Opinion ID: 770104
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Structure, Purpose, and Legislative History of the PLRA

Text: 24 Since the text of both 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) and 18 U.S.C. § 3626(g) are ambiguous, we turn to the structure and purpose of the statute as a whole, the legislative history of the PLRA, and the broader legal context for interpretive guidance concerning the meaning of prison conditions and the relationship between § 1997e(a) and § 3626(g)(2). See McCarthy v. Bronson, 500 U.S. 136, 139 (1991); Crandon v. United States, 494 U.S. 152, 158 (1990) (in addition to statutory language, courts must also look to the design of the statute as a whole and to its object and policy to determine the statute's meaning). 25 Sections 3626(g)(2) and 1997e(a), enacted by §§ 802 and 803 of the PLRA, respectively, advance distinct statutory purposes. While 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) is concerned with filtering out frivolous suits administratively, before they get to court, 18 U.S.C. § 3626-codified in an entirely different title of the U.S. Code-is concerned with the different purpose of preventing courts from micromanaging prison systems . . . [and] usurping the authority given to prison administrators to decide matters of routine prison administration. Baskerville, 1998 WL 778396, at  (internal quotation marks, citations, and footnote omitted); see also Benjamin, 172 F.3d at 182 (Calabresi, J., concurring) (noting that by enacting § 3626, Congress meant to get the federal courts out of the business of running jails). 26 In this light, the term government officials in § 3626(g)(2) is most plausibly understood to refer to administrative and policymaking officials, rather than those prison employees, such as the corrections officers alleged to have used excessive physical force against Nussle, who have day-to-day contact with inmates but no administrative or policymaking authority. See Giannattasio v. Artuz, No. 97 Civ. 7606, 2000 WL 335242, at  (concluding that the second category in § 3626(g)(2) refers to acts of supervisory officials, such as the imposition of general rules and policies, that influence how a prison is run . . . [and not] day-to-day interactions between prisoners and corrections officers); Baskerville, 1998 WL 778396, at  (interpreting § 3626(g)(2) in light of that section's purpose to conclude that the definition contemplates actions by prison officials that have broad effects on prison administration). A similar use of the term official in a different part of the same section supports this conclusion. Section 3626(a)(3)(F), concerned with the prerequisites for the issuance of prisoner release orders, confers standing to oppose such release orders upon [a]ny State or local official whose jurisdiction or function includes the appropriation of funds for prison facilities; the construction, operation, or maintenance of those facilities; or the prosecution or custody of prisoners who might be released under such orders. See, e.g., Ruiz v. Estelle, 161 F.3d 814, 819 21 (5th Cir. 1998) (discussing and interpreting § 3626(a)(3)(F)), cert. denied, 526 U.S. 1158 (1999). As in § 3626(g)(2), this usage of the word official quite clearly refers to those officials with administrative or policymaking responsibility. 27 An examination of cases in which § 3626 directly has been applied also reinforces this conclusion: the types of government officials who were defendants or parties to consent decrees in the institutional reform actions brought prior to the enactment of the PLRA routinely were senior policymaking or administrative officials. See, e.g., Miller v. French, 120 S. Ct. 2246, 2250 51 (2000) (inmate class action initially brought against Indiana prison officials, including superintendent of correctional facility); Ruiz v. Johnson, 178 F.3d 385, 387 (5th Cir. 1999) (inmate class action initially brought against Texas prison officials, including director of Texas Department of Criminal Justice and members of Texas Board of Criminal Justice), abrogated by French, 120 S.Ct. 2246; Benjamin, 172 F.3d at 149 50 (seven class actions by pretrial detainees initially brought against New York City prison officials, including commissioner of corrections), cert. denied, 120 S.Ct. 72 (1999); Hadix v. Johnson, 133 F.3d 940, 941 (6th Cir.) (inmate class action initially brought against various state prison officials in Michigan), cert. denied, 524 U.S. 952 (1998); Inmates of Suffolk County Jail v. Rouse, 129 F.3d 649, 652 (1st Cir. 1997) (class action by pretrial detainees initially brought against Massachusetts prison officials, including Suffolk County sheriff and Massachusetts corrections commissioner), cert. denied, 524 U.S. 951 (1998); Gavin v. Branstad, 122 F.3d 1081, 1083 (8th Cir. 1997) (inmate class action initially brought against a number of Iowa state officials), cert. denied, 524 U.S. 955 (1998). Moreover, many of the institutional reform actions to which 18 U.S.C. § 3626 is addressed initially were brought as class actions. See, e.g., Benjamin, 172 F.3d at 149 50. By their nature, such aggregated claims target the actions of senior officials, and, indeed, the prospective relief that subsequently resulted typically took the form of consent decrees between plaintiffs and elected or appointed state officials or injunctions mandating action at the policymaking levels of the state or local government, not lower level government employees. See, e.g., id. (discussing consent decrees that were entered in actions brought by classes of pretrial detainees in mid-1970s). See generally Mark Tushnet & Larry Yackle, Symbolic Statutes and Real Laws: The Pathologies of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 47 DUKE L.J. 1, 12 22 (1997) (discussing the kinds of litigation in the 1970s and 1980s that catalyzed the political and judicial responses that ultimately resulted in the enactment of the PLRA). 28 We therefore decline the defendants' invitation to blindly import the 18 U.S.C. § 3626(g)(2) definition of civil actions brought with respect to prison conditions into 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) without regard to context and the distinct statutory purposes that these two provisions advance. See Carter, 1999 WL 14014, at  4; Baskerville, 1998 WL 778396, at . Cf. French, 120 S.Ct. at 2259 (automatic stay provision of § 3626(e)(2) must be read not in isolation, but in the context of § 3626 as a whole). And even to the extent that we may rely upon § 3626(g)(2), it stretches that provision's definition too far to characterize lower level government employees, such as corrections officers, as government officials, since such a reading of the term officials would include just about any government employee without regard to level of responsibility or authority. See Giannattasio, 2000 WL 335242, at . 29 An examination of the legislative history of the PLRA suggests the same result. The PLRA's sponsors broadly categorized the bill's provisions as being divided into two major sets of provisions: (1) those aimed at deterring frivolous suits by inmates by raising the cost to prisoners of engaging in inmate litigation fun-and-games (garnishment procedure in amendment to in forma pauperis provisions; exhaustion provisions; revocation of good-time credits for frivolous suits; prohibition against suing for mental or emotional injury absent showing of physical injury); and (2) those that establish some tough new guidelines for Federal courts when evaluating legal challenges to prison conditions . . . [in order to] restrain liberal Federal judges who see violations of constitutional rights in every prisoner complaint and who have used these complaints to micromanage State and local prison systems. 141 CONG. REC. S14626 (daily ed. Sept. 29, 1995) (statement of Sen. Dole, Majority Leader of the Senate). 10 With respect to the first category, floor statements overwhelmingly suggest that the concern over frivolous suits in this context refers to subject matter, rather than to the factual merits of a claim that, if proven, would be meritorious. See, e.g., 141 CONG. REC. S14418 (daily ed. Sept. 27, 1995) (statement of Sen. Hatch, Chair of Senate Judiciary Committee) (PLRA is designed to help restore balance to prison conditions litigation and . . . ensure that Federal court orders are limited to remedying actual violations of prisoners' rights) (emphasis added); 141 CONG. REC. S14413 (daily ed. Sept. 27, 1995) (statement of Sen. Abraham) (providing examples of frivolous cases to be prevented as insufficient storage locker space, a defective haircut by a prison barber, the failure of prison officials to invite a prisoner to a pizza party for a departing prison employee, and yes, being served chunky peanut butter instead of the creamy variety). 30 As revealed by this examination of statutory purpose and context, it is clear that particular instances of assault or excessive force were never meant to be included within the ambit of § 3626(g)(2) at all. In context, it makes little sense to apply the definition in § 3626(g)(2) to particular cases of assault or excessive force that do not contemplate ongoing judicial supervision or some other form of prospective relief affecting large numbers of inmates-let alone individual claims that complain of past, wholly completed conduct-since § 3626 does not even cover claims for compensatory money damages. See 18 U.S.C. § 3626(g)(7) (the term 'prospective relief' means all relief other than compensatory monetary damages). In addition to the rather inept use of language that would result from the defendants' interpretation, Booth, 206 F.3d at 302 (Noonan, J., concurring and dissenting), including particular claims of this sort would do nothing to advance the purpose of the section. 31 Consideration of the background Eighth Amendment principles against which Congress enacted the PLRA also supports this conclusion. Pre-PLRA Supreme Court decisions disaggregate the broad category of Eighth Amendment claims so as to distinguish between excessive force claims, on the one hand, and conditions of confinement claims, on the other. In Hudson v. McMillian, for example, the Supreme Court reiterated that because contemporary standards of decency always are violated by the malicious and sadistic use of force against prisoners, a less rigorous showing of injury was required for such claims than for conditions of confinement claims, for which only those deprivations denying the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities give rise to claims under the Eighth Amendment. 503 U.S. 1, 9 (1992) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also id. at 11 (To deny . . . the difference between punching a prisoner in the face and serving him unappetizing food is to ignore the concepts of dignity, civilized standards, humanity, and decency that animate the Eighth Amendment. (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 835 36 (1994) (distinguishing excessive force and conditions of confinement claims as being subject to different mens rea requirements). 32 The principles underlying this distinction are equally applicable here. While § 1997e(a) filters through administrative grievance procedures prison conditions claims that may be frivolous as to subject matter, the text, structure, purpose, and legislative history of the PLRA provide ample justification for not treating excessive force or assault claims in the same manner. Especially in light of our obligation to construe statutory exceptions narrowly, in order to give full effect to the general rule of non-exhaustion in § 1983 cases, see City of Edmonds v. Oxford House, Inc., 514 U.S. 725, 731 32 (1995); Patsy v. Board of Regents, 457 U.S. 496, 508 (1982), we distinguish between excessive force and prison conditions claims for purposes of exhaustion under § 1997e(a) and conclude that exhaustion of administrative remedies is not required for claims of assault or excessive force brought under § 1983.