Opinion ID: 786604
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Spruill's Failure to Ask for Money Damages

Text: 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