Williams v. Paramo
| Decision Date | 07 January 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 13–56004.,13–56004. |
| Citation | 775 F.3d 1182 |
| Parties | Lonnie Clark WILLIAMS, Jr., Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Daniel PARAMO, Warden; R. Olson, Correctional Counselor II; E. Marrero, Defendants–Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Jennifer Chou (argued), Certified Law Student, UCLA School of Law Ninth Circuit Clinic, Los Angeles, California; Strefan Fauble (argued) and Carlos M. Lazatin, Attorneys, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, Los Angeles, California, for Plaintiff–Appellant.
Suzanne Antley (argued), Deputy Attorney General; Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General of California; Jonathan L. Wolff, Senior Assistant Attorney General; and Thomas S. Patterson, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, San Diego, California, for Defendants–Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, Barry T. Moskowitz, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. 3:12–cv–00113–BTM–RBB.
Before: HARRY PREGERSON, STEPHEN REINHARDT, and JACQUELINE H. NGUYEN, Circuit Judges.
Lonnie Williams, a California prisoner representing herself pro se, 1 filed a civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in 2012 against Officers Daniel Paramo, R. Olsen, and E. Marrero of the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego(RJD) and against the County of Los Angeles, alleging violations of her constitutional rights to due process of law and to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. In this appeal, we decide whether the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) requires a prisoner who is otherwise barred from proceeding in forma pauperis under its “three strikes” provision to show that she faces an imminent danger on appeal when a showing of such danger has already been made before the district court. We conclude that it does, but that there is a presumption of continuing danger and that Williams has accordingly satisfied the statutory requirement. We also conclude that the district court erred in dismissing Williams's suit for failure to exhaust her administrative remedies.
Congress enacted the PLRA in an effort to curb the large number of prisoner lawsuits filed in federal court. Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 202, 127 S.Ct. 910, 166 L.Ed.2d 798 (2007). The PLRA contains a number of provisions intended to reduce the number of such lawsuits.2See Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 84, 126 S.Ct. 2378, 165 L.Ed.2d 368 (2006) (). Among these provisions, and relevant to this appeal, is a requirement that prisoners exhaust “such administrative remedies as are available” prior to bringing an action in federal court. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). In addition to the screening mechanisms, Congress also amended the procedures for allowing prisoners to proceed in forma pauperis. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1915, prisoner litigants are required to pay court filing fees, although financially qualified prisoners may pay the fees in increments. Section 1915(g), known as the “three-strikes” provision, prohibits prisoners from proceeding in forma pauperis if they have brought three or more actions or appeals that have been deemed frivolous or malicious or have been held to fail to state a claim.3 Prisoners who are “under imminent danger of serious physical injury,” however, may proceed in forma pauperis notwithstanding the fact that they fall within the three-strikes provision. Id. On this appeal, we consider first whether Williams must continue to face an imminent danger at the time she files her notice of appeal in order to proceed in forma pauperis on appeal, and, if so, whether she does continue to do so in the case before us.4 Second, we consider whether the Defendants have met their burden of demonstrating that Williams has failed to exhaust available administrative remedies under § 1997e.
In her complaint, Williams alleged the following: that prison officials Daniel Paramo, R. Olson, and E. Marrero started rumors that she was a convicted sex offender and added an “R” suffix to her prison record, denoting that she had a history of sex offenses; 5 that as a result of her designation as a sex offender, members of the Two–Five prison gang threatened her and stated that they would “get” her; that Williams attempted to report her complaints, but when she did, Officer Daniel Paramo allegedly told her, ; that despite Paramo's rejection, Williams tried again; and that she attempted to file a grievance to the RJD appeals office on the afternoon of January 5, 2012, but Correctional Counselor R. Cobb refused to file her grievance and rejected her appeal.
Williams moved for leave to proceed in forma pauperis, and the district court granted her motion. Although the district court found that Williams had filed three previously dismissed lawsuits and would otherwise be barred from proceeding in forma pauperis under § 1915(g), it granted her motion because it concluded that she satisfied the exception by alleging an “imminent danger of serious physical injury.” 6
The Defendants subsequently filed a 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings arguing that Williams had failed to exhaust her administrative remedies. In support of their motion, Defendants submitted declarations from J. Ramirez, the Appeals Coordinator at RJD, and J.D. Lozano, Chief of the Office of Appeals. Both declarations described the formal complaint process under Title 15 of the California Code of Regulations, but the declarations provided no details regarding how the grievance and appeals procedures were administered at RJD nor any information regarding how prisoners were informed of these procedures. The only portions of the declarations specific to Williams pertained to the officers' review of her previously filed grievances and appeals. Officer Ramirez stated that a search of Williams's previous appeals did not turn up an appeal related to her complaint, and he concluded that she “did not properly submit any appeals to this office regarding the allegations” in her complaint. Similarly, Officer Lozano listed several third level appeals 7 that had been received by his office from Williams but stated that none of them involved the allegations in her complaint, and he similarly concluded that she had therefore “not exhaust[ed] any appeal at the Third Level relating to the issues” in her complaint.
The district court notified Williams of Defendants' motion to dismiss pursuant to Wyatt v. Terhune, 315 F.3d 1108 (9th Cir.2003), overruled on other grounds by Albino v. Baca, 747 F.3d 1162, 1168 (9th Cir.2014), and required Williams to file her opposition by March 22, 2013. On May 28, 2013, having received no timely opposition from Williams, the district court granted Defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust, dismissed Williams's case without prejudice, and entered a judgment for Defendants.
On June 4, 2013, Williams filed late objections to Defendants' motion for judgment on the pleadings and stated that “prison officials would not file or allow [her] to file a grievance” and again cited the facts in her complaint. She further stated that she “ ‘attempted’ to exhaust her administrative remedies as to all the allegations alleged in the complaint and was hampered by prison officials.” Approximately two weeks later, Williams submitted a declaration explaining that she had been transferred to the Department of Mental Health in Vacaville (DMH) and could not timely file her opposition because she was not given her legal documents and personal belongings until after the district court granted Defendants' motion.
Construing Williams's objections as a motion for reconsideration, the district court denied Williams's motion. The district court concluded that Williams did not provide “any documents, let alone specific factual allegations, that would defeat the evidentiary support provided by Defendants.”
Williams subsequently filed a timely notice of appeal. Prior to her appeal, however, Williams was transferred from her original facility, RJD, to the California State Prison in Sacramento (CSP–Sac).8 This court ordered Williams to show cause why her in forma pauperis status should not be revoked on appeal. Williams filed a response stating that she remained in imminent danger at her current facility, CSP–Sac, because Defendants had told inmates at CSP–Sac that she was a convicted sex offender and child molester. In her response, she stated that the inmates at CSP–Sac constantly threatened to kill her with “inmate manufactured weapons” and to unlock their handcuffs with “cuff keys” in order to kill her. Defendants filed a reply asking the court to revoke Williams's in forma pauperis status and arguing that Williams failed to show a “nexus” between her lawsuit and her newly alleged imminent danger at CSP–Sac. We subsequently discharged the order to show cause and appointed Williams pro bono counsel. We have jurisdiction over Williams's appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
We first address Defendants' contention that a prisoner who has three strikes under § 1915(g) and who has demonstrated in the district court that she falls within the imminent danger exception in order to proceed in forma pauperis must still qualify under this exception at the time of appeal. We expressly declined to address this question in Andrews v. Cervantes, 493 F.3d 1047 (9th Cir.2007), because there had been no change in the danger faced by the prisoner between the time he filed his complaint and the time he filed his appeal. Id. at 1053 n. 4. We now conclude that the text of the statute requires that plaintiffs must allege the continued existence of imminent danger at the time the notice of appeal is filed.
The parties raise several arguments regarding the history and...
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