Court Opinion

ID: 9634648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:19:09.44871+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:02.457832
License: Public Domain

IKUTA, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part:
The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (“PLRA”), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a), commands that, “No action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under ... Federal law, by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted.” Today, the majority creates a new exception to this exhaustion requirement, one that will free prisoners from exhausting available remedies merely because the prison failed to provide information requested by the prisoners to support their claims. Because this new exception is untethered to the statutory language of the PLRA and lacks any basis in case law, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s reasoning in part III. A.1.1
Though neither the PLRA nor our case law has explicitly defined the term “available,” we have indicated that an administrative remedy is available if a prisoner has “the opportunity and ability” to file a grievance on a timely basis. See Marella v. Terhune, 568 F.3d 1024, 1028 (9th Cir.2009) (per curiam). Because the prisoner must “complete the administrative review process in accordance with the applicable procedural rules,” Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 88, 93, 126 S.Ct. 2378, 165 L.Ed.2d 368 (2006), the exhaustion requirement is not satisfied when grievances are dismissed because prisoners missed deadlines or otherwise failed to comply with the grievance policy. See Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 217-18, 127 S.Ct. 910, 166 L.Ed.2d 798 (2007); see also Moore v. Bennette, 517 F.3d 717, 725 (4th Cir.2008) (“[A] prisoner does not exhaust all available remedies simply by failing to follow the required steps so that remedies that once were available to him no longer are.”); Kaba v. Stepp, 458 F.3d 678, 684 (7th Cir.2006) (“[Wjhen the prisoner causes the unavailability of the grievance process by simply not filing a grievance in a timely manner, the process is not unavailable but rather forfeited.”)
Where prison officials have effectively prevented a prisoner from using the available procedures, for example by literally denying the prisoner access to the process, falsely claiming that the prisoner could not use the process, or threatening reprisals if the prisoner used the process, courts have held that administrative remedies were not “available” for purposes of the PLRA. See, e.g., Turner v. Burnside, 541 F.3d 1077, 1081, 1085 (11th Cir.2008) (holding that administrative remedies were unavailable where the warden tore up the prisoner’s initial grievance in front of the prisoner and threatened to transfer the prisoner away from his family if the prisoner continued to file such grievances); Kaba, 458 F.3d at 686 (holding that administrative remedies were not available where the prison official warned the prisoner not to file a grievance and successfully pressured other inmates to assault the prisoner in order to prevent the prisoner from pursuing the grievance); Brown v. Croak, 312 F.3d 109, 112-13 (3d Cir.2002) (holding that a complaint was sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust where prisoner alleged that prison officials told him he could not file a formal griev*1230anee until the completion of an investigation, but failed to tell him when that event occurred); Miller v. Norris, 247 F.3d 736, 738, 740 (8th Cir.2001) (holding that the prisoner’s allegation and evidence that prison officials refused to mail the prisoner the required administrative forms was sufficient to raise an inference that he had exhausted available remedies); cf. Panaro v. City of N. Las Vegas, 432 F.3d 949, 952-53 (9th Cir.2005) (holding that pretrial detainee must allege that the detention center’s grievance process was “systematically unavailable to him”).
Here, the prison’s clerical error created no such barrier to Nunez’s ability to use administrative procedures. Nunez’s original BP-8 raised his complaint that Duncan’s use of a raffle to determine who would be subject to a strip search violated Nunez’s Fourth Amendment rights. See Maj. Op. at 1220. Angus’s response to Nunez’s BP-8 directly addressed Nunez’s Fourth Amendment concerns by explaining that Duncan’s lottery system was a fair method to conduct random searches. See Maj. Op. at 1220. Nunez did not carry this claim to the next stage of administrative review, but instead sought from prison officials a copy of the program statement that authorized the search. See Maj. Op. at 1220-22. The prison officials inadvertently miscited the program statement Nunez requested, see Maj. Op. at 1220, but did not deny Nunez access to the grievance process. The majority recognizes this point when it states “[w]hen Nunez could not find[Program Statement 5500.09] in the prison library, he filed three successive BP-8s attempting to obtain it.” Maj. Op. at 1225. Nor is there any evidence in the record that prison officials told Nunez that he could not administratively pursue his Fourth Amendment claim without a copy of the program statement. Instead, the record shows that the prison officials accurately informed Nunez of the substance of the applicable program statement in response to Nunez’s initial BP-9, and also informed Nunez that if he was “dissatisfied with this response,[he] may appeal to the Regional Director.” Maj. Op. at 1220. Not only did Nunez have the “opportunity and ability,” Marella, 568 F.3d at 1028, to use the prison’s grievance procedure, he actually used the process after the event that ostensibly rendered his remedies “unavailable.”
The majority attempts to skirt the significance of Nunez’s vigorous use of the prison’s administrative procedures by claiming that Nunez “believed in good faith that Program Statement 5500.09 was necessary, not merely useful, for preparing his appeal,” Maj. Op. at 1225, although there is no support in the record for this speculation about Nunez’s subjective belief. The majority infers that Nunez must have believed the program statement was necessary because “the Warden told him that the challenged strip search was authorized by that Program Statement.” Maj. Op. at 1225. But it does not follow from the Warden’s statement that Nunez needed a copy of the program statement for his appeal. Nunez, for one, clearly concluded that the program statement was not necessary to his appeal given that his Fourth Amendment claim in his district court complaint does not even mention, let alone rely on, the program statement.
Accordingly, the prison officials’ conceded miscitation of the program statement did not make the administrative grievance process “unavailable” to Nunez under any fair reading of that term. Like any missed deadline or procedural default, Nunez’s failure to comply with the regulations, where he faced no obstruction to doing so, is nothing more than a forfeiture of the prison’s grievance procedure. See Jones, 549 U.S. at 218, 127 S.Ct. 910; Moore, 517 F.3d at 725. Under these circumstances, our case law is clear: Be*1231cause Nunez had the “opportunity and ability” to file his grievance in a timely manner, but failed to do so, his case should be dismissed. Marella, 568 F.3d at 1028.
By holding that Nunez is excused from the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement, despite the availability of administrative remedies, the majority’s opinion creates a new exception to the PLRA that is untethered from the language of § 1997e(a). According to the majority, exhaustion is excused so long as a prisoner (1) takes “reasonable and appropriate steps” to exhaust a claim, and (2) “was precluded from exhausting, not through his own fault but by the Warden’s mistake.” Maj. Op. at 1224. Given the record in this case, the majority apparently understands “precluded” to mean that Nunez could not obtain information that he subjectively believed would be useful in preparing his appeal. Therefore, the majority’s lenient new rule eliminates the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement when a prison’s clerical error delays the prisoner in obtaining helpful information.2
The majority’s new exception is far afield from the language of the PLRA and is unsupported by case law. We are “bound by the literal command of the PLRA, which precludes an action by a prisoner ‘until such available administrative remedies as are available have been exhausted,’ ” Panaro, 432 F.3d at 953 (quoting § 1997e(a)), and there is no statutory basis for the majority’s conclusion that if the prison officials are insufficiently helpful in the prisoner’s efforts to litigate a grievance, the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement is excused. The Supreme Court has been clear that administrative procedures must be properly exhausted, even where it may appear futile. See Booth, 532 U.S. at 741, 121 S.Ct. 1819. By the same token, Nunez should not be excused from exhausting his administrative remedies even if he thought his claim would be less effective without a copy of the prison’s written policy. Contrary to the majority’s analysis, see Maj. Op. at 1224-25, the question whether Nunez was reasonable in pursuing the program statement before exhausting administrative remedies is irrelevant under the PLRA.
The majority’s effort to support its new exception by relying on policy considerations is also unpersuasive. The majority claims that its new rule serves the PLRA’s dual goals of “reducing] the quantity and improv[ing] the quality of prisoner suits,” Ngo, 548 U.S. at 94, 126 S.Ct. 2378 (quotation marks omitted), because:
Had Nunez or someone in his position been provided with the correct program statement upon his initial request, he may have been satisfied and dropped his complaint, thus reducing the quantity of suits. Alternatively, armed with the correct program statement, Nunez or someone in his position may have still believed that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated, but the quality of his suit would have been enhanced.
Maj. Op. at 1226. Yet the facts of this case directly contradict these suppositions. We know that Nunez would not have been *1232satisfied upon receiving the program statement because he pursued his claim even after he received it. Likewise, we know exactly how the program statement enhanced the quality of Nunez’s suit, which is to say not at all, because when Nunez actually filed his complaint he did not use the program statement in making his Fourth Amendment claim. The majority conjectures that a person “in [Nunez’s] position” might have dropped his claim or improved his claim had the prison provided the program statement, but fails to explain why such a person would have behaved differently than Nunez did. Rather than supporting the goals of the PLRA, the majority’s new exception to the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement will defeat those goals by increasing the number of suits, reducing the quality of the administrative record, and preventing prisons from addressing complaints at the administrative stage. Cf. Jones, 549 U.S. at 219, 127 S.Ct. 910 (listing the benefits of exhaustion). Moreover, policy considerations cannot detract from our obligation to apply the language of the statute. As the Supreme Court warned us in this very context: “Whatever temptations the statesmanship of policy-making might wisely suggest, the judge’s job is to construe the statute — not make it better.” Jones, 549 U.S. at 216, 127 S.Ct. 910 (quotation marks omitted).
Because there is no basis to hold that administrative remedies for Nunez’s Fourth Amendment challenge were unavailable, and because we have no authority to create a new exception to the PLRA, we should affirm the district court’s dismissal of Nunez’s claim.3 The majority’s new exhaustion exception will open the door to “excuses” that prisoners need not comply with the exhaustion requirement based solely on prison officials’ clerical errors. I respectfully dissent.

. I agree that Nunez failed to exhaust his First Amendment claim, and so I join the majority’s opinion as to part III.B.

. In discussing the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement, the majority cites Justice Breyer’s concurrence in Ngo for his view that the PLRA exhaustion requirement incorporated “well-established exceptions to exhaustion” contained in administrative law. Maj. Op. at 1223 (citing and quoting Ngo, 548 U.S. at 103-04, 126 S.Ct. 2378 (Breyer, J., concurring)). However, the Supreme Court has not adopted this analysis. Indeed, a unanimous Supreme Court previously rejected this very idea, stating that "we will not read futility or other exceptions into [the PLRA’s] statutory exhaustion requirements where Congress has provided otherwise.” Booth v. Churner, 532 U.S. 731, 741 n. 6, 121 S.Ct. 1819, 149 L.Ed.2d 958 (2001); see Ngo v. Woodford, 539 F.3d 1108, 1110 (9th Cir.2008) (recognizing the tension between Booth and Justice Breyer’s Ngo concurrence).

. Accordingly, I would not reach the merits of Nunez's Fourth Amendment claim, as the majority does in part III.A.2.