Cox v. Mayer

• Decision Date: 11 June 2003
• Docket Number: No. 02-5102.,02-5102.
• Citation: 332 F.3d 422
• Parties: Jerry L. COX, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jan MAYER, Dr., Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

332 F.3d 422

Jerry L. COX, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jan MAYER, Dr., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 02-5102.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued May 1, 2003.

Decided and Filed June 11, 2003.

Jennifer Gingery Cook (argued and briefed), Miller & Martin, Nashville, TN, for Appellee.

Derrick C. Smith (argued and briefed), Howell & Fisher, Nashville, TN, for Appellant.

Before MOORE and ROGERS, Circuit Judges; HOOD, District Judge.^*

HOOD, D.J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which ROGERS, J., joined. MOORE, J. (pp. 428-430), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

OPINION

HOOD, District Judge.

Defendant prison doctor appeals from the district court's Order excusing the failure of plaintiff, a prisoner when he filed this action, to exhaust his administrative remedies as required under 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) of the Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA"). Jurisdiction is proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), pursuant to which the district court certified its ruling for interlocutory appeal.

I. Factual and Procedural History

The thrust of plaintiff's complaint — which asserts a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 — is that, while a prisoner at a federal special needs facility, he was assaulted by prison officials and forcibly medicated upon the order of defendant, the prison doctor. Plaintiff claims that the incident left him with a herniated disc in his lower back, which required surgery.

Following the incident, plaintiff submitted an inmate grievance form. He did not hear back from prison officials, however.

Nearly six months later and while still a prisoner, plaintiff sued defendant and several unidentified prison staff members in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. Subsequent to the filing of the complaint, plaintiff was released from prison. In response to the complaint, defendant moved to dismiss on the ground that plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. In this regard, defendant relied upon the affidavit of the prison official in charge of the inmate grievance process. This official's affidavit stated that her records indicated that plaintiff had not filed a grievance.

Defendant's motion was assigned to a magistrate judge for report and recommendation. Finding that there existed a genuine issue of material fact as to whether plaintiff had, in fact, submitted a grievance form, the magistrate judge recommended that defendant's motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust be denied.

The district court, however, rejected the magistrate's recommendation. Looking closely at the prison grievance procedure guidelines, the district court noted that "[e]ven if Plaintiff did file an initial grievance, he was required to continue to the next step in the grievance process within the time frame set forth in [prison] regulations if no response was received from prison officials." The district court pointed out that, in effect, plaintiff had abandoned the grievance process and that, therefore, there was no genuine issue as to exhaustion. Accordingly, the district court dismissed plaintiff's claims without prejudice.

Subsequently, plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration in which he informed the court that he was no longer a prisoner. Because he was no longer a prisoner and could simply reinitiate his lawsuit, plaintiff argued, a dismissal without prejudice made little sense — no longer in prison, plaintiff had no remedies to exhaust.

The district court granted plaintiff's motion for reconsideration. It did so because "[u]nder [such] circumstances, where Plaintiff could immediately refile his claims without exhausting administrative remedies, it seems that judicial economy would not be served by the dismissal of Plaintiff's complaint." In support of his ruling, the district court relied primarily on the reasoning of the dissent in Harris v. Garner, 216 F.3d 970 (11th Cir.2000)(en banc), a case that presented the same issue but in the context of a different subsection of the PLRA (42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e)).

II. Discussion

This appeal presents a single issue. That issue is whether a federal district court must dismiss an action filed by a plaintiff prisoner who does not exhaust his administrative remedies before filing suit (as is required under the Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA"), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a)), where the prisoner was subsequently released from prison such that, when the court considers the motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust, plaintiff is no longer a prisoner. This is a question of first impression in this circuit — or in any circuit, for that matter.

This appeal presents purely a question of law. Therefore, the district court's conclusion is reviewed de novo. Wright v. Morris, 111 F.3d 414 (6th Cir.1997).

A.

As should any court considering the application of a statute, we begin with the plain language of the text. That text is straightforward and unmistakable, and not prone to ambiguity. It reads:

(a) Applicability of Administrative Remedies

No action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under § 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).

A natural reading of the statute suggests that its application requires consideration of three simple questions. First, is plaintiff "a prisoner confined in [a] jail, prison, or other correctional facility?" If not, the statute is inapplicable. If so, a second question must be considered: Is the plaintiff suing under § 1983 respecting "prison conditions?" If not, the statute is inapplicable. If so, a third question must be considered: Did plaintiff exhaust "such administrative remedies as [were] available" before plaintiff "brought" his action? If question three is answered in the negative, plaintiff is in violation of the statute and the court is required to dismiss plaintiff's suit.

In the instant case, when plaintiff "brought" his case he was undisputably a prisoner.¹ Also, given the expansive reading of the term "prison conditions" by both the United States Supreme Court and this court, see, e.g. Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 122 S.Ct. 983, 152 L.Ed.2d 12 (2002)("[W]e hold that the PLRA's exhaustion requirement applies to all inmate suits about prison life, whether they involve general circumstances or particular episodes, and whether they allege excessive force or some other wrong."); Freeman v. Francis, 196 F.3d 641, 643-45, (6th Cir.1999)(holding that the statute applies to specific acts such as excessive force claims and assaults, and stating that "[a] broad exhaustion requirement that includes excessive force claims effectuates [the statutory purpose] and maximizes the benefits of requiring prisoners to use prison grievance procedures before coming to federal court"), there can be no question but that plaintiff's suit concerns "prison conditions." Because (1) plaintiff was a prisoner when he "brought" his suit, and (2) plaintiff's suit implicates "prison conditions," § 1997e(a) applies and plaintiff was required to exhaust any available administrative remedies before he filed suit. He failed to do so,² however, and consequently his suit must be dismissed.

B.

Plaintiff's principal argument in favor of the legitimacy of the district court's ruling excusing plaintiff's failure to exhaust regards the perceived inconsistency between the application of the statute in this particular instance and what he views as the statute's policy underpinnings. On these facts, plaintiff argues, to apply the statute as written would be to contravene the statutory purpose because, as a dismissal for failure to exhaust is without prejudice, see, e.g. Wyatt v. Terhune, 315 F.3d 1108 (9th Cir.2003), the net effect of such a dismissal would be simply the reinitiation of plaintiff's lawsuit. But to require him to reinitiate his lawsuit after it has already been pending for some time, plaintiff urges, would be to contribute to the very problem the PLRA was enacted to combat: waste of judicial time and resources. Stated differently and more plainly, plaintiff argues that to apply the statute as written in this instance would be to contravene legislative intent. In this regard, plaintiff's argument is not without intuitive appeal.

But the argument does not stand up to scrutiny. There are two reasons.

First — and most significant — even assuming that the statutory purpose may be characterized as plaintiff suggests, because the statute is unambiguous it is inappropriate for us even to consider it. In directing the court's attention to legislative intent, plaintiff overlooks the well-established and long-recognized rule that, where a statute is free of ambiguity, it is to be applied as written. The Supreme Court has instructed ad nauseam: "[I]n interpreting a statute a court should always turn first to one, cardinal canon before all others," which is "that courts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there." Conn. Nat'l Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249, 253-54, 112 S.Ct. 1146, 117 L.Ed.2d 391 (1992). The Court has made clear that "[w]hen the words of a statute are unambiguous, then, this first canon is also the last: judicial inquiry is complete." Id. at 254, 112 S.Ct. 1146. See also United States v. Gonzales, 520 U.S. 1, 6, 117 S.Ct. 1032, 137 L.Ed.2d 132 (1997) ("Given the straightforward statutory command, there is no reason to resort to legislative history."); Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U.S. 135, 147-48, 114 S.Ct. 655, 126 L.Ed.2d 615 (1994) ("[W]e do not resort to legislative history to cloud a statutory text that is clear."); Barnhill v. Johnson, 503 U.S. 393, 401, 112 S.Ct. 1386, 118 L.Ed.2d 39 (1992) ("To begin, we note that appeals to statutory history are well taken only to resolve statutory ambiguity.").

Second, we are not so sure that plaintiff's characterization of the...