Opinion ID: 4539461
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: standards of review and legal framework

Text: We liberally construe pro se pleadings and hold them to a less stringent standard than counseled pleadings. Alba v. Montford, 517 F.3d 1249, 1252 (11th Cir. 2008). We review a district court’s interpretation of the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement de novo. Whatley v. Smith, 898 F.3d 1072, 1082 (11th Cir. 2018). However, we review the district court’s factual findings on the issue of exhaustion for clear error. Id. For a factual finding to be clearly erroneous, we must be left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed after reviewing the evidence. Id. For all other facts, we accept as true the facts pleaded in the plaintiff’s complaint and draw all reasonable inferences in his favor. Id. The PLRA provides: “No action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 . . . by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted.” 42 U.S.C. § 1997e. The district court must undertake a two-step 9 Case: 19-11248 Date Filed: 06/05/2020 Page: 10 of 15 process when determining whether a prisoner has exhausted his administrative remedies. First, the district court must examine the factual allegations in the motion to dismiss and plaintiff’s response, “and if they conflict, takes the plaintiff’s version of the facts as true.” Turner v. Burnside, 541 F.3d 1077, 1082 (11th Cir. 2008). Second, if the complaint is not then subject to dismissal, the court must “make specific findings in order to resolve the disputed factual issues related to exhaustion.” Id. The defendant bears the burden of proving that the plaintiff has failed to exhaust his available administrative remedies. Id. “Once the court makes findings on the disputed issues of fact, it then decides whether under those findings the prisoner has exhausted his available administrative remedies.” Id. at 1083. To properly exhaust administrative remedies a prisoner must complete the administrative review process in accordance with the applicable procedural rules— rules that are defined not by the PLRA, but by the prison grievance process itself. Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 218 (2007). “Compliance with prison grievance procedures, therefore, is all that is required by the PLRA to properly exhaust, . . . but it is the prison’s requirements, and not the PLRA, that define the boundaries of proper exhaustion.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). An untimely or otherwise procedurally defective administrative grievance is insufficient to meet § 1997e(a)’s exhaustion requirement. Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 83-84 10 Case: 19-11248 Date Filed: 06/05/2020 Page: 11 of 15 (2006). Indeed, a prisoner must exhaust his administrative remedies even when doing so would be futile. Alexander v. Hawk, 159 F.3d 1321, 1325-26 (11th Cir. 1998). An “available” remedy does not mean an “adequate administrative remedy.” Id. at 1326-28. “The test for deciding whether the ordinary grievance procedures were available must be an objective one: that is, would ‘a similarly situated individual of ordinary firmness’ have deemed them available.” Turner, 541 F.3d at 1085 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court has identified three kinds of circumstances in which an administrative remedy is unavailable. Ross v. Blake, 136 S. Ct. 1850, 1859 (2016). First, “an administrative procedure is unavailable when (despite what regulations or guidance materials may promise) it operates as a simple dead end— with officers unable or consistently unwilling to provide any relief.” Id. Second, “an administrative scheme might be so opaque that it becomes, practically speaking, incapable of use.” Id. Third, a remedy may be unavailable “when prison administrators thwart inmates from taking advantage of a grievance process through machination, misrepresentation, or intimidation.” Id. at 1860.