Korb v. Haystings
| Decision Date | 08 June 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 19-2826,19-2826 |
| Parties | ALBERT B. KORB, Appellant v. SGT. HAYSTINGS; JOHN E. WETZEL, SRC DOC; MIKE CLARK, Superintendent Albion |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
NOT PRECEDENTIAL
On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania
Before: GREENAWAY, JR., SHWARTZ, Circuit Judges, and ROBRENO, District Judge.*
Michael P. Corcoran
Michael H. McGinley
Dechert
2929 Arch Street
18th Floor, Cira Centre
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Emily Portuguese [ARGUED]
University of Pennsylvania School of Law
3400 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Counsel for Appellant
J. Eric Barchiesi
Daniel B. Mullen [ARGUED]
Office of Attorney General of Pennsylvania
1251 Waterfront Place
Mezzanine Level
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
Counsel for Appellees
Albert Korb sued three officials at the State Correctional Institution at Albion ("Albion") in Pennsylvania (collectively, "Defendants"), alleging that they violated his constitutional rights when Defendant Sergeant Haystings assaulted Korb. The District Court dismissed Korb's complaint, finding that he failed to exhaust his administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA"), see 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a), and that he did not make specific allegations against Defendants John Wetzel, Secretary of the Department of Corrections, and Mike Clark, Superintendent of Albion. Because the District Court erred in dismissing the complaint with prejudice, we will vacate the dismissal order and remand.
Korb is an inmate in Albion's special needs unit. A prison guard directed Korb to go to Haystings's office, and Korb complied. Haystings began speaking to Korb about the cleanliness of his cell, and Korb turned to leave. Haystings then put his arms around Korb, "twisted [him] sideways," and ordered him to sit down. J.A. 26-27. Korb complied because he was afraid that Haystings would harm him.
Following that incident, Korb filed a pro se complaint in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania against Haystings, Wetzel, and Clark, alleging that Haystings assaulted him in violation of his constitutional rights.2 The complaint mentioned Wetzel and Clark only in its caption. In a letter attached to the complaint, Korb noted that he "must [exhaust the] Albion grievance steps 1-2-3- before [the §] 1983 civil rights lawsuit is valid." J.A. 29. At the time he filed his complaint, he had started but had not yet completed the grievance process.
The District Court granted Korb's motion to proceed in forma pauperis and directed the Clerk of Court to docket his complaint. Thereafter, Korb informed the Court that he completed the grievance process. Nevertheless, Defendants moved to dismissKorb's complaint, arguing that Korb admitted in the complaint that he had not completed the grievance process and that the complaint lacked any specific allegations against Wetzel or Clark. In response, Korb again asserted that he had exhausted his administrative remedies.
The District Court granted Defendants' motion and dismissed Korb's complaint with prejudice. See Korb v. Haystings, No. 1:18-cv-00042, 2019 WL 1243279, at *3 (W.D. Pa. Mar. 18, 2019). The Court dismissed Korb's claims against Haystings because Korb's complaint stated that he had not completed the grievance process. Id. at *2-3 (citing 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a)). It dismissed Korb's claims against Wetzel and Clark because Korb did not specify their personal involvement in the alleged wrongdoing. Id. at *2. The Court also denied Korb leave to amend the complaint because it found that Korb failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as required by the PLRA and, as a result, any such amendment would be futile. Id. at *2-3.
Korb filed several declarations challenging the District Court's conclusions, which the Court treated as motions to reconsider and denied. Korb appeals.
We must first determine whether the District Court properly dismissed Korb's complaint with prejudice because he had not exhausted his administrative remedies when he filed his complaint.
The PLRA provides that "[n]o action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 of this title . . . 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). We apply our pre-PLRA procedures to PLRA cases, Shane v. Fauver, 213 F.3d 113, 117 (3d Cir. 2000), which include a directive that when a prisoner does not exhaust his administrative remedies, his "complaint should be dismissed without prejudice to its reinstatement [after exhaustion]," Ghana v. Holland, 226 F.3d 175, 184 n.4 (3d Cir. 2000) (alteration in original). Thus, under the statute andcase law, a prisoner typically must exhaust his administrative remedies before he presents his complaint to a federal court. When a court determines that the prisoner has not exhausted his remedies, it should dismiss the complaint without prejudice to enable the prisoner to cure this procedural deficit.
This approach also applies where a prisoner began but did not complete the exhaustion process before he filed his complaint. There too, a district court may dismiss the complaint without prejudice to be refiled after the prisoner completes the grievance process. Thus, dismissal with prejudice in such a situation is improper.
Dismissal with prejudice is also improper in a case like this, where a prisoner shows that he has exhausted his administrative remedies before a motion to dismiss is filed. Under Garrett v. Wexford Health, 938 F.3d 69 (3d Cir. 2019),4 a district court mayview pro se filings informing the court that the prisoner completed the grievance process as supplements to his complaint.5 See id. at 81 n.17 ().6
Here, even before Defendants filed their motion to dismiss, Korb sent letters to the District Court proving that he complied with Albion's grievance process after he had filed his complaint, thus "setting out an[] . . . occurrence[] or event that happened after the date of the pleading to be supplemented." Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(d). Those filingsconstituted Rule 15(d) supplemental pleadings. See Garrett, 938 F.3d at 81 n.17 (). Thus, under Garrett, the Court should have viewed Korb's pre-motion-to-dismiss filings as supplements to the complaint,7 treated the events alleged therein as part of the original complaint, and considered whether they demonstrated that Korb had exhausted his administrative remedies.8 Because the Court instead dismissed Korb's claim against Haystings with prejudice without considering that he has completed the exhaustion process before a motion to dismiss was filed, we will vacate the dismissal order.
We next examine whether the District Court properly dismissed with prejudice the claims against Wetzel and Clark. Although the Court correctly determined that the complaint was deficient regarding the claims against those Defendants because Korb failed to allege that they were personally involved in the incident, see Evancho v. Fisher, 423 F.3d 347, 353 (3d Cir. 2005) , it erred in failing to permit a curative amendment, see Alston v. Parker, 363 F.3d 229, 235 (3d Cir. 2004) (). The Court concluded that a curative amendment as to the claims against Wetzel and Clark would be futile because Korb had not exhausted his administrative remedies and therefore his complaint would be dismissed regardless of whether he stated a claim against them. Korb, 2019 WL 1243279, at *3. Because, for the reasons discussed, Korb adequately supplemented his complaint to show that he had exhausted his administrative remedies, the Court relied on an improper ground for concluding that a curative amendment would be futile. Accordingly, on remand, the Court should permit Korb to amend his complaint to attempt to cure the pleading deficiencies.9
For the foregoing reasons, we will vacate the District Court's order dismissing Korb's complaint and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
*. The Honorable Eduardo C. Robreno, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, sitting by designation.
**. This disposition is not an opinion of the full court and, pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7, does not constitute binding precedent.
1. This appeal arises from an order dismissing the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), so we derive the facts from the complaint and accept them as true. In re Vehicle Carrier Servs. Antitrust Litig., 846 F.3d 71, 78 n.2 (3d Cir. 2017). We construe those facts in a "light most favorable to the plaintiff, and determine whether, under any reasonable reading of the complaint, the plaintiff may be entitled to relief." Wayne Land & Min. Grp. LLC v. Del. River Basin Comm'n, 894 F.3d 509, 527 (3d Cir. 2018).
2. Korb's initial complaint named only Haystings, but Korb filed an amended complaint against Wetzel and Clark a few days later. This opinion refers to the amended complaint as "the complaint."
3. The parties consented to the United States Magistrate Judge's jurisdiction. The District Court had...
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