Charles Shumanis v. County of Lehigh, et al

Filing

NOT PRECEDENTIAL OPINION Coram: MCKEE and RESTREPO, Circuit Judges and HORNAK*, District Judge. Total Pages: 9. Judge: HORNAK Authoring. Honorable Mark R. Hornak, District Judge for the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, sitting by designation.

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NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
_____________
No. 16-2017
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CHARLES SHUMANIS,
Appellant
v.
LEHIGH COUNTY; WARDEN DALE MIESEL;
WARDEN JANINE DONATE; SERGEANT ERIC SABORSKY;
SERGEANT RONALD MARCH; CORRECTION OFFICER ERIC NOWICKI
______________
ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
(D.C. No. 5-14-cv-06560)
District Judge: Honorable Edward G. Smith
______________
Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
November 8, 2016
______________
Before: McKEE and RESTREPO, Circuit Judges, and HORNAK, * District Judge.
(Filed: January 18, 2017)
______________
OPINION **
______________
*

Honorable Mark R. Hornak, District Judge for the United States District Court
for the Western 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.

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HORNAK, District Judge.
Charles Shumanis appeals from the March 29, 2016 order of the United States
District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania entering summary judgment
against him and in favor of Appellees based upon its conclusion that Shumanis failed to
exhaust his administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act
(PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). Several months after the District Court’s judgment, the
Supreme Court, in Ross v. Blake, ––– U.S. –––, 136 S. Ct. 1850, 195 L. Ed. 2d 117
(2016), addressed in detail the circumstances in which an inmate must exhaust his or her
administrative remedies under the PLRA and when such exhaustion might be excused. In
Ross, the Supreme Court held that although there are “no limits on an inmate’s obligation
to exhaust,” “the remedies must indeed by ‘available’ to the prisoner” for the exhaustion
requirement to obtain. Id. at 1856.
For the reasons set forth below, we will vacate the District Court’s judgment and
remand this case for further proceedings.
I.
On November 14, 2014, Shumanis filed this lawsuit invoking 42 U.S.C. § 1983
and alleging that individual defendant wardens and officers of the Lehigh County Jail
(Jail), as well as Lehigh County itself, violated his rights under the Fourth, Eighth, and
Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Shumanis claimed that on
November 16, 2012, while he was an inmate at the Jail, Jail personnel brought him into
the Jail’s administration and discharge room so that he could complete paperwork for a
pending transfer to state prison. There, Shumanis was attacked and brutally beaten by
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three other inmates. He suffered numerous injuries, including blurred vision in his left
eye, five lost teeth, a torn lip, a closed head/brain injury, dizziness, back pain, numbness
in his right hand, a subdural hematoma, a dislocated mandible, permanent facial scarring,
a left eye deformity, and mental and cognitive concentration issues. One of Shumanis’s
attackers was a man named Roberto Diaz. A no-contact order was in effect to protect
Shumanis from Diaz because Shumanis previously served as a witness against Diaz.
According to Shumanis, Jail personnel either condoned the attack or improperly failed to
prevent it.
The District Court allowed the parties to engage in limited discovery to determine
whether Shumanis had exhausted his administrative remedies as required by the PLRA,
42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). Following that discovery, Lehigh County and the individual
Defendants moved for summary judgment, and—finding they were entitled to it—the
District Court entered summary judgment in their favor. The District Court concluded
that Shumanis failed to utilize his administrative remedies under the Jail’s Grievance
Policy and Procedure (GPP). Specifically, the District Court made the following factual
findings and legal conclusions:
(1) the plaintiff was aware of the jail’s grievance procedure, (2) he needed
to exhaust his administrative remedies by grieving any issues concerning
any improper conduct by jail staff because such action constituted grievable
“staff action” under the jail’s grievance policy, (3) the plaintiff did not file
an informal grievance relating to the acts at issue, (4) even if he did file an
informal grievance, the jail’s grievance policy required inmates to file a
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formal grievance and proceed through any appeal from a denial of that
grievance before the inmate’s remedies are considered to be exhausted, and
(5) the plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies because he
admits that he never timely filed a formal grievance relating to the
November 2012 incident at issue.
Shumanis v. Lehigh Cty., No. 14-cv-6560, 2016 WL 1237322, at *1 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 29,
2016). Importantly, the text of the Jail’s GPP provides that administrative remedies are
available for “[s]taff actions,” but “[s]tate and federal laws” are “issues [that] are not
grievable under [the] policy.” App. Vol. I at 46.
II.
The District Court had jurisdiction over this case under 28 U.S.C. § 1331. We
have jurisdiction over this appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Our review of the District
Court’s grant of summary judgment is plenary, and we apply the same standards that the
District Court applied in determining whether summary judgment was appropriate. Giles
v. Kearney, 571 F.3d 318, 322 (3d Cir. 2009). Viewing the evidence in the light most
favorable to the nonmovant, summary judgment is appropriate if there is “no genuine
issue as to any material fact and . . . the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter
of law.” Id. (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)). “The mere existence of some evidence in
support of the nonmovant is insufficient to deny a motion for summary judgment; enough
evidence must exist to enable a jury to reasonably find for the nonmovant on the issue.”
Id. (citing Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242 (1986)).

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The PLRA requires inmates to exhaust prison grievance procedures before suing
in court. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). It provides that “[n]o 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.” Id. Where a prisoner has not
exhausted his administrative remedies, a lawsuit challenging prison conditions in federal
court is procedurally defaulted. Spruill v. Gillis, 372 F.3d 218, 230 (3d Cir. 2004). This
mandatory 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.” Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 532 (2002).
Failure to exhaust administrative remedies under the PLRA is an affirmative
defense that a defendant must plead and prove. Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 216 (2007);
Ray v. Kertes, 285 F.3d 287, 295 (3d Cir. 2002). A prisoner need only exhaust those
administrative remedies that are actually “available” to him. Mitchell v. Horn, 318 F.3d
523, 529 (3d Cir. 2003). The “exhaustion of administrative remedies under the PLRA is a
question of law to be determined by the judge.” Drippe v. Tobelinski, 604 F.3d 778, 782
(3d Cir. 2010). “‘[P]rison grievance procedures supply the yardstick’ for determining
what steps are required for exhaustion,” Williams v. Beard, 482 F.3d 637, 639 (3d Cir.
2007) (quoting Spruill, 372 F.3d at 231), and interpretation of the prison’s grievance
policy is akin to statutory construction. Spruill, 372 F.3d at 232. “[T]o properly exhaust
administrative remedies, prisoners must ‘complete the administrative review process in
accordance with the applicable procedural rules’” as they are “defined . . . by the prison
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grievance process itself.” Jones, 549 U.S. at 218 (quoting Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81,
88 (2006)).
III.
One of Shumanis’s arguments, both to the District Court and on this appeal, is that
he could not or need not have filed a grievance because an administrative remedy was not
“available” to him under the GPP. A remedy was not available, according to Shumanis,
because his complaints involved alleged violations of “federal law[],” issues which—at
least according to one reading of the GPP—are not grievable.
Addressing Shumanis’s argument that issues of federal law were not grievable, the
District Court concluded that Shumanis’s interpretation of the GPP was “untenable and
unreasonable” because it would allow any inmate to bypass the grievance process simply
by alleging violations of federal law. Shumanis, 2016 WL 1237322, at *12. Such an
interpretation, the District Court found, “would lead to an unreasonable or absurd result
that is inconsistent with the purpose of the PLRA.” Id. Instead, the District Court
concluded, the GPP’s exclusion of “federal laws” from the administrative grievance
process really intended to convey to prisoners that they could not directly challenge such
laws through the Jail grievance process. Id. Beyond its analysis of the language of the
GPP, however, the District Court made no factual finding as to the actual availability of a
remedy for prisoner complaints that allege violations of federal law.
Following the District Court’s judgment, the Supreme Court, in Ross, addressed in
detail the circumstances in which an inmate must exhaust his or her administrative
remedies under the PLRA. There, Shaidon Blake, a state prisoner, alleged that he was
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attacked by prison guards while the guards were escorting him from his regular cell to the
facility’s segregation unit. 136 S. Ct. at 1855. Blake complained to a senior corrections
officer, who referred the incident for investigation by the state prison system’s internal
investigative unit. Id. Although Blake believed that, in doing so, he had exhausted his
administrative remedies, the District Court found that the prison’s policy required a
formal grievance to the prison warden. Id. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
held that a reasonable belief that a prisoner has exhausted his or her remedies, even if
mistaken, is sufficient to allow a suit to proceed in light of the PLRA. Id. at 1856. The
Supreme Court disagreed, holding that there are “no limits on an inmate’s obligation to
exhaust—irrespective of any ‘special circumstances.’” Id.
That holding, however, did not end the Supreme Court’s inquiry. Blake’s suit
might still be viable, the Court reasoned—despite his failure to exhaust administrative
remedies—because of his “contention that the prison’s grievance process was not in fact
available to him.” Id. “A prisoner need not exhaust remedies if they are not ‘available.’”
Id. at 1855. In other words, “an inmate is required to exhaust those, but only those,
grievance procedures that are ‘capable of use’ to obtain ‘some relief for the action
complained of.’” Id. at 1859 (quoting Booth v. Churner, 532 U.S. 731, 738 (2001)). The
Court went on to explain that the actual availability of remedies may turn on questions of
fact. For example, an administrative procedure is unavailable whenever: (1) “it operates
as a simple dead end—with officers unable or consistently unwilling to provide any relief
to aggrieved inmates”; (2) it is “so opaque that is becomes, practically speaking,
incapable of use,” such as when no ordinary prisoner can discern or navigate it; or (3)
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“prison administrators thwart inmates from taking advantage of a grievance process
through machination, misrepresentation, or intimidation.” Id. at 1859-60.
The Supreme Court also made it clear that lower courts are better positioned to
make factual findings regarding the actual availability of administrative remedies under
the PLRA. Id. at 1862. Examining the particular facts of Blake’s case, the Court found
that—although the prison’s grievance policy provided that prisoners could grieve “all
types” of complaints—the fact that the state maintained an investigative unit to
investigate charges of staff misconduct raised a question about whether relief under the
prison’s grievance policy was, as a matter of fact, actually available to Blake. Id. Because
the record before the Court was not “conclusive” on the issue of availability, the Court
remanded the case for further factual development. Id.
In this case, the District Court properly concluded that interpretation of the GPP is
a question of law. See Spruill, 372 F.3d at 232. In light of the Supreme Court’s decision
in Ross, however, we conclude that the decisional process would benefit from the District
Court’s consideration, in the first instance, of factual questions surrounding the actual
availability of administrative remedies. 1 The District Court already heard argument on

1

In particular, we note that the GPP’s exclusion of remedies for “issues” of “federal
law[]” raises a question about the actual availability of a remedy for Shumanis. The
District Court might conclude, for example, that a grievance would have been a “dead
end” because of the way Jail officials administer the GPP. See Ross, 136 S. Ct. at 1859. It
also might conclude that ambiguities in the GPP’s text regarding grieving issues of
federal law render the policy so opaque on such matters that no reasonable prisoner could
discern or navigate it. See id. Or, the District Court might conclude that the GPP and its
administration do not suffer from these or any other infirmities. We express no opinion as
to the resolution of such matters, concluding that post-Ross, the sounder course is to
permit the District Court to consider them in the first instance.
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the exhaustion issue and is familiar with the underlying facts of this case. Should the
District Court conclude that further factual development is warranted, as it was in Ross, it
is also better positioned to manage the nature and scope of the parties’ discovery.
IV.
For the foregoing reasons, we will vacate the District Court’s judgment and
remand the case for further proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in
Ross and with this Opinion.

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