Anderson v. Xyz Correctional Health Services, Inc., 04-6885.

• Decision Date: 17 May 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-6885.,04-6885.
• Parties: Rodney Elmer ANDERSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. XYZ CORRECTIONAL HEALTH SERVICES, INC.; Ronald J. Angelone; D.A. Garraghty; M.C. Millard; John Doe; Doctor Swetter, Defendants-Appellees, and Andrew J. Winston; James A. Smith; K.W. Davis; Mr. Zummer; Marsha Foresman, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

407 F.3d 674

Rodney Elmer ANDERSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. XYZ CORRECTIONAL HEALTH SERVICES, INC.; Ronald J. Angelone; D.A. Garraghty; M.C. Millard; John Doe; Doctor Swetter, Defendants-Appellees, and Andrew J. Winston; James A. Smith; K.W. Davis; Mr. Zummer; Marsha Foresman, Defendants.

No. 04-6885.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: February 2, 2005.

Decided: May 17, 2005.

ARGUED: Jeffrey Bromme, Arnold & Porter, L.L.P., Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Joel Christopher Hoppe, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Elizabeth A. High, Arnold & Porter, L.L.P., Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Jerry W. Kilgore, Attorney General of Virginia, Richard L. Savage, III, Deputy Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees Ronald J. Angelone, D.A. Garraghty, and M.C. Millard.

Before MOTZ, TRAXLER, and SHEDD, Circuit Judges.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge TRAXLER wrote the opinion, in which Judge MOTZ and Judge SHEDD joined.

OPINION

TRAXLER, Circuit Judge:

The Prison Litigation Reform Act (the "PLRA") requires that inmates exhaust all administrative remedies before filing an action challenging prison conditions under federal law. See 42 U.S.C.A. § 1997e(a) (West 2003). The question in this case is whether this requirement imposes a heightened pleading obligation on the inmate, such that a district court may sua sponte dismiss a complaint that fails to allege exhaustion of remedies. While the circuit courts have not spoken uniformly, most of the courts that have considered the question have held that exhaustion of administrative remedies is not a pleading requirement. In this case, however, the district court was persuaded by the minority approach and concluded that exhaustion must be alleged in the complaint. The court therefore sua sponte dismissed a complaint filed by Rodney Anderson for failure to sufficiently allege exhaustion. Anderson appeals.

We conclude that the PLRA does not require a prisoner to allege that he has exhausted his administrative remedies, so that a district court may not dismiss a complaint that fails to allege exhaustion, at least not before giving the prisoner an opportunity to address the exhaustion question. Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the district court and remand for further proceedings.

I.

Rodney Anderson was an inmate in the custody of the Michigan state prison system. In 1999, however, he was transferred to a prison in Virginia, where he was housed for approximately ten months. While in Virginia, Anderson broke his arm, and he claims that the Virginia officials failed to provide him proper medical treatment.

In 2002, Anderson filed a complaint against various Virginia prison officials. In his complaint, Anderson asserted, by way of § 1983, that the defendants violated the Eighth Amendment. Anderson also included various claims under state law. Two of the defendants filed a motion to dismiss, contending the federal claims were not cognizable under § 1983 and that the state claims were barred under various Virginia statutes of limitation. Anderson filed a response in which he addressed the claims raised by Virginia in its motion to dismiss.

The district court thereafter dismissed Anderson's complaint on an issue not raised in the motion to dismiss—Anderson's failure to plead in his complaint that he had exhausted his administrative remedies.¹ Anderson filed a motion to reconsider, arguing that he had not been given an opportunity to address the exhaustion issue. The district court denied the motion, and this appeal followed.

II.

In response to an ever-growing number of prison-condition lawsuits that were threatening to overwhelm the capacity of the federal judiciary, Congress in 1996 passed the Prison Litigation Reform Act. See Para-Prof'l Law Clinic v. Beard, 334 F.3d 301, 303 (3d Cir.2003) ("Congress enacted the PLRA in an apparent effort ... to discourage prisoners from filing frivolous lawsuits which strain the judiciary's scarce resources. . . ."); Doe v. Washington County, 150 F.3d 920, 924 (8th Cir. 1998) ("The PLRA was designed to discourage the initiation of litigation by a certain class of individuals—prisoners— that is otherwise motivated to bring frivolous complaints as a means of gaining a short sabbatical in the nearest Federal courthouse." (internal quotation marks omitted)). The PLRA imposes a number of restrictions on an inmate's ability to initiate civil litigation. For example, after the PLRA, inmates can no longer use the in forma pauperis statute to avoid paying filing fees, but must instead pay all filing fees without regard to their financial status. See 28 U.S.C.A. § 1915(b)(1) (West Supp.2004). The PLRA also authorizes a district court to sua sponte dismiss prison-condition lawsuits "if the court is satisfied that the action is frivolous, malicious, fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, or seeks monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief." 42 U.S.C.A. § 1997e(c).

Of importance to this case is the PLRA's exhaustion-of-remedies requirement. As a general rule, plaintiffs proceeding under § 1983 need not exhaust state administrative remedies before filing suit. See Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 523, 122 S.Ct. 983, 152 L.Ed.2d 12 (2002); Patsy v. Board of Regents, 457 U.S. 496, 516, 102 S.Ct. 2557, 73 L.Ed.2d 172 (1982). The PLRA, however, reversed that rule as to prison-condition lawsuits. See 42 U.S.C.A. § 1997e(a) ("No 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."). There is no doubt that the PLRA's exhaustion requirement is mandatory. See Porter, 534 U.S. at 524, 122 S.Ct. 983 ("Once within the discretion of the district court, exhaustion in cases covered by § 1997e(a) is now mandatory. All available remedies must now be exhausted; those remedies need not meet federal standards, nor must they be plain, speedy, and effective. Even when the prisoner seeks relief not available in grievance proceedings, notably money damages, exhaustion is a prerequisite to suit." (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)). The question we must answer is whether this exhaustion-of-remedies requirement is a pleading requirement as well, such that a complaint is subject to dismissal if it fails to include an allegation that the inmate has exhausted his administrative remedies.

A majority of the circuit courts of appeals considering the question have concluded that exhaustion of administrative remedies need not be alleged by the plaintiff in his complaint but is instead an affirmative defense to be raised by the defendant. See Wyatt v. Terhune, 315 F.3d 1108, 1119 (9th Cir.2003); Casanova v. Dubois, 304 F.3d 75, 77 (1st Cir.2002); Ray v. Kertes, 285 F.3d 287, 295 (3d Cir.2002); Foulk v. Charrier, 262 F.3d 687, 697 (8th Cir.2001); Massey v. Helman, 196 F.3d 727, 735 (7th Cir.1999); Jenkins v. Haubert, 179 F.3d 19, 28-29 (2d Cir.1999); see also Jackson v. District of Columbia, 254 F.3d 262, 267 (D.C.Cir.2001) (suggesting but not directly holding that exhaustion is an affirmative defense). Only two circuits have concluded that exhaustion is a pleading requirement borne by the plaintiff, so that failure to allege exhaustion makes the complaint subject to dismissal by the district court. See Steele v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, 355 F.3d 1204, 1209 (10th Cir. 2003); Brown v. Toombs, 139 F.3d 1102, 1104 (6th Cir.1998) (per curiam). As we explain below, we agree with the majority approach and conclude that the PLRA does not require that an inmate allege in his complaint that he has exhausted all administrative remedies.

A.

If the PLRA's exhaustion-of-remedies requirement were one that implicated the district court's subject-matter jurisdiction, then there would be no question that an inmate would be obliged to allege exhaustion in his complaint. See Pinkley, Inc. v. City of Frederick, Md., 191 F.3d 394, 399 (4th Cir.1999) ("Federal courts are courts of limited subject matter jurisdiction, and as such there is no presumption that the court has jurisdiction. Thus the facts providing the court jurisdiction must be affirmatively alleged in the complaint." (citation omitted)); Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a) (stating that complaints must contain "a short and plain statement of the grounds upon which the court's jurisdiction depends").

Every court to have considered the question has concluded that § 1997e(a)'s exhaustion requirement is not a jurisdictional requirement. See Steele, 355 F.3d at 1208; Richardson v. Goord, 347 F.3d 431, 434 (2d Cir.2003) (per curiam); Casanova v. Dubois, 289 F.3d 142, 147 (1st Cir.2002); Ali v. District of Columbia, 278 F.3d 1, 5-6 (D.C.Cir.2002); Wright v. Hollingsworth, 260 F.3d 357, 358 n. 2 (5th Cir.2001); Chelette v. Harris, 229 F.3d 684, 688 (8th Cir.2000); Nyhuis v. Reno, 204 F.3d 65, 69 n. 4 (3d Cir.2000); Massey, 196 F.3d at 732; Wyatt v. Leonard, 193 F.3d 876, 879 (6th Cir.1999); Rumbles v. Hill, 182 F.3d 1064, 1068 (9th Cir.1999), overruled on other grounds by Booth v. Churner, 532 U.S. 731, 740-41, 121 S.Ct. 1819, 149 L.Ed.2d 958 (2001). We agree.

While Congress could have provided that a district court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction in prison-condition cases unless the inmate has exhausted his administrative remedies, the PLRA does not do that. To the contrary, the structure of the PLRA itself clearly indicates that exhaustion of remedies is not a jurisdictional requirement.

Section 1997e(c)(2) states that:

In the event that a claim is, on its face, frivolous, malicious, fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, or seeks monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief, the court may dismiss the underlying claim without...