Caseflicks

Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit • 2014

Juan Albino v. Lee Baca

747 F.3d 1162 | 88 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1 | 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 6153

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Takeaway

In short, this case requires PLRA exhaustion to be handled under ordinary federal procedure and places the ultimate burden on defendants to prove that a grievance remedy was genuinely available and unexhausted.

Background

Juan Roberto Albino sued Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, Los Angeles County, and unnamed deputies under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law. He alleged that, while confined in the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail, deputies refused his requests for protective custody and repeatedly placed him in general-population housing. Other inmates then assaulted him on three occasions, causing severe and lasting injuries.

Albino stated that he received no jail orientation, never saw a grievance manual, complaint form, or complaint box, and was repeatedly told by jail staff that protection was his criminal defense attorney’s responsibility. The defendants produced a staff Custody Division Manual describing an inmate-complaint process and a deputy declaration stating that complaint forms were available at various locations or upon request, and that written complaints could be put in locked boxes or given to staff.

The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that Albino had failed to exhaust administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). The district court granted summary judgment and dismissed the federal claims without prejudice, declining supplemental jurisdiction over the state claims. A Ninth Circuit panel affirmed under the circuit’s prior practice of treating exhaustion as an “unenumerated Rule 12(b)” matter. The en banc court vacated that decision and reversed.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether a defendant may use an “unenumerated Rule 12(b) motion” to obtain a pretrial ruling that a prisoner failed to exhaust administrative remedies under the PLRA.

Holding

No. Except when nonexhaustion is clear from the face of the complaint, the exhaustion defense must be litigated through the ordinary Federal Rules framework, ordinarily by summary judgment under Rule 56.

Reasoning

The Supreme Court held in Jones v. Bock that PLRA exhaustion is an affirmative defense that the defendant must plead and prove. That holding, together with Jones’s instruction not to depart from ordinary federal procedural rules without statutory authorization, undermined Wyatt v. Terhune’s use of an “unenumerated” Rule 12(b) motion—a device not actually provided by the Rules.

In the rare case where the complaint itself conclusively shows that the prisoner did not exhaust and has no valid excuse, dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) is available. More commonly, because a prisoner need not plead exhaustion, the defendant must submit evidence establishing the affirmative defense and seek summary judgment under Rule 56.

If the evidence, viewed in the prisoner’s favor, establishes nonexhaustion as a matter of law, the defendant receives summary judgment. If material facts remain disputed, summary judgment must be denied; the judge, rather than a jury, then resolves the factual dispute in a preliminary proceeding because exhaustion is a threshold matter of judicial administration, akin in this respect to jurisdiction or venue.

District courts should decide exhaustion as early as feasible and may limit discovery to that issue. On appeal, legal rulings on exhaustion are reviewed de novo, while factual findings made by the judge in a preliminary exhaustion proceeding are reviewed for clear error. The court also indicated that this general approach should govern other nonjudicial-exhaustion contexts previously handled through unenumerated Rule 12(b) motions.

Issue #2

Whether the defendants proved that Albino failed to exhaust an administrative remedy that was available to him under the PLRA.

Holding

No. The defendants did not prove that a practically available administrative remedy existed for Albino, so he was excused from exhausting one.

Reasoning

The PLRA requires exhaustion only of remedies that are actually “available”—that is, capable of use as a practical matter. The defendant bears the ultimate burden to show both that an available administrative remedy existed and that the prisoner did not exhaust it. Once the defendant makes that showing, the prisoner has a burden of production to identify circumstances that made the generally available remedy effectively unavailable in his particular case.

The defendants’ evidence established that jail staff had a manual describing a complaint procedure, but the manual was available only to staff. The record did not show that prisoners were given the manual, told that it existed, or otherwise informed of the procedure it described.

The deputy’s declaration also did not establish meaningful access for Albino. It said complaint forms were available at various locations or upon request and referred to locked complaint boxes, but it did not explain where the forms or boxes were located, whether the boxes were identified, or whether prisoners were told that written complaints could be submitted on ordinary paper.

Albino’s sworn account was uncontradicted in key respects: he received no orientation, did not see forms or complaint boxes, repeatedly sought protection directly from deputies, and was told to seek help from his criminal lawyer rather than directed to a grievance process. Viewing the evidence in Albino’s favor, as required on the defendants’ summary-judgment motion, the defendants failed to carry their burden of proving an available remedy that he neglected to use.

Issue #3

Whether the court could direct summary judgment for Albino on exhaustion even though he had not filed a cross-motion for summary judgment.

Holding

Yes. The court directed summary judgment for Albino because the defendants had a full and fair opportunity to produce evidence supporting their exhaustion defense and the developed record showed no genuine dispute that available remedies had not been proven.

Reasoning

A court may grant summary judgment sua sponte for a nonmoving party when the original movant had notice that it had to present all pertinent evidence and a fair opportunity to do so. Rule 56 and Ninth Circuit precedent allow that result where the record is sufficiently developed and the movant cannot establish a genuine factual dispute supporting its position.

The defendants chose to move for summary judgment on exhaustion after conducting the discovery they considered necessary, including taking Albino’s deposition. Because the evidence concerning jail grievance practices was principally within the defendants’ knowledge and control, and nothing suggested that their discovery was curtailed, they had every reason and adequate opportunity to submit their best proof that remedies were available.

Even viewing the evidence in the defendants’ favor, the record showed only an internal staff manual and an insufficiently explained process for forms, written complaints, and complaint boxes. It did not show that the jail made an administrative remedy practically available to Albino. The court therefore remanded with instructions to enter summary judgment for Albino on the exhaustion issue.

Dissents

Judge Smith

Reasoning

Judge Smith, joined by Judges Tallman and Ikuta, agreed that exhaustion is an affirmative defense and accepted the majority’s general burden-shifting formulation. But he concluded that the jail met its initial burden by showing that a grievance procedure existed, was accessible, and was not used by Albino. In his view, Albino’s asserted lack of awareness of the process went instead to his own burden to show that the remedy was unavailable to him.

The dissent maintained that the majority improperly reviewed the district court’s factual determinations de novo. Although the district court ruled on a summary-judgment motion, Judge Smith believed that exhaustion is a threshold issue the court itself may fact-find, and that the appellate court should therefore uphold the district court’s findings unless clearly erroneous. He viewed the jail’s written policy, forms available throughout the facility, complaint boxes, and ability to give written complaints directly to staff as ample support for the district court’s conclusion.

Judge Smith objected that the majority effectively imposed a new duty on jail officials to prove that they informed individual prisoners about grievance procedures. The PLRA requires exhaustion of available remedies, he reasoned, but does not require officials to provide individualized notice. He emphasized that Albino did not ask about grievance procedures or contend that officials misled him after he tried to use one.

The dissent also regarded sua sponte judgment for Albino as unfair. Because the majority demanded proof not previously required—such as evidence of how the jail notified prisoners, the labeling and location of complaint boxes, or the volume of inmate complaints—the defendants had no adequate notice or opportunity to develop that evidence before judgment was entered against them.

Finally, Judge Smith argued that overruling Wyatt would delay rather than facilitate the PLRA’s required early screening of prisoner suits. Requiring denial of summary judgment whenever facts are disputed, followed by a separate judge-conducted factual proceeding, in his view added procedural steps and conflicted with Congress’s goal of resolving nonexhaustion promptly.