Dillard v. Jones

• Decision Date: 25 February 2000
• Docket Number: No. Civ.A. 1:97CV0788-JOF.,Civ.A. 1:97CV0788-JOF.
• Citation: 89 F.Supp.2d 1362
• Parties: David L. DILLARD, Plaintiff, v. Willie JONES, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia

89 F.Supp.2d 1362

David L. DILLARD, Plaintiff, v. Willie JONES, et al., Defendants.

No. Civ.A. 1:97CV0788-JOF.

United States District Court, N.D. Georgia, Atlanta Division.

February 25, 2000.

J. Malik Abdullah Frederick, E. Michael Moran, Stone Mountain, GA, for plaintiff.

Frank Philips Harris, Harris, Morgan & Parson, Marietta, GA, John C. Jones, Kathleen Mary Pacious, Office of State Attorney General, Atlanta, GA, Nelly F. Withers, McNally, Edwards, Bailey & Lander, Decatur, GA, for defendants.

ORDER

FORRESTER, District Judge.

This matter is before the court on a motion to strike filed by Defendants Garner, Parker, Parrish, Sellers, Lee, and Young; Defendant Jones' motion to strike and renewed motion for more definite statement; Defendants' joint motion to dismiss; and Plaintiff's motion to strike.

I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Plaintiff, a state prisoner in the Valdosta State Prison, brings this claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 asserting violations of his constitutional rights, as well as state law claims against Defendants Wayne Garner, Bruce Lee, Garrison Parker, Robert Parrish, and Phil Sellers.¹ Plaintiff filed his original complaint pro se on March 25, 1997 and thereafter supplemented the complaint on April 23, 1997. An amended complaint was also filed on July 10, 1998. In his complaint, Plaintiff alleges that he was sexually abused by Defendant Willie Jones, a mental health counselor at Phillips Correctional Institute, while he was incarcerated at that facility between November 1995 and October 1996. Plaintiff also contends that Defendants Banks and Young, officers employed by the Department of Corrections and/or Phillips Correctional Institute, took part in this abuse, and that the abuse took place with the full knowledge of Defendants Garner, Lee, Parker, Parrish, and Sellers. Plaintiff seeks compensatory and punitive damages, as well as costs and attorney's fees. Defendant Banks was voluntarily dismissed from this action on April 30, 1998.

In an order dated October 16, 1997, this court appointed counsel to assist Plaintiff. On December 12, 1997, Shandor Syed Badaruddin was appointed from the Pro Bono Panel to represent Plaintiff in this action. Mr. Badaruddin was assisted by Ms. Michelle Moriairty. On March 17, 1998, counsel for Plaintiff filed a motion to withdraw and substitute J. Malik Abdullah Frederick as counsel for Plaintiff. This motion was granted by the court on March 26, 1998. Also on March 17, 1998, Mr. Frederick, as new counsel for Plaintiff, filed a motion for leave to file a second amended complaint. On July 10, 1998, this court issued an order in which it, among other things, granted in part and denied in part a motion for summary judgment filed by Defendants Garner, Lee, and Young. Additionally, the court granted Plaintiff's motion to file a second amended complaint.

In an order dated March 15, 1999, the court, among other things, dismissed the state law claims against Defendants Garner, Parker, Parrish, Sellers, and Lee and denied as moot Defendant Young's motion to dismiss the state law claims. The court also granted Defendant Jones' motion for a more definite statement, allowing Plaintiff ten days to provide more definite statements as to paragraphs 12, 37, 39, 77(d), 83, and 87 of the second amended complaint. Plaintiff filed a document entitled, "Third Amended Complaint" on April 26, 1999. Defendants Garner, Parker, Parrish, Sellers, Lee, and Young filed a motion to strike certain portions of the third amended complaint on May 7, 1999. Similarly, on May 12, 1999, Defendant Jones filed a motion to strike the third amended complaint and renewed his motion for a more definite statement. On May 18, 1999, Defendants filed a joint motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because Plaintiff failed to exhaust administrative remedies as required by 42 U.S.C. § 1997e. Plaintiff subsequently filed a motion to strike Defendants' motion to dismiss on June 18, 1999.

II. DISCUSSION

The court begins with Defendants' motion to dismiss. Defendants assert that Plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies prior to bringing suit and his claims are therefore barred under § 1997e. In support of their claim, Defendants have provided the court with a copy of a letter from the Georgia Department of Corrections' ("DOC") Inmate Affairs and Appeals Division, dated May 11, 1999, which indicates that Plaintiff did not file any grievances with Inmate Affairs and Appeals between October 1995 and October 1996 that allege any type of abuse. Plaintiff, however, responds that he did in fact exhaust his administrative remedies before filing suit and that, in any event, Plaintiff's claims are not grievable under the Georgia Department of Corrections Standard Operating Procedures ("SOP").² To support his position, Plaintiff has provided the court with a copy of a letter from DOC's Legal Services Office indicating that Plaintiff has, at some time, filed some sort of complaint against Defendant Jones. Plaintiff has also submitted what appears to be the 1996 version of the SOP.

A. The PLRA's Exhaustion Requirement

Section 1997e, enacted as part of the Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA"), provides 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 confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted." 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). The Eleventh Circuit has held that this section mandates exhaustion of a prisoner's administrative remedies and that courts no longer have discretion to waive the exhaustion requirement. Alexander v. Hawk, 159 F.3d 1321, 1325-26 (11th Cir.1998). This holds true even when the administrative remedies are deemed futile or inadequate. Id. at 1326. Indeed, the Circuit has held that § 1997e(a)'s exhaustion requirement constitutes a "pre-condition to suit," making the requirement jurisdictional in nature. Id. (citing Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U.S. 749, 766, 95 S.Ct. 2457, 45 L.Ed.2d 522 (1975), which holds that where exhaustion is a statutorily specified jurisdictional prerequisite, "the requirement ... may not be dispensed with merely by a judicial conclusion of futility").

The court recognizes that there is currently a split in authority as to whether § 1997e(a) applies to claims of abuse or excessive force. Compare Freeman v. Francis, 196 F.3d 641 (6th Cir.1999) (holding that exhaustion requirement applies to excessive force claims); Diezcabeza v. Lynch, 75 F.Supp.2d 250 (S.D.N.Y.1999) (same); Johnson v. Garraghty, 57 F.Supp.2d 321 (E.D.Va.1999) (same); Beeson v. Fishkill Correctional Facility, 28 F.Supp.2d 884 (S.D.N.Y.1998) (same); Moore v. Smith, 18 F.Supp.2d 1360 (N.D.Ga.1998) (same); with Wright v. Dee, 54 F.Supp.2d 199 (S.D.N.Y.1999) (holding that excessive force claims are not subject to exhaustion requirement); White v. Fauver, 19 F.Supp.2d 305 (D.N.J.1998) (same); Rodriguez v. Berbary, 992 F.Supp. 592 (W.D.N.Y.1998) (same). Because the Eleventh Circuit has not yet determined this issue, the court must decide whether or not Plaintiff was required to exhaust the available administrative remedies before it resolves Defendants' motion to dismiss.

"The starting point for all statutory interpretation is the language of the statute itself." United States v. DBB, Inc., 180 F.3d 1277, 1281 (11th Cir.1999). The PLRA's exhaustion requirement applies to those actions brought by prisoners "with respect to prison conditions." 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). Unfortunately, the phrase "action ... with respect to prison conditions" is not defined in § 1997e. As several courts have noted, however, another section of the PLRA defines the phrase "civil action with respect to prison conditions" as "any civil proceeding arising under Federal law with respect to the conditions of confinement or the effects of actions by government officials on the lives of persons confined in prison, but does not include habeas corpus proceedings challenging the fact or duration of confinement in prison." 18 U.S.C. § 3626(g)(2); see also Freeman, 196 F.3d at 643; Moore, 18 F.Supp.2d at 1363. It is generally recognized that "words have the same meaning throughout a given statute," Baggett v. First Nat'l Bank of Gainesville, 117 F.3d 1342, 1350 (11th Cir. 1997), and the definition found in § 3626(g)(2) therefore applies to § 1997e as well. The only appellate court to decide the issue, along with several lower courts, has concluded that the language pertaining to "the effects of actions by government officials on the lives of persons confined in prison" includes claims of abuse or excessive force by prison officials. Freeman, 196 F.3d at 643-44; see also Moore, 18 F.Supp.2d at 1363. Under this authority, then, Plaintiff's claims of sexual abuse are covered by the PLRA's exhaustion requirement.

This court questions whether the aforementioned language from § 3626(g)(2) unambiguously embraces incidents of abuse such as that alleged here. Indeed, the court can imagine several circumstances not involving abuse or excessive force that would qualify as "effects of actions by government officials on the lives of [prisoners]" and that would more readily fit into the everyday meaning of "prison conditions." Nevertheless, the court is persuaded by the purposes and history underlying the PLRA, as well as the seemingly broad reading given to § 1997e(a) by the Eleventh Circuit, that Congress did not intend to exempt claims of abuse or excessive force from the requirement that prisoners exhaust available administrative remedies.

The Eleventh Circuit has clearly indicated that "Congress intended section 1997e(a) to `curtail the ability of prisoners to bring frivolous and malicious lawsuits by forcing prisoners to exhaust all administrative remedies before bringing suit in Federal court.'" Alexander, 159 F.3d at 1324 (quoting 141 Cong.Rec. H1472-06 (daily ed....