Court Opinion

ID: 9412606
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-31 21:01:05.266124+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:41:11.749639
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 19-13745    Document: 65-1      Date Filed: 07/31/2023   Page: 1 of 11

                                                              [PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 19-13745
                           ____________________

        DURELL SIMS,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
        versus
        SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,

                                                    Defendant-Appellant.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Northern District of Florida
                    D.C. Docket No. 4:16-cv-00049-RH-CAS
                           ____________________
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        2                        Opinion of the Court                     19-13745

        Before BRANCH, GRANT, and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges.
        GRANT, Circuit Judge:
                Durell Sims—a Florida prisoner—says that he deserves a
        religious exemption from a Florida Department of Corrections
        rule that beards can only be a half-inch long. The district court
        agreed with him, and the Secretary of the Department does not
        push back on that substantive ruling. Instead, the Secretary argues
        that the decision was procedurally improper because an inmate
        must ﬁle a “Petition to Initiate Rulemaking” to satisfy the Prison
        Litigation Reform Act’s pre-suit exhaustion requirements. Sims
        responds that the Secretary did not preserve that issue below. We
        reject both parties’ arguments and aﬃrm the district court.
                Beginning with preservation, Sims contended that there was
        a prohibition against appellate review of any matter raised at
        summary judgment but not renewed during trial. We disagree;
        more importantly, so does the Supreme Court. See Dupree v.
        Younger, 143 S. Ct. 1382, 1389 (2023); see also Am. Builders Ins. Co. v.
        Southern-Owners Ins. Co., 71 F.4th 847, 859–60 (11th Cir. 2023).
        Though it was an open question when the parties argued this case,
        the Supreme Court has since unanimously clariﬁed that a “purely
        legal issue resolved at summary judgment” is reviewable on appeal
        even if the losing party failed to renew its arguments at or after
        trial. Dupree, 143 S. Ct. at 1386–87. 1 And that makes sense—

        1 After the Supreme Court decided Dupree, both parties addressed the new case

        in supplemental letter briefs. See Am. Builders Ins. Co., 71 F.4th at 860–61
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        19-13745                 Opinion of the Court                              3

        nothing in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or the Supreme
        Court’s precedents requires a party to ask the district court to
        reconsider a legal argument it already rejected. Because exhaustion
        under the PLRA is treated as a matter in abatement—which
        operates like a “purely legal issue” in Dupree—in this Circuit, we
        can review the district court’s decision on that issue even though
        the Secretary did not renew his argument after summary
        judgment.
               We therefore consider the Secretary’s exhaustion
        argument—but we also disagree with it. When a state sets up a
        grievance procedure for its prisoners, as Florida has done, a
        prisoner must ﬁle a grievance and exhaust the remedies available
        under that procedure before he can initiate a lawsuit. But a
        prisoner need not do anything else. Florida’s three-step grievance
        procedure for settling prisoner complaints does not include ﬁling a
        rulemaking petition, so a Florida prisoner need not seek
        rulemaking before he can sue. We aﬃrm.
                                            I.
               As a devout Muslim, Sims believes that growing a ﬁst-length
        beard is a necessary component of his religion. But that belief runs
        headlong into regulations governing the Florida corrections
        system. The Florida Department of Corrections “Grooming
        Policy,” as the parties call it, does not leave much room for choice
        on facial hair: prisoners can either be “clean shaven” or “grow and

        (refusing to consider whether an argument raised a “purely legal issue” under
        Dupree without briefing from the parties).
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        4                         Opinion of the Court                     19-13745

        maintain a half-inch beard.” Fla. Admin. Code r. 33-602.101(4).
        The policy does not allow for exceptions. Id.
                Sims sought relief through the Department’s grievance
        process, starting with the prison chaplain. At the ﬁrst step, his
        informal grievance form explained that his religious beliefs
        required him to grow a ﬁst-length beard, but that the Department’s
        grooming policy prevented him from doing so. The chaplain
        denied the grievance, concluding that—despite Sims’s own views
        on the subject—the prison’s rules were in line with his religious
        beliefs. Step two was a formal grievance to the assistant warden.
        That was also denied, which led to step three: an appeal to the
        Secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections. That too was
        rejected.
                Once Sims had completed the internal grievance process
        without success, he turned to the courts. He ﬁled a pro se civil
        action in federal court against the Secretary of Corrections,
        claiming that he should be allowed to grow a ﬁst-length beard
        because the grooming rule (at least as applied to him) violated the
        Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. See 42 U.S.C.
        § 2000cc-1. 2 RLUIPA prohibits imposing a “substantial burden” on
        an incarcerated person’s religious exercise unless that burden
        furthers a compelling government interest using the least
        restrictive means. Id. § 2000cc-1(a).

        2 Sims also contended that the grooming rule violated the First Amendment

        and that an unrelated rule—the “strip search policy”—violated both RLUIPA
        and the First Amendment. The district court granted summary judgment to
        the Secretary on each of those claims, and Sims does not appeal those rulings.
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        19-13745               Opinion of the Court                          5

               The Secretary moved to dismiss Sims’s complaint,
        contending that he had failed to exhaust all of his administrative
        remedies before ﬁling suit—a requirement under the Prison
        Litigation Reform Act, which governs how and when inmates can
        ﬁle suit to challenge prison conditions. See 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a).
        The Secretary conceded that Sims had complied with the three
        steps of the prison’s grievance process, but argued that more was
        required. The Florida Administrative Procedure Act provides that
        any “person regulated by an agency or having substantial interest
        in an agency rule may petition an agency to adopt, amend, or
        repeal a rule.” Fla. Stat. § 120.54(7)(a). Pointing to this provision,
        the Secretary contended that Sims could have—and should have—
        asked the Department to “amend” its grooming rule before he
        turned to the judicial system.
               The district court denied the Secretary’s motion to dismiss,
        concluding that the PLRA only requires that prisoners exhaust
        internal prison grievance procedures. Filing a petition for
        rulemaking, it reasoned, is not part of that process. And in any
        event, the court went on, a rulemaking petition is not classiﬁed as
        an available remedy under the PLRA because the Department does
        not inform prisoners that ﬁling one is a required step.
               Undeterred, the Secretary raised the exhaustion defense
        again at summary judgment. The district court rejected the
        argument for the second time—relying principally on its earlier
        decision—and Sims’s case went to trial.
               After a full bench trial on the merits, the district court ruled
        for Sims. The court explained that the “whole point of RLUIPA is
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        6                     Opinion of the Court                 19-13745

        to require accommodation of religion—to allow an inmate an
        exception to an otherwise-uniform policy that substantially
        burdens the inmate’s religious exercise.” The Department’s
        grooming policy, the court said, substantially burdened Sims’s
        sincere religious exercise, but the Secretary did not show that its
        half-inch beard policy was the least restrictive means of furthering
        a compelling government interest. To remedy the harm, the court
        ordered the Secretary to grant Sims an exception to the grooming
        rule, allowing him to grow a ﬁst-length beard in accordance with
        his religious beliefs.
                Rather than ﬁling any post-trial motions challenging the
        verdict, the Secretary appealed. He does not challenge the district
        court’s decision that Sims has a right under RLUIPA to grow a ﬁst-
        length beard; instead, the only question he raises is whether Sims
        exhausted the available administrative remedies as required by the
        PLRA. Sims, for his part, says the Secretary cannot bring his
        exhaustion argument here because it was not properly preserved at
        or after trial.
                                         II.
                “We review a district court’s interpretation of the PLRA’s
        exhaustion requirement de novo.” Whatley v. Smith, 898 F.3d 1072,
        1082 (11th Cir. 2018).
                                         III.
                Before we can consider the Secretary’s exhaustion
        argument, we need to decide whether it was preserved for appeal.
        Sims argued for a blanket rule against appellate review of any
        matter raised at summary judgment and not renewed in the district
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        19-13745               Opinion of the Court                          7

        court before appeal. The primary authority that he cited for this
        preservation requirement, Ortiz v. Jordan, stated broadly that a
        party could not “appeal an order denying summary judgment after
        a full trial on the merits.” 562 U.S. 180, 183–84 (2011). But the Ortiz
        court speciﬁcally declined to address whether this rule applied to
        “purely legal” questions. See id. at 190.
                 The Supreme Court recently clariﬁed in Dupree v. Younger
        that Ortiz was more limited than Sims suggests: it held that “a party
        must raise a suﬃciency-of-the-evidence claim in a post-trial motion
        to preserve it for appeal.” Dupree, 143 S. Ct. at 1389 (citing Ortiz,
        562 U.S. at 191–92). And the Dupree Court went on to explain that
        “pure questions of law” are exempt from the preservation rule
        announced in Ortiz. Id. The reason? Pure questions of law are
        “unaﬀected by future developments in the case.” Id. Because
        changes in the evidentiary landscape of a case do not aﬀect the
        resolution of a purely legal question, there is no good reason to
        require a party to renew a rejected legal argument during or after
        trial. “From the reviewing court’s perspective, there is no beneﬁt
        to having a district court reexamine a purely legal issue after trial,
        because nothing at trial will have given the district court any reason
        to question its prior analysis.” Id.
                The same is true of PLRA exhaustion. As we have
        explained, PLRA exhaustion “is nothing more than a precondition
        to an adjudication on the merits,” one that the district court
        generally can (and should) resolve at the motion-to-dismiss stage.
        Bryant v. Rich, 530 F.3d 1368, 1374–75 (11th Cir. 2008) (describing
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        8                          Opinion of the Court                        19-13745

        exhaustion as a “matter in abatement”). 3 When ruling on
        exhaustion, a judge can properly “resolve factual disputes so long
        as the factual disputes do not decide the merits and the parties have
        suﬃcient opportunity to develop a record.” Id. at 1376 (footnote
        omitted). So by the time of a trial on the merits, no disputed facts
        related to exhaustion remain—a district court will have already
        decided the issue. 4 See id. at 1374–76, 1376 n.15.
                Dupree’s logic applies here whether or not PLRA exhaustion
        is termed a pure question of law. A judge usually resolves any
        factual disputes related to exhaustion before a party moves for
        summary judgment—and always before a prisoner’s case can move
        on to trial on the merits. See id.; see also Turner v. Burnside, 541 F.3d
        1077, 1082–83 (11th Cir. 2008). Dupree makes clear that no action

        3 Some dismissals for PLRA exhaustion are possible even before a party moves

        to dismiss. See, e.g., Wells v. Brown, 58 F.4th 1347, 1351–52 (11th Cir. 2023) (en
        banc). And while exhaustion is “not ordinarily the proper subject for a
        summary judgment” owing to its separation from the merits, it can be decided
        there. Bryant, 530 F.3d at 1374–75. But if it is, it should be treated as if the
        argument was “raised in a motion to dismiss.” Id. at 1375 (quotation omitted);
        see also Turner v. Burnside, 541 F.3d 1077, 1082–83 (11th Cir. 2008) (explaining
        the process for deciding a motion to dismiss for lack of exhaustion).
        4 We could imagine a scenario where the inadvertent disclosure of new

        information at trial could change a district court’s pretrial exhaustion analysis.
        But exhaustion is “an affirmative defense the defendant must plead and
        prove.” Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 204, 216 (2007). In that scenario, the
        defendant bears the burden of alerting the district court to the changed facts
        and the need for reconsideration. Because the defendant necessarily would
        have made this argument at trial, the issue would have been raised there—and
        thus preserved for appeal in any event.
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        19-13745               Opinion of the Court                        9

        at or after trial is required to preserve a purely legal issue last
        addressed at summary judgment for appellate review. So too here.
        We can review a district court’s PLRA exhaustion decision even if
        a party fails to raise it after the summary judgment phase of a case.
                                             IV.
               Though the Secretary’s exhaustion argument is preserved, it
        will not win the day. Under the PLRA, prisoners must exhaust
        “such administrative remedies as are available” before ﬁling suit in
        federal court. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). To do that, a prisoner must
        “complete the administrative review process in accordance with
        the applicable procedural rules.” Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 218
        (2007) (quoting Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 88 (2006)). And what
        are the “applicable procedural rules”? Those requirements are
        deﬁned by the prison grievance process itself, not by the PLRA. Id.
        So we look to the requirements of the applicable prison grievance
        system to determine the boundaries of proper exhaustion. See
        Dimanche v. Brown, 783 F.3d 1204, 1210 (11th Cir. 2015); see also
        Bingham v. Thomas, 654 F.3d 1171, 1175 (11th Cir. 2011).
               Florida’s “Inmate Grievance Procedure” (contained in
        Chapter 33-103 of the Florida Administrative Code) sets out steps
        for “the administrative settlement” of prisoner complaints. Fla.
        Admin. Code r. 33-103.001(1). Prisoners can ﬁle complaints
        regarding, among other matters, the “substance, interpretation,
        and application of rules and procedures” that aﬀect them
        personally. Fla. Admin. Code r. 33-103.001(4)(a). To complete the
        process outlined in that regulation, a prisoner must ﬁrst ﬁle an
        informal grievance with a designated prison staﬀ member. See Fla.
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        10                     Opinion of the Court                19-13745

        Admin. Code r. 33-103.005. If that fails, the prisoner ﬁles a formal
        grievance with the institution’s warden or assistant warden. Fla.
        Admin. Code r. 33-103.006(1)(a). An unsuccessful formal grievance
        is followed by an appeal to the Secretary. Fla. Admin. Code r. 33-
        103.007(1); see also Dimanche, 783 F.3d at 1211.
                What the procedures do not mention is a Petition to Initiate
        Rulemaking. Nor do they reference the Florida Administrative
        Procedure Act, where the Petition to Initiate Rulemaking process
        is found. Indeed, nothing in Chapter 33-103 suggests that an
        inmate must take any steps other than the ones outlined above.
        Quite the opposite: Chapter 33-103 states that if a prison fails to
        timely respond to a prisoner’s informal grievance, formal
        grievance, and appeal, the prisoner is “entitled to proceed with
        judicial remedies as he would have exhausted his administrative
        remedies.” Fla. Admin. Code r. 33-103.011(4).
                The Department’s “Inmate Orientation Handbook” tells the
        same story. When inmates enter the custody of the Department,
        they are given this handbook to help them understand the general
        rules, procedures, and requirements of prison life. See Fla. Dep’t
        of Corr., Inmate Orientation Handbook 2 (2018). It states that
        Chapter 33-103 contains the procedures for ﬁling a grievance and
        resolving a complaint. Id. at 18. Nothing in the handbook suggests
        that a prisoner must do anything beyond the three steps in Chapter
        33-103 to exhaust administrative remedies. We take the Florida
        regulations and inmate handbook at their word—prisoners need
        not ﬁle a rulemaking petition to be entitled to proceed with judicial
        remedies.
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        19-13745              Opinion of the Court                      11

               In short, Florida’s grievance procedures do not require that
        a prisoner ﬁle a Petition to Initiate Rulemaking. Florida’s process
        instead requires just three things: an informal grievance, a formal
        grievance, and an appeal to the Secretary. The Secretary does not
        dispute that Sims adequately completed each of those three steps.
        Sims, then, was free to ﬁle this lawsuit.
               AFFIRMED.