DALLAS MCINTOSH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. WEXFORD HEALTH SOURCES, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees.
No. 19-1095
United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
ARGUED SEPTEMBER 29, 2020 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 5, 2021
Before ROVNER, BRENNAN, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.
I
A
In early 2017 Illinois inmate Dallas McIntosh invoked
Before entering the courthouse, though, McIntosh had to satisfy the obligation Congress put on prisoners in the Prison Litigation Reform Act to exhaust all available administrative remedies. See
Wexford and the jail officials present a competing narrative. By their telling, McIntosh submitted no grievances and indeed fabricated the entire exhaustion account. The defendants accordingly moved for summary judgment on the ground that McIntosh failed to exhaust administrative remedies before filing his
B
Recognizing the contested exhaustion facts, the district court referred the case to a magistrate judge for a so-called Pavey hearing. See Pavey v. Conley, 544 F.3d 739, 742 (7th Cir. 2008) (requiring that, where exhaustion is contested, the district court hold a hearing to resolve relevant facts before proceeding to pretrial discovery). Over the course of two days, the magistrate judge heard testimony from McIntosh and Sergeant Strubberg of the St. Clair County Jail. McIntosh also supported his testimony with two affidavits from fellow inmates. As the parties emphasized to the magistrate judge, the exhaustion dispute would “come down to an issue of credibility between Mr. McIntosh and Sergeant Strubberg.”
In time the magistrate judge issued a report and recommendation rejecting the defendants’ invitation to “find McIntosh‘s version of events not credible.” Indeed, the magistrate judge credited and accepted McIntosh‘s version of events, further finding that the affidavits from the two other inmates
The defendants objected to the magistrate judge‘s report. The district court reviewed the record and transcripts but then—without holding any hearing of its own—rejected not just the magistrate judge‘s overarching finding that McIntosh had exhausted administrative remedies, but also the specific credibility determinations underpinning that finding. The district court found that McIntosh‘s grievance paperwork reflected forgery and rejected the two inmate affidavits as containing impermissible hearsay. Even more, the district court underscored that it saw the parties’ credibility much differently, finding it “plainly apparent that Strubberg and his story are much more credible than McIntosh and his.” Relying on these new findings, the district court entered summary judgment for the defendants.
McIntosh now appeals.
II
The parties start from a point of agreement. They recognize that the district court acted properly under the Federal Magistrates Act in referring the contested exhaustion question to a magistrate judge for a Pavey hearing. See
The Federal Magistrates Act then goes further and provides direction to district courts where a party raises an
In United States v. Raddatz the Supreme Court held that a district court, when faced with an objection to a magistrate judge‘s report, need not rehear live testimony before relying on a magistrate‘s recommendation and credibility determinations. See 447 U.S. 667, 680–81 (1980). The Federal Magistrates Act, the Court reasoned, calls only for a “determination“—not for a hearing. Id. at 674. But the Court took care to limit its holding to those instances where a district judge approves and accepts a magistrate‘s credibility determinations:
Neither the statute nor its legislative history reveals any specific consideration of the situation where a district judge after reviewing the record in the process of making a de novo “determination” has doubts concerning the credibility findings of the magistrate. The issue is not before us, but we assume it is unlikely that a district judge would reject a magistrate‘s proposed findings on credibility when those findings are dispositive and substitute the judge‘s own appraisal; to do so without seeing and hearing the witness or witnesses whose credibility is in question could well give rise to serious questions which we do not reach.
In Raddatz‘s wake, we have “directly address[ed] the constitutional implications that were alluded to by the Court.” Jackson v. United States, 859 F.3d 495, 499 (7th Cir. 2017). We
Wexford and the jail officials urge us to read Jackson as limited to its precise context—criminal law and post-conviction relief under
Nor do Wexford or the jail officials point us to authority compelling their position. Though we have previously emphasized the discretion afforded district courts to review magistrate judge recommendations without conducting a new hearing, we have done so only in situations where a district court adopted the findings of a magistrate judge. See, e.g., Goffman v. Gross, 59 F.3d 668, 671 (7th Cir. 1995); United States v. Severson, 49 F.3d 268, 273 (7th Cir. 1995). That a district court adopting a magistrate judge‘s findings is not required to hold a new hearing says little of what a judge must do before rejecting a magistrate judge‘s findings and recommendations.
A more general precept warrants underscoring. Due process, the law has long recognized, “is flexible and calls for such procedural protections as the particular situation
The qualifier—absent extraordinary circumstances—is important. We do not mean to chisel our observations in Jackson into an unyielding rule. It may be that in some rare circumstance, particular credibility findings by a magistrate judge find no plausible support in the record. But that is far from what transpired here. Our review of the record leaves us with the impression that the magistrate judge‘s credibility findings had ample support. The magistrate judge held a hearing, heard McIntosh‘s story directly from the source, and weighed McIntosh‘s credibility against that of Sergeant Strubberg. After the hearing, the magistrate judge credited McIntosh‘s account. In these circumstances, the district court was not free to reject that determination without itself hearing from the essential witnesses.
Hearings often offer what paper cannot. The court will hear directly from the witnesses and have the opportunity to assess the coherence of their accounts by evaluating their demeanor, conduct, clarity, conviction, body language, and the like—in a word, their credibility. In this way, the new hearing is not just process for the sake of process. Process matters precisely because it often enhances the quality of decision making. All of that is certainly so here, where so much turns on assessments of individual and comparative credibility.
Two final observations will provide guidance on remand. First, the district court must be sure to draw all reasonable inferences in McIntosh‘s favor. We are not certain the court did so the first time around. Take, for example, the district court‘s response to the parties’ arguments regarding the absence of administrator signatures on McIntosh‘s grievances. The district court reasoned that “[t]he lack of signatures only shows that both sides of the story here are plausible—but that does not mean that you immediately take the plaintiff‘s side as true.” To the contrary, “[p]lausible inferences must be resolved in favor of the party opposing summary judgment.” Gramenos v. Jewel Co., Inc., 797 F.2d 432, 436 (7th Cir. 1986). This error, too, may have influenced the district court‘s ruling. A fresh hearing will allow the court to take a new look at the evidence and to consider it in the light most favorable to McIntosh.
Second, the district court should consider McIntosh‘s two inmate affidavits. The Federal Rules of Evidence define hearsay as an out-of-court statement “a party offers into evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted in the statement.”
For these reasons, we VACATE the district court‘s judgment and REMAND for proceedings consistent with this opinion.