sentence appears as part of a regulation directing the contents of the written grievance, not one that otherwise sets the scope of permissible relief. Third, the form itself on which grievances are filed does not include any prompt for stating the relief sought. Furthermore, the regulation does not read like a regulation that could give rise to a procedural default for failure to plead properly for relief. The regulation quoted above is far cry from, say, a regulation that reads, If the inmate desires compensation or other legal relief normally available from a court, the inmate shall request the relief with specificity in his/her initial grievance. 54 In sum, Spruill cannot be said to have failed to follow the regulations-and thus procedurally defaulted-in this respect. Nothing in the Grievance System Policy would have put Spruill on notice that he had to ask for money damages-or any particular form of relief at all. Therefore we conclude that he has satisfied § 1997e(a), and we cannot affirm the District Court's dismissal on this failure-to-exhaust ground. 55
56 The passage quoted above regarding the contents of the grievance is also the only section of the Grievance System Policy requiring that the grievance identify specific persons. On this matter, the text is mandatory, or nearly so: The inmate shall include a statement of the facts relevant to the claim.... The inmate should identify any persons who may have information that could be helpful in resolving the grievance. The inmate should also include information on attempts to resolve the matter informally. DC-ADM 804, Part VI.A.1.d. To the extent that Brown's identity is a fact[] relevant to the claim-and it is-it was mandatory for Spruill to include it. To the extent that Brown was a person[] who may have information or someone with whom Spruill made attempts to resolve the matter informally-and he was-Spruill was required to identify Brown if practicable. Spruill did not, and has offered no explanation for his failure to do so. Any grievance against Brown would now be time-barred. See DC-ADM 804, Part VI.A.1.e (Grievances must be submitted by the inmate ... within fifteen (15) working days after the events on which the claims are based.). Thus Spruill has procedurally defaulted a claim against Brown by failing to identify him. 57 But the prison's grievance process excused this procedural default: The grievance officer's Initial Review Response (the first-level determination under the Grievance System Policy) identified Brown by name. Although the response identified Brown only as someone who had seen Spruill in the course of his medical visits, it is not to be expected that a response rejecting Spruill's grievances on the merits would identify any malfeasance on Brown's part. The purpose of the regulation here is to put the prison officials on notice of the persons claimed to be guilty of wrongdoing. As such, the prison can excuse an inmate's failure to do so by identifying the unidentified persons and acknowledging that they were fairly within the compass of the prisoner's grievance. 58 The point is close, but we conclude that the prison grievance officer's recognition that Brown was involved in the events that Spruill complained of excused any procedural defects in Spruill's initial grievances. Spruill's grievances and suit are not about specific instances of insulting treatment by Brown-there would be no constitutional violation there anyway. Rather, the grievances and the suit are about a larger-scale denial of adequate medical care, in which prison officials clearly knew Brown was alleged to be implicated. Thus we reject the District Court's dismissal of Spruill's suit against Brown on these grounds. 59