McBride v. Lopez

Citation807 F.3d 982
Decision Date30 June 2015
Docket NumberNo. 12–17682.,12–17682.
Parties James John McBRIDE, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. S. LOPEZ; R. Ruggles ; M. Perez; D. Lopez; S. Koch; R. Athey, Sgt., Defendants–Appellees.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)

Tom Wyrwich (argued), Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, Seattle, Washington, for PlaintiffAppellant.

Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General of California, Thomas S. Patterson, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Suzanne Antley (argued) and Neah Huynh, Deputy Attorneys General, San Diego, CA, for DefendantsAppellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, Anthony W. Ishii, Senior District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. 1:10–cv–02229–AWI–BAM.

Before: MARY M. SCHROEDER and N. RANDY SMITH, Circuit Judges and ROGER T. BENITEZ,* District Judge.

ORDER

The opinion filed on June 30, 2015 is amended as follows:

Add the following after the last sentence of the first paragraph on Slip Op. page 4 , line 10:

This case turns on the adequacy of the complaint to establish an objective basis for the plaintiff's fear of retaliation. It therefore falls into the category of "rare cases" noted in Albino, where the prisoner's failure to exhaust is clear from the face of the complaint and the result would not be altered by discovery. See id. at 1169.

Replace the following text on Slip Op. page 11 :

There was no objective indication the guards' statements were aimed at deterring McBride from filing a grievance. There is no allegation or evidence that the guards believed McBride was contemplating filing a grievance. McBride had not asked for materials necessary to file a grievance or given any indication to prison officials that he intended to file a grievance.

With:

There was no objective indication that a reasonable inmate would have understood the statements to be aimed at deterring the inmate from filing a grievance. Though the guards' statements may have seemed threatening, an inmate would not have reasonably understood that the guards intended to retaliate for filing a grievance.

The panel has voted to deny the petition for panel rehearing. Judge N.R. Smith has voted to deny the petition for rehearing en banc, and Judges Schroeder and Benitez have so recommended.

The full court has been advised of the petition for rehearing en banc and no judge has requested a vote on whether to rehear the matter en banc. Fed. R.App. P. 35.

The petition for panel rehearing and the petition for rehearing en banc are denied . Further petitions for rehearing and rehearing en banc shall not be entertained.

OPINION

SCHROEDER, Circuit Judge:

The Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA") requires the exhaustion of available prison administrative remedies before a prisoner may file suit in federal district court. The requirement may, however, be excused under certain limited circumstances where the intervening actions or conduct by prison officials render the inmate grievance procedure unavailable. In this case, for the first time in our circuit, we consider a claim that a threat of retaliatory action by a prison guard had the effect of rendering the prison grievance system unavailable so as to excuse the prisoner's failure to meet the time limitation for filing a grievance. We join other circuits in holding that fear of retaliation may be sufficient to render the inmate grievance procedure unavailable, and we approve the test applied in the Eleventh Circuit that requires both a subjective and objective basis for the fear. We hold in this case that McBride failed to show an objective basis for his belief that prison officials would retaliate against him for filing a grievance. We therefore affirm the district court's dismissal of the complaint.

We observe as a preliminary matter that we decide this appeal after our court's decision in Albino v. Baca, 747 F.3d 1162 (9th Cir.2014) (en banc), which overruled our prior circuit practice of deciding exhaustion issues on the basis of an "unenumerated motion" to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b). Id. at 1168. We held that exhaustion issues must instead generally be decided on a motion for summary judgment pursuant to Rule 56. Id. Albino does not affect our decision in this case because there is no need for further factual development. This case turns on the adequacy of the complaint to establish an objective basis for the plaintiff's fear of retaliation. It therefore falls into the category of "rare cases" noted in Albino, where the prisoner's failure to exhaust is clear from the face of the complaint and the result would not be altered by discovery. See id. at 1169.

BACKGROUND

The case arises out of an incident at Pleasant Valley State Prison in California, where the plaintiff-appellant James McBride was an inmate. On July 4, 2010, McBride allegedly began an altercation with guards by throwing an unknown "burning liquid" in the eyes of one guard, Lopez, after McBride was told that he and other inmates were to be housed in a different building. According to McBride, several guards, including defendants Lopez and Ruggles, then punched and kicked him repeatedly in the head, causing bleeding and swelling. The guards stated in their reports of the incident that they were using appropriate force to subdue McBride, while McBride claims the force the guards used was excessive. After the incident, McBride was placed in administrative segregation or "ad-seg."

McBride alleges that while he was in ad-seg, defendants Ruggles and Lopez came by his cell and told him that he was "lucky" because his injuries "could have been much worse." According to McBride, the guards visited him with similar comments on a number of occasions. He alleges he interpreted these statements as threats and did not immediately file a grievance against the defendants for excessive force because he feared retaliation.

McBride further alleges that after over two months had passed he began to fear that if he did not report the earlier incident he might suffer harm, so he initiated the grievance process by filing the Inmate/Parolee Appeal Form required for grievances within the California state prison system. McBride filed the form on September 16, 2010, approximately ten weeks after the incident. The filing was therefore approximately two months late, since California prison regulations then required grievances to be initiated within fifteen days.

The prison's appeals coordinator denied McBride's grievance on October 6, informing him that it was not timely and that McBride needed to provide an explanation for why he could not file in a timely fashion. McBride responded on October 20, explaining that he did not file on time because he was afraid of retaliation for reporting the incident, due to threats he had received from Lopez and Ruggles. On October 25, the appeals coordinator again rejected McBride's grievance, stating that McBride had failed to provide an adequate explanation for why he could not timely file.

McBride filed his pro se complaint in federal district court, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, in December 2010, claiming violation of his Eighth Amendment rights by use of excessive force in connection with the original altercation. He also attached the record of his grievances, including the explanation he had submitted to the appeals coordinator as to why he could not timely file.

The district court granted defendants' motion to dismiss. The magistrate judge (in an order adopted by the district court) first noted that while our court had not considered the issue, a number of district courts in this circuit have ruled that threats cannot excuse a failure to exhaust. The order then reviewed the decisions of other circuits recognizing that threats can excuse a failure to exhaust. The district court concluded that even if it were to agree that threats can excuse a failure to exhaust, the statements by Lopez and Ruggles were not overtly threatening, but merely stating a fact when they described McBride as being "lucky" that his injuries were not worse. McBride appealed, and we appointed counsel to represent him.

DISCUSSION

The Prison Litigation Reform Act states that "[n]o action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 of this title, or any other Federal law, by a prisoner ... until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted." 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). This court has previously emphasized that the PLRA requires only that a prisoner exhaust available remedies, and that a failure to exhaust a remedy that is effectively unavailable does not bar a claim from being heard in federal court. In Nunez v. Duncan, 591 F.3d 1217, 1225–26 (9th Cir.2010), the official rejecting the prisoner's grievance mistakenly relied on a particular regulation, and the prison obstructed the prisoner's efforts to obtain the regulation, resulting in delay. We held that the mistake of the prison Warden "rendered [the prisoner's] administrative remedies effectively unavailable" and that the prisoner's failure to exhaust was therefore "excused." Id. at 1226. In Sapp v. Kimbrell, 623 F.3d 813, 823 (9th Cir.2010), we held that a prison's improper screening of a grievance can also render administrative remedies " ‘effectively unavailable’ such that exhaustion is not required under the PLRA." Finally, in Albino, 747 F.3d at 1177, we held that where a jail did not inform a prisoner of the process for filing a complaint even after repeated requests, the jail did not prove that there was any realistically "available" remedy for the prisoner to exhaust.

While we have not yet explicitly addressed whether a threat of retaliation may be sufficient to render an administrative remedy "effectively unavailable," other circuits have. At least four have recognized that when a prisoner reasonably fears retaliation for filing a grievance, the administrative remedy is effectively rendered unavailable and the prisoner's failure to exhaust excused. See,...

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