Golliday et al v. Causey et al

Filing 24

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER by Judge Greg N. Stivers on 4/30/2018 granting 22 Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment. cc: Counsel; Plaintiff, pro se(JWM)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY
BOWLING GREEN DIVISION
CHRISTOPHER MAYNARD GOLLIDAY
v.

PLAINTIFF
CIVIL ACTION NO. 1:17-CV-P131-GNS

MISSE CAUSEY et al.

DEFENDANTS
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Before the Court is the motion for summary judgment filed by Defendants (DN 22).
Plaintiff Christopher Maynard Golliday was given an extended time in which to file a response;
he did not. For the following reasons, Defendants’ summary-judgment motion will be granted.
I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The only remaining claim in this case is the claim brought by Plaintiff (hereinafter
“Plaintiff”) against Defendants in their official capacities for failing to provide cleaning supplies
to clean mold and fungus in the Warren County Regional Jail (WCRJ) while Plaintiff was a
pretrial detainee there.
In his complaint, Plaintiff stated that after moving to WCRJ Pod A-1 on December 2,
2016, he “started breaking out around [his] neck and back.” He stated that he filled out several
medical forms to request to see the doctor/nurse, but all “they” did was give him some antifungal cream after “the fifth or sixth medical request” around May 23, 2017. He alleged that he
then began having “breathing issues and stayed sick from the ceiling in A-1 from a lot of black
mold.” According to Plaintiff, the mold forms on the shower ceiling due to poor ventilation. He
stated that he filed multiple grievances about the mold but “[t]hey never give us proper
equipment to clean the mold off, plus I’m allergic to mold.” In particular, he asserted:
It got so bad that I had to stop taking showers as often as I was. The staff
threatened to take the T.V. and phone if we didn’t clean it (the mold on the

ceiling). So I started cleaning it myself, then paying other inmates to clean the
bathroom. The break-outs has caused permanent scars on my neck. All Misse
Causey does is tell us to clean it with the watered down bleach. . . They said that
they don’t issue pure bleach to us. . . . All 12 people in the pod were willing to
clean, but when we asked for things to protect our head, face, eyes, and neck we
were denied.
II. ANALYSIS
Summary judgment is proper “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to
any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P.
56(a). The party moving for summary judgment bears the burden of demonstrating the absence
of a genuine issue of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986).
The moving party’s burden may be discharged by demonstrating that there is an absence
of evidence to support an essential element of the nonmoving party’s case for which he or she
has the burden of proof. Id. A moving party with the burden of proof who seeks summary
judgment faces a “substantially higher hurdle.” Arnett v. Myers, 281 F.3d 552, 561 (6th Cir.
2002). “[W]here the moving party has the burden -- the plaintiff on a claim for relief or the
defendant on an affirmative defense -- his showing must be sufficient for the court to hold that
no reasonable trier of fact could find other than for the moving party.” Calderone v. United
States, 799 F.2d 254, 259 (6th Cir. 1986) (internal quotation marks, citation, and emphasis
omitted). The party with the burden of proof “must show that the record contains evidence
satisfying the burden of persuasion and that the evidence is so powerful that no reasonable jury
would be free to disbelieve it.” Arnett, 281 F.3d at 561. “Accordingly, summary judgment in
favor of the party with the burden of persuasion ‘is inappropriate when the evidence is
susceptible to different interpretations or inferences by the trier of fact.’” Green v. Tudor, 685 F.
Supp. 2d 678, 685 (W.D. Mich. 2010) (quoting Hunt v. Cromartie, 526 U.S. 541, 553 (1999)).

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Prisoner civil-rights cases are subject to the mandate of the Prison Litigation reform Act
(PLRA) that “[n]o action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under [42 U.S.C.]
§ 1983 . . . 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). To exhaust a
claim, a prisoner must proceed through all of the steps of a prison’s or jail’s grievance process,
because an inmate “cannot abandon the process before completion and claim that he has
exhausted his remedies.” Hartsfield v. Vidor, 199 F.3d 305, 309 (6th Cir. 1999). The Supreme
Court held in Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 93 (2006), that failure to “properly” exhaust bars
suit in federal court. “Proper exhaustion” means that the plaintiff complied with the
administrative “agency’s deadlines and other critical procedural rules because no adjudicative
system can function effectively without imposing some orderly structure on the course of its
proceedings.” Id. at 90-91.
Defendants argue that Plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies through the
Warren County Jail’s Inmate Rights and Rules. They assert that Plaintiff received a copy of the
Jail’s Inmates Rights and Rules and that, although he filed six grievances relating to the
bathroom in his cell, the presence of mold, and lack of cleaning supplies, he did not appeal the
initial responses of these grievances.
In Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 216 (2007), the Supreme Court held that exhaustion
under the PLRA is an affirmative defense. Therefore, the heightened summary judgment
standard set out above applies to Defendants’ motion for summary judgment based on the
affirmative defense that Plaintiff failed to exhaust.

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Upon review, Defendants have met their burden. To the summary-judgment motion, they
attach the affidavit of Defendant Stephen Harmon, the WJRC’s jailer, who avers that a copy of
the Inmates Rights and Rules was given to Plaintiff when he was booked into the jail as
evidenced by his signed acknowledgement on the document. Those Inmates Rights and Rules
provide that if an inmate is dissatisfied with the initial response to a grievance, that inmate may
appeal to the jailer or his designee within 48 hours of the initial response.
Defendant Harmon also avers that he attached the six grievances filed by Plaintiff. Each
of those grievances received a response by a staff member. Defendant Harmon further avers that
Plaintiff did not appeal from any of the responses to his grievances, which denied that he was not
receiving effective cleaning products. Thus, Defendants have demonstrated that Plaintiff
abandoned the grievance process before it was complete. Defendants have submitted adequate
summary-judgment proof that Plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies when he
failed to timely appeal the initial responses to his grievances. Plaintiff has produced no evidence
to contradict Defendants' proof regarding exhaustion, so that there is no genuine issue of material
fact for a jury to decide, and Defendants have established they are entitled to judgment as a
matter of law.
III. CONCLUSION AND ORDER
For the foregoing reasons,
IT IS ORDERED that Defendants’ motion for summary judgment (DN 22) is GRANTED.
Date:

April 30, 2018

Greg N. Stivers, Judge
United States District Court

Plaintiff, pro se
Counsel of record
4416.009

cc:

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