Court Opinion

ID: 9949724
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-12 15:01:08.758032+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:47.806857
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-12635     Document: 32-1      Date Filed: 03/12/2024   Page: 1 of 7

                                                       [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                     In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                          For the Eleventh Circuit

                            ____________________

                                  No. 22-12635
                            Non-Argument Calendar
                            ____________________

       HANOI HORMACHEA,
                                                        Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
       versus
       SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF
       CORRECTIONS, et al.,

                                                              Defendants,

       DR. HARIDAS BHADJA,
       Chief Medical Oﬃcer at Okeechobee
       Correctional Institution, in oﬃcial capacity,
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       2                          Opinion of the Court                         22-12635

                                                                Defendant-Appellee.

                                ____________________

                    Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Southern District of Florida
                       D.C. Docket No. 2:21-cv-14227-JEM
                             ____________________

       Before JILL PRYOR, BRANCH, and BLACK, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Hanoi Hormachea, a state prisoner proceeding pro se, ap-
       peals the dismissal of his civil rights claim brought under 42 U.S.C.
       § 1983 for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. He asserts he
       exhausted his administrative remedies by ﬁling a timely informal
       grievance and later ﬁling a formal medical grievance because other
       remedies were both unavailable and futile. After review, 1 we af-
       ﬁrm.

       1 “We review a dismissal for failure to exhaust administrative remedies de

       novo.” Shivers v. United States, 1 F.4th 924, 936 n.9 (11th Cir. 2021). “[D]eciding
       a motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust administrative remedies is a two-step
       process.” Turner v. Burnside, 541 F.3d 1077, 1082 (11th Cir. 2008). First, we
       take the plaintiff’s factual allegations as true and determine if they entitle the
       defendant to dismissal for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. Id. Sec-
       ond, if dismissal is not warranted at the first step, the court should make spe-
       cific findings to resolve disputes of fact and should dismiss if, based on those
       findings, the defendant has shown a failure to exhaust. Id.
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       22-12635              Opinion of the Court                        3

                              I. BACKGROUND
               On July 25, 2019, Hormachea ﬁled an informal grievance.
       He grieved that he fell in the dining hall on July 11, 2019 and was
       seen by Dr. Haridas Bhadja on July 15, 2019, who prescribed him
       thirty tablets of ibuprofen for ninety days and scheduled him for an
       X-ray on July 17, 2019. Hormachea complained that he had not
       seen the doctor since then and that he was unable to move his arm
       as a result of the pain. He also complained that he had not yet
       received an ointment the doctor prescribed him on July 11, 2019.
       His informal grievance was approved and responded to on July 29,
       2019. The response stated that Plaintiﬀ had “a scheduled appoint-
       ment with the provider in the near future” and that if he experi-
       enced future problems, he may present his concerns to the health
       care staﬀ through sick call.
              On October 10, 2019, Hormachea was transferred to an-
       other facility. Hormachea learned upon arrival that he had been
       transferred to receive treatment for his shoulder injury. On the day
       he arrived, he was seen by a doctor who took X-rays and diagnosed
       Hormachea with a broken bone. The doctor prescribed an injec-
       tion for the pain and scheduled another appointment within four
       weeks.
              Hormachea ﬁled a formal grievance on October 21, 2019. In
       his formal grievance, he stated that Dr. Bhadja failed to provide
       proper treatment for his shoulder after he was seen by him on July
       15, 2019. He grieved that Dr. Bhadja’s determination that there was
       nothing wrong with his left shoulder constituted deliberate
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                22-12635

       indiﬀerence to his serious medical conditions. The formal griev-
       ance was denied on November 4, 2019, without any mention of
       non-compliance with the grievance procedures. Hormachea ap-
       pealed the decision to the Florida Department of Corrections
       (FDOC) Oﬃce of the Secretary on November 16, 2019. The appeal
       was returned without action on December 13, 2019 for non-com-
       plaince with the grievance procedures set forth in Chapter 33-103.
       The response to the appeal stated that Hormachea was “outside
       the timeframe to grieve this issue as [he] didn’t submit a formal
       grievance on it until 10/21/19 and the Institution should have re-
       turned [his] formal grievance.”
                                II. DISCUSSION
               The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) provides that no
       action may be brought with respect to prison conditions under 42
       U.S.C. § 1983 by a prisoner until their available administrative rem-
       edies are exhausted. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). “There is no question
       that exhaustion is mandatory under the PLRA and that unex-
       hausted claims cannot be brought in court.” Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S.
       199, 211 (2007). The PLRA’s exhaustion requirement “entirely
       eliminates judicial discretion and instead mandates strict exhaus-
       tion, irrespective of the forms of relief sought and oﬀered through
       administrative avenues.” Johnson v. Meadows, 418 F.3d 1152, 1155
       (11th Cir. 2005) (quotation marks omitted). “The PLRA exhaustion
       requirement requires proper exhaustion,” which “means using all
       steps that the agency holds out, and doing so properly (so that the
       agency addresses the issues on the merits).” Woodford v. Ngo, 548
       U.S. 81, 90, 93 (2006) (emphasis omitted). Proper exhaustion
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       22-12635               Opinion of the Court                        5

       “demands compliance with an agency’s deadlines and other critical
       procedural rules.” Id. at 90.
               Under the FDOC grievance procedures outlined in Florida’s
       Inmate Grievance Procedure, Fla. Admin. Code ch. 33-103, in rele-
       vant part, an inmate is required to (1) ﬁle an informal grievance
       with the staﬀ member responsible for the particular area of the
       problem, (2) ﬁle a formal grievance with the warden’s oﬃce, and
       (3) if an appeal is desired, submit an appeal to the Oﬃce of the
       Secretary. Parzyck v. Prison Health Servs., Inc., 627 F.3d 1215, 1218
       (11th Cir. 2010); Fla. Admin. Code R. 33-103.005–.007. A formal
       grievance must be received no later than 15 days after (1) the date
       on which the informal grievance was responded to, or (2) the date
       on which the incident or action being grieved occurred if an infor-
       mal grievance was not ﬁled pursuant to the circumstances speciﬁed
       in Rule 33-103.006(3). Fla. Admin. Code R. 33-103.011(1)(b). If the
       formal grievance is not timely ﬁled, a grievance or its appeal may
       be returned to the inmate without further processing. Id. R. 33-
       103.014(1)(d)–(e).
              The district court did not err in granting Bhadja’s motion to
       dismiss because Hormachea failed to exhaust his administrative
       remedies. Exhaustion is mandatory under the PLRA. See Jones, 549
       U.S. at 211. Hormachea received a response to his informal griev-
       ance on July 29, 2019, and under Florida’s Inmate Grievance Proce-
       dure, he was required to ﬁle his formal grievance no later than 15
       days after receiving that response. See Fla. Admin. Code R. 33-
       103.011(1)(b). However, Hormachea did not ﬁle his formal
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       6                          Opinion of the Court                        22-12635

       grievance until October 21, 2019, over two months after the admin-
       istrative deadline expired. Because Hormachea’s formal grievance
       was untimely ﬁled, he failed to comply with the procedural rules
       of the Inmate Grievance Procedure, as required to exhaust admin-
       istrative remedies. 2 See Woodford, 548 U.S. at 90, 93. Thus, the dis-
       trict court did not err in dismissing his complaint for failure to ex-
       haust administrative remedies.
               As to Hormachea’s argument that administrative remedies
       were unavailable to him, the district court considered that argu-
       ment when it found his allegations of “gate-keepers . . . shortstop-
       ping” him did not change the outcome. Additionally, Hormachea
       failed to allege any facts supporting a plausible inference that ad-
       ministrative remedies were unavailable. While he alleged various
       people in the administrative system “created . . . impediments,” he
       never explained what those impediments were. Likewise, though
       he invoked the “machination, misrepresentation, or intimidation”
       category of unavailable administrative procedures, he did not iden-
       tify any machination, misrepresentation, or intimidation. See Ross
       v. Blake, 578 U.S. 632, 643 (2016) (noting, as an administrative rem-
       edy not capable of use to obtain relief, “when prison administrators
       thwart inmates from taking advantage of a grievance process

       2 The district court also did not err in finding the administrative panel’s review

       of Hormachea’s untimely formal grievance on the merits did not render it
       timely. Nothing in Florida’s Inmate Grievance Procedure law or the PLRA
       indicates that an administrative review of an untimely grievance on the merits
       renders that grievance timely. See Fla. Admin. Code ch. 33-103; 42 U.S.C.
       § 1997e(a).
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       22-12635               Opinion of the Court                          7

       through machination, misrepresentation, or intimidation”). In-
       stead, he referenced legitimate procedural steps which resulted in
       reviews that did not result in his favor. Such contentions are con-
       clusory and do not raise his allegations above the speculative level.
       See Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (explaining a
       plaintiﬀ’s factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to re-
       lief above the speculative level, and something “more than labels
       and conclusions” is required). Disagreement with an administra-
       tive body’s rulings and procedures does not constitute unavailabil-
       ity of the process. See Ross, 578 U.S. 643-44. The district court also
       did not err in rejecting Hormachea’s argument that the administra-
       tive grievance process was futile, because futility is not a defense to
       the PLRA’s exhaustion requirements. See Alexander v. Hawk, 159
       F.3d 1321, 1325-26 (11th Cir. 1998) (stating futility of pursuing ad-
       ministrative remedies is not an exception to the exhaustion require-
       ments of the PLRA).
                               III. CONCLUSION
             The district court did not err in dismissing Hormachea’s
       complaint for failure to exhaust his administrative remedies be-
       cause his formal grievance was not timely ﬁled. Accordingly, we
       aﬃrm.
              AFFIRMED.