Thomas v. Woolum

337 F.3d 720

Douglas THOMAS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Shawn WOOLUM, Defendant Richard KEPLER; Charlotte Starcher; Billie Waddell, Sr., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 01-3227.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued August 6, 2002.

Decided and Filed July 28, 2003.

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Alphonse A. Gerhardstein (argued and briefed), Jennifer L. Branch, Paul M. Laufman (briefed), Laufman & Gerhardstein, Cincinnati, OH, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Todd R. Marti (argued and briefed), Office of the Attorney General, Corrections Litigation Section, Columbus, OH, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before: MOORE and GILMAN, Circuit Judges; ROSEN, District Judge.^*

OPINION

MOORE, Circuit Judge.

Congress's passage of the Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA") was an attempt to curb rampant prison litigation in the federal courts, but its enactment did not erode the role of the federal courts as vindicators of federal rights. The PLRA explicitly requires an inmate seeking to challenge prison conditions in federal court to exhaust any available administrative remedies, but the statute's text does not condition access to the federal courts on satisfying the procedures and timelines of prison administrators. Thus, this case turns not on whether exhaustion is required, the answer to which is well settled, but on what exhaustion requires. We answer that question in light of Congress's purpose in passing the PLRA and Supreme Court precedent regarding the exhaustion doctrine's oft-stated purpose: to give prison officials the first opportunity to address inmate complaints according to their rules and procedures without letting those timetables dictate the outcomes of § 1983 actions. Accordingly, we hold that so long as an inmate presents his or her grievance to prison officials and appeals through the available procedures, the inmate has exhausted his or her administrative remedies, and a prison's decision not to address the grievance because it was untimely under prison rules shall not bar the federal suit. We also hold, however, that when a grievance does not give prison officials notice of the nature of the inmate's complaint, the inmate has not met the PLRA's requirements. We thus AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

I. BACKGROUND

When inmate Douglas Thomas told a supervising officer at the North Central Correctional Institution ("NCCI") that he felt stressed out and needed "to lay it down fora few days," the officer instructed Corrections Officer Shawn Woolum to take Thomas down to the segregation unit. J.A. at 84 (Springer Incident Rep.). Woolum, with whom Thomas had exchanged angry words earlier that day, took the opportunity to retaliate. While walking Thomas down to segregation, Woolum instructed another inmate who was present to leave and began to pummel the handcuffed Thomas. Woolum struck Thomas from behind, slammed him into a steel door, and banged his face against the steel door and cement walls. Upon their arrival at the holding cell, Woolum slammed Thomas into a steel door frame, picked him up, and slammed his face and head again into a cement wall. Woolum then stomped on Thomas's foot. Thomas was in handcuffs during the relevant time and did not resist. As a result of Woolum's actions, Thomas suffered a broken clavicle, broken ribs, a broken foot, facial lacerations, and massive swelling. Thomas alleges that Officers Richard Kepler, Charlotte Starcher, and Billie Waddell, Sr. observed the beating, but they failed to intervene. That was on November 5, 1997.

Various investigations followed. Officers Woolum, Kepler, and Waddell, along with the supervising officer who had suggested Thomas go to segregation and the nurse who treated Thomas's injuries, filed "incident reports," as prison regulations require when an employee struggles with an inmate or observes such a struggle. Ohio Admin. Code § 5120-9-02(A)(B) (1997). Thomas also filed a voluntary statement the day after the incident, in which he described what had happened and noted, "At some point when I was being beaten while wearing handcuffs I seen officers looking but the only on[e] I knew was Bill[ie] Waddell." J.A. at 153.

In accord with regulations, prison officials then formed a Use of Force Committee to investigate the incident. Having heard additional statements, including another statement from Thomas describing Woolum's actions, the Use of Force Committee issued a report concluding that Woolum had used an inappropriate amount of force; after disciplinary proceedings some time later, Woolum was fired. Under the administrative code, however, the inmate has no right to view the report or the evidence used to create it.

In addition to the prison's internal administrative inquiry, Thomas invoked the formal grievance procedure. After being transferred to the Allen Correctional Institution ("ACI"), on May 1, 1998, Thomas requested a grievance form in order to report the November 5 incident. On or about May 4, 1998, Thomas filed a Notification of Grievance with NCCI's institutional inspector. The Notification of Grievance form requires the prisoner to state "[t]he nature of the Grievance" in specific terms. Thomas stated, in part, as follows:

[O]n Nov. 5th while I was at NCCI I was assaulted by [Corrections Officer] Woolum while I was in handcuffs and I had several bones broken and have since been transferred to A.C.I. administratively. Also as you know the state troopers & the FBI have conducted investigations.... The Prison[] Litigation Reform Act & Title 42 of the United States Code require[] that a prisoner must exhaust state remedies prior to litigation. Therefore I ask that[Corrections Officer] Woolum be removed and released from his employment with the Department of Corrections and that I am awarded 5 million dollars.

J.A. at 33. The institutional inspector denied relief, apparently because the grievance was not filed within the thirty-day period required by Department of Rehabilitation and Correction("Department") policy.

Thomas pursued his grievance. Following the initial denial, Thomas appealed to the Chief Inspector. Thomas argued that the ACI law library had been provided copies of Department policy manuals only in the last thirty to forty-five days, that the thirty-day time limit was a recent change in policy, and that prisoners had not been notified of the change in policy. On October 30,1998, the Chief Inspector denied Thomas relief, determining that the grievance was filed too late and that information regarding the Department's new time-limit policy was available in the law library. Accordingly, the decision of the Chief Inspector stated, "This Office will take no further action in regard to your complaint at this time." J.A. at 35.

Thomas filed a complaint in state court on November 5, 1998, against Woolum and John Does and Jane Does, alleging that Woolum applied excessive force and that the John Does and Jane Does failed to protect Thomas and prevent the beating. Thomas claims that during discovery for the state-court action, he learned that Kepler, Starcher, and Waddell were present during the beating and failed to protect him. Indeed, statements that officers had filed with their incident reports and the Use of Force investigation — statements that Thomas had no right to access — indicated that other officers might have observed Woolum's actions and not intervened. Thomas learned through these documents, for example, that Officer Kepler "heard a loud noise coming from the sally port" and "exited the R.I.B. office to investigate," J.A. at 88; that Officer Waddell "walked into the hall[when] Thomas was being put in a holding cell," J.A. at 89, which meant that, according to the Use of Force Committee's conclusions, Waddell might have watched Thomas being pushed in a way that caused his head to strike the wall; and that Officer Starcher admitted having seen Thomas in the holding cell. From these newly available statements, Thomas appears to have concluded that these three officers may have witnessed Woolum's assault.

The state court action against Woolum and the John Does and Jane Does was then dismissed without prejudice on October 20, 1999, and Thomas filed the original complaint in U.S. District Court on October 22, 1999. This time, Thomas sued not John Does and Jane Does, but armed with the information obtained in state court discovery, instead sued Woolum, Kepler, Starcher, and Waddell. After briefing, the district court ruled that Thomas had not exhausted his remedies with respect to Kepler, Starcher, and Waddell. Thomas's grievance form, the District reasoned, was "against defendant Woolum," not the other defendants, J.A. at 114, so although the court eventually awarded Thomas $70,000 on his claim against Woolum, it dismissed his claims against Kepler, Starcher, and Waddell for failure to exhaust.

Thomas appealed the dismissal of his claims against the other defendants. The defendants now offer two ways in which Thomas failed to exhaust his remedies against Kepler, Starcher, and Waddell: (1) that we may not look at Thomas's state prison grievance at all, and (2) that his grievance was insufficient to exhaust his claims. First, the defendants argue that Thomas failed to exhaust his administrative remedies because he did not file his grievance regarding the November 5, 1997 beating until May of 1998, after the thirty-day period in which the Department will accept grievances had expired. Second, they argue that his grievance was not "against" them, but against Woolum alone, and that he could not bring a suit against them. We review de novo any legal determinations made in dismissing a complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, including a determination that the plaintiff did not exhaust administrative remedies, and we review any factual findings for clear error. See Cathedral Rock of North College Hill, Inc. v. Shalala, 223 F.3d 354, 358 (6th Cir.2000). We begin with the defendants' first argument, for...