Ross v. Blake

• Decision Date: 06 June 2016
• Docket Number: 15–339.
• Citation: 136 S.Ct. 1850,578 U.S. 632,195 L.Ed.2d 117
• Parties: Michael ROSS, Petitioner v. Shaidon BLAKE.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

578 U.S. 632

136 S.Ct. 1850

195 L.Ed.2d 117

Michael ROSS, Petitioner

v.Shaidon BLAKE.

No. 15–339.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued March 29, 2016.

Decided June 6, 2016.

Julia Doyle Bernhardt, Baltimore, MD, for Petitioner.

Zachary D. Tripp, for the United States as amicus curiae, by special leave of the Court, supporting the petitioner.

Paul W. Hughes, Washington, DC, for Respondent.

Patrick B. Hughes, Stephanie Lane–Weber, Dorianne A. Meloy, Assistant Attorneys General, Brian E. Frosh, Attorney General of Maryland, Thiruvendran Vignarajah, Deputy Attorney General, Julia Doyle Bernhardt, Matthew J. Fader, Deputy Chiefs of Litigation, Baltimore, MD, for Petitioner.

Jeffrey J. VanDam, Mayer Brown LLP, Chicago, IL, Reginald R. Goeke, Paul W. Hughes, Michael B. Kimberly, Catherine A. Bernard, John T. Lewis, Mayer Brown LLP, Washington, DC, for Respondent.

Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA) mandates that an inmate exhaust "such administrative remedies as are available" before bringing suit to challenge prison conditions. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). The court below adopted an unwritten "special circumstances" exception to that provision, permitting some prisoners to pursue litigation even when they have failed to exhaust available administrative remedies. Today, we reject that freewheeling approach to exhaustion as inconsistent with the PLRA. But we also underscore that statute's built-in exception to the exhaustion requirement: A prisoner need not exhaust remedies if they are not " available." The briefs and other submissions filed in this case suggest the possibility that the aggrieved inmate lacked an available administrative remedy. That issue remains open for consideration on remand, in light of the principles stated below.

I

Respondent Shaidon Blake is an inmate in a Maryland prison. On June 21, 2007, two guards—James Madigan and petitioner Michael Ross—undertook to move him from his regular cell to the facility's segregation unit. According to Blake's version of the facts, Ross handcuffed him and held him by the arm as they left the cell; Madigan followed close behind. Near the top of a flight of stairs, Madigan shoved Blake in the back. Ross told Madigan he had Blake under control, and the three continued walking. At the bottom of the stairs, Madigan pushed Blake again and then punched him four times in the face, driving his head into the wall. After a brief pause, Madigan hit Blake one last time. Ross kept hold of Blake throughout the assault. And when the blows subsided, Ross helped Madigan pin Blake to the ground until additional officers arrived.

Later that day, Blake reported the assault to a senior corrections officer. That officer thought Madigan at fault, and so referred the incident to the Maryland prison system's Internal Investigative Unit (IIU). Under state law, the IIU has authority to investigate allegations of employee misconduct, including the use of "excessive force." Code of Md. Regs., tit. 12, § 11.01.05(A)(3) (2006). After conducting a year-long inquiry into the beating, the IIU issued a final report condemning Madigan's actions, while making no findings with respect to Ross. See App. 191–195. Madigan resigned to avoid being fired.

Blake subsequently sued both guards under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Madigan had used unjustifiable force and that Ross had failed to take protective action. The claim against Madigan went to a jury, which awarded Blake a judgment of $50,000. But unlike Madigan, Ross raised the PLRA's exhaustion requirement as an affirmative defense, contending that Blake had brought suit without first following the prison's prescribed procedures for obtaining an administrative remedy. As set out in Maryland's Inmate Handbook, that process—called, not very fancifully, the Administrative Remedy Procedure (ARP)—begins with a formal grievance to the prison's warden; it may also involve appeals to the Commissioner of Correction and then the Inmate Grievance Office (IGO). See Maryland Div. of Correction, Inmate Handbook 30–31 (2007). Blake acknowledged that he had not sought a remedy through the ARP—because, he thought, the IIU investigation served as a substitute for that otherwise standard process. The District Court rejected that explanation and dismissed the suit, holding that "the commencement of an internal investigation does not relieve prisoners from the [PLRA's] exhaustion requirement." Blake v. Maynard, No. 8:09–cv–2367 (D.Md., Nov. 14, 2012), App. to Pet. for Cert. 38, 2012 WL 5568940, *5.

The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed in a divided decision. Stating that the PLRA's "exhaustion requirement is not absolute," the court adopted an extra-textual exception originally formulated by the Second Circuit. 787 F.3d 693, 698 (2015). Repeated the Court of Appeals: "[T]here are certain ‘special circumstances' in which, though administrative remedies may have been available[,] the prisoner's failure to comply with administrative procedural requirements may nevertheless have been justified." Ibid. (quoting Giano v. Goord, 380 F.3d 670, 676 (C.A.2 2004) ). In particular, that was true when a prisoner "reasonably"—even though mistakenly—"believed that he had sufficiently exhausted his remedies." 787 F.3d, at 695. And Blake, the court concluded, fit within that exception because he reasonably thought that "the IIU's investigation removed his complaint from the typical ARP process." Id., at 700. Judge Agee dissented, stating that the PLRA's mandatory exhaustion requirement is not "amenable" to "[j]udge-made exceptions." Id., at 703. This Court granted certiorari. 577 U.S. ––––, 136 S.Ct. 614, 193 L.Ed.2d 495 (2015).

II

The dispute here concerns whether the PLRA's exhaustion requirement, § 1997e(a), bars Blake's suit. Statutory text and history alike foreclose the Fourth Circuit's adoption of a "special circumstances" exception to that mandate. But Blake's suit may yet be viable. Under the PLRA, a prisoner need exhaust only "available" administrative remedies. And Blake's contention that the prison's grievance process was not in fact available to him warrants further consideration below.

A

Statutory interpretation, as we always say, begins with the text, see, e.g., Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., 560 U.S. 242, 251, 130 S.Ct. 2149, 176 L.Ed.2d 998 (2010) —but here following that approach at once distances us from the Court of Appeals. As Blake acknowledges, that court made no attempt to ground its analysis in the PLRA's language. See 787 F.3d, at 697–698 ; Brief for Respondent 47–48, n. 20 (labeling the Court of Appeals' rule an "extra-textual exception to the PLRA's exhaustion requirement"). And that failure makes a difference, because the statute speaks in unambiguous terms opposite to what the Fourth Circuit said.

Section 1997e(a) provides: "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." As we have often observed, that language is "mandatory": An inmate "shall" bring "no action" (or said more conversationally, may not bring any action) absent exhaustion of available administrative remedies.

Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 85, 126 S.Ct. 2378, 165 L.Ed.2d 368 (2006) ; accord, Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 211, 127 S.Ct. 910, 166 L.Ed.2d 798 (2007) ("There is no question that exhaustion is mandatory under the PLRA"). As later discussed, that edict contains one significant qualifier: the remedies must indeed be " available" to the prisoner. See infra, at 1858 – 1860. But aside from that exception, the PLRA's text suggests no limits on an inmate's obligation to exhaust—irrespective of any "special circumstances."

And that mandatory language means a court may not excuse a failure to exhaust, even to take such circumstances into account. See Miller v. French, 530 U.S. 327, 337, 120 S.Ct. 2246, 147 L.Ed.2d 326 (2000) (explaining that "[t]he mandatory ‘shall’ ... normally creates an obligation impervious to judicial discretion"). No doubt, judge-made exhaustion doctrines, even if flatly stated at first, remain amenable to judge-made exceptions. See McKart v. United States, 395 U.S. 185, 193, 89 S.Ct. 1657, 23 L.Ed.2d 194 (1969) ("The doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies ... is, like most judicial doctrines, subject to numerous exceptions"). But a statutory exhaustion provision stands on a different footing. There, Congress sets the rules—and courts have a role in creating exceptions only if Congress wants them to. For that reason, mandatory exhaustion statutes like the PLRA establish mandatory exhaustion regimes, foreclosing judicial discretion. See, e.g., McNeil v. United States, 508 U.S. 106, 111, 113, 113 S.Ct. 1980, 124 L.Ed.2d 21 (1993) ("We are not free to rewrite the statutory text" when Congress has strictly "bar[red] claimants from bringing suit in federal court until they have exhausted their administrative remedies"). Time and again, this Court has taken such statutes at face value—refusing to add unwritten limits onto their rigorous textual requirements. See, e.g., id., at 111, 113 S.Ct. 1980 ; Shalala v. Illinois Council on Long Term Care, Inc ., 529 U.S. 1, 12–14, 120 S.Ct. 1084, 146 L.Ed.2d 1 (2000) ; see also 2 R. Pierce, Administrative Law Treatise § 15.3, p. 1241 (5th ed. 2010) (collecting cases).

We have taken just that approach in construing the PLRA's exhaustion provision—rejecting every attempt to deviate (as the Fourth Circuit did here) from its textual mandate. In Booth v. Churner, 532 U.S. 731, 121 S.Ct. 1819, 149 L.Ed.2d 958 (2001), for example, the prisoner argued that exhaustion was not necessary because he wanted a type of relief that the administrative process did not provide. But § 1997e(a), we replied, made no distinctions based on the particular ...