Issues
Does the rejection of a prisoner’s grievance on procedural grounds, due to the untimely nature of the claim, bar the prisoner’s constitutional claims from federal court under the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s requirement that prisoners exhaust all administrative remedies before filing suit?
In 2000, California state prisoner Viet Mike Ngo was placed in administrative segregation for alleged misconduct. Following his release, he was prevented from taking part in certain programs deemed critical for parole eligibility. Ngo submitted a formal grievance that was time-barred by the Appeals Coordinator because it was not filed within the requisite 15 working days after the event. Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”), prisoners are prevented from filing suit until administrative remedies are exhausted. The District Court ruled that Ngo failed to exhaust his remedies under PLRA and was therefore precluded from seeking federal relief. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision, holding that Ngo exhausted all remedies as required by the PLRA. The Supreme Court will address whether an untimely administrative appeal satisfies this exhaustion requirement under PLRA.
Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties
Does a prisoner satisfy the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s administrative exhaustion requirement by filing an untimely or otherwise procedurally defective administrative appeal?
Facts
Respondent Viet Mike Ngo is a prisoner serving a life sentence in California. Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae Supporting Petitioners, at 1. On October 26, 2000, Ngo, an inmate at San Quentin State Prison, was placed in administrative segregation as punishment for alleged “inappropriate activity” with Catholic volunteer priests. Brief for Respondent at 2, . On December 23, 2000, Ngo was released from administrative segregation. Id. Petitioners Kane and Woodford, Prison Wardens at San Quentin, then prohibited Ngo from communicating with a particular volunteer in the San Quentin Catholic Chapel and from participating in “Special Programs” such as the Sacrament of Confession, Holy Week services, and Bible study. Id. These programs are critical for parole eligibility as evidence of good behavior and fitness to re-enter society. Id.
After attempting to get petitioner Kane to remove his restrictions, on June 18, 2001, Ngo submitted a formal grievance to the prison Appeals Coordinator challenging his ongoing disciplinary action. Id. The Appeals coordinator refused the appeal on the ground that Ngo had not submitted it within the time period provided by California prison regulations, which is “within 15 working days of the event or decision being appealed. Id. Ngo submitted a second filing on June 25, 2001, arguing that his appeal should not be barred because the continuing denial of access to special programs was “ongoing” and therefore the appeal was not untimely. Id.
The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (“PLRA”) was enacted to address the explosion of frivolous lawsuits filed by State and Federal prisoners. Brief for the United States at 2. The PLRA provides that “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.” 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). The PLRA altered how and when prisoners could file suits in federal courts to challenge the conditions of their confinement. Ngo v. Woodford, 403 F. 3d 620, 623 (2005). To achieve its stated goals of ending frivolous litigation and restraining micromanagement of state and local prison systems, the PLRA created procedural hurdles such as the requirement to exhaust available administrative remedies. Id. Administrative exhaustion rules have two principal purposes. Id. at 624. First, they serve to protect an administrative agency’s authority by giving the agency the opportunity to resolve a controversy before a court intervenes. Id. Second, they promote judicial efficiency by either resolving the dispute outside the courts or by creating a factual record that will aid the court in future proceedings. Id.
On July 11, 2001, Ngo filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeking injunctive relief and damages. Brief for Respondent at 3. He alleged that petitioners’ conduct violated his First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion and free speech, denied him due process, and defamed him. Id. Ngo also argued that he had exhausted all available administrative grievance procedure. Id. The District Court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss for Ngo’s failure to exhaust administrative remedies. Id. The Ninth Circuit reversed the decision, rejecting petitioners’ argument that Ngo’s untimely filing constituted a failure to exhaust administrative remedies under the PLRA. Id. On November 14, 2005, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to address the circuit split concerning whether an untimely administrative appeal satisfies the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement. The Sixth and Ninth Circuits have ruled that an untimely appeal does satisfy the requirement, whereas the Third, Seventh, Tenth and Eleventh Circuits have held that an untimely appeal does not satisfy the requirement.
Analysis
Initial Question
At first glance, the question in this case appears to be whether a prisoner has satisfied the exhaustion requirement of the PLRA by filing an untimely appeal that was considered barred by the prison appeals coordinator. First we will look at the statute itself, and ask whether the exhaustion requirement actually includes a procedural default rule. Then, by argument by analogy to habeas corpus policy, we will ask whether a procedural default rule should be read into the statute in order to uphold the dignity of state prison procedures. Finally, we will examine whether the other policies of the PLRA support reading in a procedural default rule.
Statutory Language
One of the principle arguments of the respondent and of the lower court is that the language of the PLRA only requires that a prisoner wishing to bring an action in Federal court has exhausted all available remedies. Ngo v. Woodford, 403 F. 3d 620, 623 (2005). The statute states that a prisoner may not bring suit “until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted.” Id. The lower court argued that the burden is on the defendant in this case to show that there is a remedy available to the plaintiff that has not been exhausted. Id.
Petitioner argues in response that the statute requires a plaintiff to take advantage of all administrative remedies that are ever available to him, and that the procedural bar, while rendering the remedy unavailable at the time of suit, does not mean that it is not an “administrative remedy as [is] available” within the meaning of the statute. Brief for Petitioners, at 14.
The proper meaning of “available” has been addressed before by the supreme court. In Coleman v. Thompson,the Court held that “[a] habeas petitioner who has defaulted his federal claims in state court meets the technical requirements for exhaustion; there are no state remedies any longer ‘available’ to him.” 501 U.S. 722 (1991).
The interpretation of exhaustion in Coleman has the effect of distinguishing two different concepts, an exhaustion requirement and a procedural default rule. Assuming it to be correct, then we might conclude that Ngo has satisfied the exhaustion requirement, but that there may be other reasons for incorporating a procedural default rule into the PLRA in addition to the exhaustion requirement. The lower court refused to read in the procedural default rule where it was not explicitly in the statute. Ngo v. Woodford, 403 F. 3d 620, at 631.
Upholding the Dignity of State Procedural Rules
The principal argument for including a procedural default rule where there is an exhaustion requirement, is that the two must work together in order to give significance to state procedures. Brief for Petitioners, at 12. For example, procedural default in state court will bar a federal habeas corpus suit. Coleman v. Thompson, at 730. This rule, while not required by 28 U.S.C. § 2254, has been read in by the Supreme Court as being necessary to uphold the dignity of state judgments. Id. The petitioners argues that barring suit in this case is much like the bar on federal habeas corpus actions where there has been a procedural default in state court. Brief for Petitioners, at 12. This argument must be that principles of comity require the federal courts deciding PLRA cases to uphold the dignity of state prison administrative decisions in the same way they uphold the dignity of state court judgments. Naturally, the respondent argues that the state interest, because it is merely an administrative decision, is not so important as to bar a federal suit. Brief for Respondent, at 27.
This difference has also manifested itself previously before the Supreme Court. In Oscar Mayer & Co. v. Evans, the Court held that state procedural defaults in claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act cannot foreclose federal relief. 441 U.S. 750, 764 (1979). The respondent argues that the present situation is more like the administrative default in Oscar Mayer & Co. and not like a state court default in Colman v. Thompson. Brief for Respondent, at 27.
Petitioners argue that failing to enforce a procedural default rule in this case would allow prisoners to deliberately flaunt the procedural requirements of the prison administration in order to go directly to federal court. Brief for Petitioners, at 14. Respondent argues that prisoners do have an incentive to try to get a hearing with the prison administration, as it is the fastest route to a redress of their grievance. Brief for Respondent, at 28. It is difficult to imagine why a prisoner would even want to circumvent the prison’s internal appeals process, when that process merely affords him another opportunity to win a favorable ruling. Ngo v. Woodford, 403 F. 3d 620, at 629.
This same logic, however also applies to procedural bars in habeas actions. While plaintiffs in such cases may not have clear incentive for violating state court procedures, they sometimes do, and the Supreme Court has held such violations to bar federal suit. O'Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 844 (1999). In order for the respondent to distinguish these situations, it seems it must be on the ground that prison administrative procedures are not as important as state court procedures, and do not require the same level of respect from federal courts. The fact remains, though, that if filing a late appeal, for example, does not bar appeal in federal courts, the time requirement set by the prison administration basically has no effect; prisoners can essentially ignore such limitations, even though it is unclear why they would want to. Again, the PLRA does not explicitly include a procedural default rule, so if it is to be read in, the Court would have to be persuaded that the fear of prisoners flaunting state prison procedures necessitates barring federal suits based on procedural default.
Allowing State Prison’s to Handle Complaints Internally
One purpose of the PLRA is to give prison administration a chance to resolve complaints of prisoners internally. The petitioners argue that this interest is undermined if procedural default does not bar suit in federal court. Respondent argues that the exhaustion requirement fulfills this policy by itself and that the additional procedural default rules does not further promote this policy. Brief for Respondent, at 43. The exhaustion requirement requires the prisoner to file his appeal with the prison’s Appeals Coordinator, even though the appeal is late. At that point the prison administration has the opportunity to hear the matter if it chooses by waiving the untimeliness. Thus even without the procedural default rule, the prison administration would have the opportunity to handle the case internally by hearing the appeal and redressing the prisoner’s grievance. It is apparent that the exhaustion requirement of the PLRA can by itself serve this purpose. Id.
Reducing Frivolous Lawsuits
According to the petitioners, because another of the purposes of the PLRA is to reduce the amount of frivolous litigation brought by prisoners to federal court, the PLRA should include a procedural default rule. Brief for Petitioners, 24. It cites as evidence of this policy § 1997e(c), which requires district courts to dismiss suits brought that are “frivolous, malicious, or fail to state a claim.” While the purpose of this section is clear, it is not clear how that purpose is meant to be promoted by the exhaustion requirement. The petitioners’ desired reading of the PLRA would reduce the number of frivolous lawsuits, but that is only because it would reduce the total number of lawsuits, both frivolous and meritorious. This reading of the PLRA would bar suit completely irrespective of whether the prisoner’s grievance was legitimate or not, as it would be based merely on whether the prisoner conformed to prison procedures. It seems unlikely that the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement was intended to bar suits regardless of their merit. Rather, it’s purpose was explicitly to “improve the quality” of prisoner suits. Ngo v. Woodford, 403 F. 3d 620, at 630. This implies that the number of frivolous suits be reduced compared to the number of meritorious suits.
The alternative interpretation, on the other hand, will also reduce litigation, but also not in a way consistent with this goal of the PLRA. The respondent’s interpretation of the PLRA will reduce litigation because it gives prison administrators the opportunity to redress prison grievances when they comprise meritorious claims, obviating the need for litigation. This is, however, a desirable result.
Serving the first purpose of the exhaustion requirement (giving prisons the opportunity to solve problems internally) looks at odds with its purported purpose of reducing frivolous lawsuits. Under neither respondent’s nor petitioners’ interpretation does it promote this latter goal. This is not necessarily a problem. It is not necessary that every clause of the PLRA have the effect of reducing frivolous litigation. It would be quite natural for the respondent to argue that the exhaustion requirement itself has no such purpose, but is included in the statute merely to afford prisons the opportunity to redress grievances internally, and that it is the other sections of the PLRA that do the work of reducing frivolous lawsuits by prisoners.
Discussion
Petitioners Woodford and Kane argue that by disregarding the opportunity to file an administrative appeal within fifteen working days of his alleged working injuries, Ngo did not avail himself of all available administrative remedies. Brief for Petitioner at 9. Therefore, he failed to exhaust the available remedies according to § 1997e(a). Id. In order to exhaust available administrative remedies in compliance with the statute, prisoners must use the administrative process offered by the State before filing a federal action. Id. Petitioners content that if a prisoner submits procedurally defective grievance, he has not exhausted the available administrative process. Id. Petitioners argue that § 1997e(a) must be construed to effectuate Congress’s goal of reducing the volume of prisoner actions without merit filed in the federal courts. Id. at 11. Therefore, the exhaustion provision can only be interpreted to require an inmate’s adherence to State administrative review as a condition precedent to filing suit in federal court. Id.
Petitioners emphasize that the Ninth Circuit’s decision permits inmates to circumvent the State’s available administrative review process. Id. at 18. Allowing untimely appeals to exhaust administrative remedies would enable inmates to simply wait until the deadlines pass to file their grievances and then head straight for federal court. Brief of the States of New York et al. in Support of the Petitioners, at 10.This is exactly what Congress deliberately sought to prevent by enacting the PLRA’s exhaustion directive and runs contrary to §1997e(a)’s language in requiring resort to the administrative process. Brief for Petitioner at 18.Petitioners point to the legislative history of the PLRA, which reflects that Congress sought to reduce the burden of unnecessary prison litigation on the federal courts and believed that administrative exhaustion would be an effective tool in reaching that goal. Id. An administrative-exhaustion requirement would benefit both prison management and the federal courts by providing an opportunity for early resolution of the problem, reducing the number of frivolous prisoner suits and reducing intrusion of the courts into the prison administration. Id. at 20-21.
An administrative-exhaustion requirement would also benefit parties in other federal cases that litigate in good faith and suffer when limited judicial resources are spent on frivolous litigation and the taxpayers who pay for the court system and defense of prisoner suits. Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae Supporting Petitioners at 27-28. If inmates are permitted to file suit without first fully invoking the administrative review process, the impact of an increase in prisoner litigations on the federal courts could be substantial. Brief for Petitioner at 22. In 2004, the Director of the Administrative Office of the courts reported that the federal judiciary faced major funding challenges over the next several years due to budget constraints. Id. A reversal of the Ninth Circuit’s decision would be required in order to prevent a higher volume of litigation from entering the federal system and burdening the courts even further.
Respondent argues that the Supreme Court has in the past refused to construe statutes in a way that gives state authorities the ability to defeat § 1983 claims by controlling limitations period or other procedural rules. Brief for Respondent at 7. Further, respondent emphasizes that the legislative history of the PLRA provides no indication that Congress intended or expected a rule of procedural default. Id. at 34-35. Construing the PLRA as including a procedural default sanction would reduce the limitations period for prisoners and would give prison officials the incentive to avoid § 1983 suits by rejecting prison grievances on procedural grounds. Id. at 7-8. A procedural default rule could transform prison grievance deadlines into “safe harbor” provisions for rights abusers and reduce the incentive for prison officials to remedy rights violations after the passage of the grievance deadline. Brief for the Jerome M. Frank Legal Services Organization of the Yale Law School As Amicus Curiae in Support of Respondent at 13. A procedural default rule could significantly interfere with a prisoner’s right of access to the courts, and “places a particularly heavy burden on inmates who are underage, unsophisticated, illiterate and/or inexperienced in filing prison grievances and lawsuits” because a procedural default rule would shorten the statute of limitations for a prisoner plaintiff pursuing a § 1983 claim. Brief for Amici Curiae Law Professors (Michael S. Greco, President of the ABA, Counsel of Record) in Support of Respondent at 12. The question addressed in this case is therefore of great importance to the availability of federal judicial relief for violations of inmates’ constitutional rights. Brief for Amici Curiae Law Professors (Kermit Roosevelt, Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania Law School, Counsel for Amici Curiae) in Support of Respondent at 1. Imposing a procedural bar may have the effect of precluding a substantial number of meritorious claims, which the PLRA’s drafters did not intend to preclude. Id. at 2.
If the Supreme Court affirms the Ninth Circuit decision, it will rule that the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement does not include a procedural default component. An untimely administrative appeal would be deemed to exhaust remedies as required under the PLRA. If the Supreme Court reverses the decision, it will decide that procedural default is encompassed in the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement and would bar the filing of a grievance in federal court after an untimely administrative appeal.
Conclusion
According to the Supreme Court, there is a difference between exhaustion and procedural default. Federal policy towards habeas corpus suits incorporates both doctrines. It is out of respect for state procedural rules that federal courts allow procedural default to bar federal suit in some cases. In some cases, however, particularly in administrative settings, procedural default does not bar federal suit even though there is a statutory exhaustion requirement. The Supreme Court must decide whether state prison administrative procedures warrant sufficient respect from the federal court system to justify a procedural default rule. The petitioners argue that the policies of the PLRA require reading in a procedural default rule, because the PLRA was intended to allow the administrators of state prisons the chance to handle inmate complaints internally and to decrease the number of frivolous lawsuits brought by prisoners into federal courts. However, the exhaustion requirement serves the first purpose without the help of a procedural default rule. Furthermore, the procedural default rule is perfectly incompetent in distinguishing between meritorious and frivolous lawsuits, and therefore cannot rationally be applied as a means of reducing the latter.
Written by: Kelly McRobie & Anthony Stark
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