Court Opinion

ID: 9410905
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-25 00:00:51.357631+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:00.802707
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-20582        Document: 00516831058             Page: 1      Date Filed: 07/24/2023

             United States Court of Appeals
                  for the Fifth Circuit
                                     ____________                      United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                Fifth Circuit

                                      No. 22-20582                            FILED
                                                                          July 24, 2023
                                    Summary Calendar
                                    ____________                          Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                               Clerk
   Agustin Calderon,

                                                                    Plaintiff—Appellant,

                                            versus

   Assistant Warden T. Hutto; Captain Austin; Jeffrey
   Richardson, Senior Warden; Mental Health Doctor Ortiz;
   Major Bobby Rigsby; Caleb Brumley,

                                              Defendants—Appellees.
                     ______________________________

                     Appeal from the United States District Court
                         for the Southern District of Texas
                               USDC No. 4:21-CV-812
                     ______________________________

   Before Stewart, Dennis, and Willett, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam:*
         Agustin Calderon, Texas prisoner # 2200225, appeals the dismissal
   without prejudice of his civil rights complaint for failure to exhaust
   administrative remedies. On appeal, he contends that the district court erred
   by dismissing his claims for failure to exhaust his administrative remedies

         _____________________
         *
             This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-20582      Document: 00516831058          Page: 2    Date Filed: 07/24/2023

                                    No. 22-20582

   because this failure can be excused by his allegations of imminent danger at
   the time of filing. We review “the grant of summary judgment de novo,
   applying the same standards as the district court.” Dillon v. Rogers, 596 F.3d
   260, 266 (5th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
          It is undisputed that Calderon failed to properly exhaust his
   administrative remedies, insofar as he filed his federal complaint nearly one
   month before he received a disposition of his Step Two appeal. See Johnson
   v. Johnson, 385 F.3d 503, 515-16 (5th Cir. 2004); see also Gonzalez v. Seal, 702
   F.3d 785, 788 (5th Cir. 2012) (“It is irrelevant whether exhaustion is achieved
   during the federal proceeding.”). The question is whether, as Calderon
   claims, this failure can be excused by his allegations of imminent danger at
   the time of filing. It cannot.
          We have addressed and rejected similar arguments in the context of
   the danger posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of Hurricane
   Katrina. See Valentine v. Collier, 978 F.3d 154, 160-62 (5th Cir. 2020)
   (holding that the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s (PLRA) exhaustion
   requirements were not excused by the COVID-19 pandemic); Dillon, 596
   F.3d at 270 (rejecting the argument that an inmate’s failure to exhaust
   administrative remedies should be excused based on the “reprehensible”
   conditions at the temporary facility he was evacuated to following Hurricane
   Katrina). “[E]mergencies are not license to carve out new exceptions to the
   PLRA’s exhaustion requirement, an area where our authority is
   constrained.” Valentine, 978 F.3d at 161 (internal quotation marks and
   citation omitted).
          AFFIRMED.

                                          2