Court Opinion

ID: 9494519
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:39:22.500551+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:27.011787
License: Public Domain

MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I believe that the judgment in this case should be reversed because Mr. Lyon did not exhaust his administrative remedies. With respect, I can find no justification for the court’s view that such remedies were not available within the meaning of the statute because Mr. Vande Krol somehow misled Mr. Lyon. If Mr. Vande Krol had told Mr. Lyon that there was no grievance procedure, or had refused to furnish him with available forms, we would have a different case. But here, taking Mr. Lyon’s allegations at face value, there was merely a denial of responsibility on Mr. Vande Krol’s part, not a statement that no grievance procedure was available to determine whether that was true or to undo what “Jewish experts” had allegedly done. Indeed, it is quite plain that there was such a procedure, that Mr. Lyon knew it, and that he was not denied access to it. At most, Mr. Vande Krol’s statement was a prediction that Mr. Lyon would lose if he filed a grievance, but this does not mean that a grievance procedure was not available to him. Mr. Lyon therefore cannot be relieved of the responsibility of pursuing that procedure or of the consequences of failing to do so.
I therefore respectfully dissent.