Opinion ID: 782877
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: exhaustion of claims

Text: 30 Although a grievance that is untimely under prison rules still gives state prison officials an opportunity to address an inmate's complaints, a grievance that does not give officials notice of the nature of the inmate's grievance does not afford the officials the opportunity the PLRA requires. Thomas argues that between his official grievance form and his cooperation with the prison's Use of Force investigation, in which he specifically mentioned the presence of other officers who failed to protect him, he gave prison officials sufficient notice for them to address his concerns in the grievance process. True though that may be, our cases require more. Because Thomas made no reference to the issues involved in his failure-to-protect claim in his grievance, we must find that he failed to exhaust his administrative remedies with respect to the claims against Kepler, Starcher, and Waddell. 31 Thomas's grievance form does not offer the kind of information that our precedent requires for exhausting his claims against Kepler, Starcher, and Waddell. Thomas's grievance mentions neither the defendants themselves nor any facts suggesting that officers other than Woolum knew anything of the incident. Thomas was indisputably aware of the other officers' presence at the time, as he mentioned them in the incident report he filed the day after the beating, so this case falls under the rule of Curry v. Scott, 249 F.3d 493 (6th Cir.2001), which requires that a prisoner file a grievance against the person he ultimately seeks to sue, id. at 505. Similarly, in Hartsfield v. Vidor, we ruled that a prisoner who named three officers in his grievance, and who could have but did not name two additional officers, had not exhausted his administrative remedies with respect to the two previously unnamed officers. Hartsfield, 199 F.3d at 308-09. He thus did not administratively exhaust his ... claim as to each defendant associated with the claim. Burton v. Jones, 321 F.3d 569, 574 (6th Cir.2003). Although an inmate need not identify each officer by name when the identities of the particular officers are unknown, Thomas here knew one on-looking officer's identity and knew that others had watched the beating as well. Accordingly, his grievance form should have noted either the other officers' names or the fact that other officers had seen the beating. 32 Thomas suggests that his deficient grievance notwithstanding, he satisfied the exhaustion requirement by participating fully in the prison's internal investigation. Indeed, the day after the attack, Thomas told prison officials that Officer Waddell and other officers had witnessed Officer Woolum's actions, a notification that — when combined with Thomas's subsequent filing of an official grievance regarding the incident — would seem to accomplish many purposes of the PLRA's exhaustion requirement. However, it is no longer sufficient for an inmate simply to give prison officials notice of the complaint by cooperating with other investigations, as was sufficient in such pre-PLRA substantial compliance cases as Wolff v. Moore, 199 F.3d 324, 329 (6th Cir.1999). In our post-PLRA cases we have emphasized that the exhaustion requirement in § 1997e(a) is directed at exhausting the prisoner's administrative remedies, and that Use of Force or other investigations do not satisfy the PLRA's dictates. Freeman, 196 F.3d at 644. In determining whether the inmate has exhausted his or her remedies, we thus look to the inmate's grievance, not to other information compiled in other investigations. Although an inmate grievance might conceivably specifically incorporate or otherwise refer to information previously obtained, it must do so in a manner that points prison officials to the relevant materials. That is not what happened here. 33 Finally, Thomas suggests that our requirement that prison grievances be filed against potential defendants, Curry, 249 F.3d at 505, mistakes the prison grievance process as a type of civil action. Grievances are not filed against individual persons, Thomas argues, but are rather filed regarding certain problems; accordingly, a grievance should be understood to exhaust remedies so long as it alerts prison officials to a problem to be investigated, whether or not it identifies specific individuals. Sims v. Apfel, 530 U.S. 103, 120 S.Ct. 2080, 147 L.Ed.2d 80 (2000), supports Thomas's position. In Sims, a Social Security case, the Supreme Court ruled that even when a party is required to exhaust administrative remedies, the plaintiff is not necessarily required to exhaust each specific issue that he or she intends to bring to federal court. See id. at 112, 120 S.Ct. 2080 (plurality); id. at 113, 120 S.Ct. 2080 (O'Connor, J., concurring). Rather, the desirability of a court imposing a requirement of issue exhaustion depends on the degree to which the analogy to normal adversarial litigation applies in a particular administrative proceeding. Id. at 109, 120 S.Ct. 2080 (majority). Applying the reasoning of Sims to the problem-solving mechanism of an inmate grievance procedure, a court might well conclude that the process is inquisitorial rather than adversarial, id. at 111, 120 S.Ct. 2080 (plurality), and thus that a court should not impose an issue-exhaustion requirement on top of the PLRA's general exhaustion. On that view, an inmate's grievance informing prison officials that he had been beaten by an officer would be sufficient to notify the prison of claims arising out of that beating, including, perhaps, a claim that other officers had witnessed the event but failed to intervene. However, we are bound by our decision in Curry, which apparently found the Sims reasoning inapplicable in the prison context and which thus requires prisoners to file grievances against specific defendants. See Hinchman v. Moore, 312 F.3d 198, 203 (6th Cir.2002) (noting that one panel cannot overrule a prior panel's published decision). Thomas is thus subject to Curry 's standards; as his grievance contained no information relevant to his claims against Kepler, Starcher, and Waddell, we conclude that he has not exhausted his claims with respect to those defendants.