ROSS v. BLAKE
No. 15-339
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
June 6, 2016
578 U. S. ____ (2016)
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
ROSS v. BLAKE
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 15-339. Argued March 29, 2016—Decided June 6, 2016
Two guards—James Madigan and petitioner Michael Ross—undertook to move respondent Shaidon Blake, a Maryland inmate, to the prison‘s segregation unit. During the transfer, Madigan assaulted Blake, punching him several times in the face. Blake reported the incident to a corrections officer, who referred the matter to the Maryland prison system‘s Internal Investigative Unit (IIU). The IIU, which has authority under state law to investigate employee misconduct, issued a report condemning Madigan‘s actions. Blake subsequently sued both guards under
Held:
1. The Fourth Circuit‘s unwritten “special circumstances” exception is inconsistent with the text and history of the PLRA. Pp. 3-8.
(a) The PLRA speaks in unambiguous terms, providing that “[n]o
(b) The PLRA‘s history further underscores the mandatory nature of its exhaustion regime. The PLRA replaced a largely discretionary exhaustion scheme, see Nussle, 534 U. S., at 523, removing the conditions that administrative remedies be “plain, speedy, and effective,” that they satisfy federal minimum standards, and that exhaustion be “appropriate and in the interests of justice.” The Court of Appeals’ exception, if applied broadly, would resurrect that discretionary regime, in which a court could look to all the particulars of a case to decide whether to excuse a failure to exhaust. And if the exception were confined to cases in which a prisoner makes a reasonable mistake about the meaning of a prison‘s grievance procedures, it would reintroduce the requirement that the remedial process be “plain.” When Congress amends legislation, courts must “presume it intends [the change] to have real and substantial effect.” Stone v. INS, 514 U. S. 386, 397. But the Court of Appeals acted as though no amendment had taken place. Pp. 6-8.
2. Blake‘s contention that the prison‘s grievance process was not in fact available to him warrants further consideration below. Pp. 8-14.
(a) Blake‘s suit may yet be viable. The PLRA contains its own, textual exception to mandatory exhaustion. Under
As relevant here, there are three kinds of circumstances in which an administrative remedy, although officially on the books, is not capable of use to obtain relief. First, an administrative procedure is unavailable when it operates as a simple dead end—with officers unable or consistently unwilling to provide any relief to aggrieved in
(b) The facts of this case raise questions about whether, given these principles, Blake had an “available” administrative remedy to exhaust. Ross‘s exhaustion defense rests on Blake‘s failure to seek relief through Maryland‘s Administrative Remedy Procedure (ARP) process, which begins with a grievance to the warden. That process is the standard method for addressing inmate complaints in the State‘s prisons. But Maryland separately maintains the IIU to look into charges of prison staff misconduct, and the IIU did just that here. Blake urged in the courts below that once the IIU commences such an inquiry, a prisoner cannot obtain relief through the ARP process. And in this Court, the parties have lodged additional materials relating to the interaction between the IIU and the ARP. Both sides’ submissions, although scattershot and in need of further review, lend some support to Blake‘s account.
Blake‘s filings include many administrative dispositions indicating that Maryland wardens routinely dismiss ARP grievances as procedurally improper when parallel IIU investigations are pending. In addition, Blake has submitted briefs of the Maryland attorney general specifically recognizing that administrative practice. And Ross‘s own submissions offer some confirmation of Blake‘s view: Ross does not identify a single case in which a warden considered the merits of an ARP grievance while an IIU inquiry was underway. On remand, the Fourth Circuit should perform a thorough review of such materials, and then address whether the remedies Blake did not exhaust were “available” under the legal principles set out here. Pp. 11-14.
787 F. 3d 693, vacated and remanded.
KAGAN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY, GINSBURG, ALITO, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. BREYER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part.
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 15-339
MICHAEL ROSS, PETITIONER v. SHAIDON BLAKE
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
[June 6, 2016]
JUSTICE KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA) mandates that an inmate exhaust “such administrative remedies as are available” before bringing suit to challenge prison conditions.
I
Respondent Shaidon Blake is an inmate in a Maryland prison. On June 21, 2007, two guards—James Madigan and petitioner Michael Ross—undertook to move him from his regular cell to the facility‘s segregation unit. Accord
Later that day, Blake reported the assault to a senior corrections officer. That officer thought Madigan at fault, and so referred the incident to the Maryland prison system‘s Internal Investigative Unit (IIU). Under state law, the IIU has authority to investigate allegations of employee misconduct, including the use of “excessive force.”
Blake subsequently sued both guards under
Blake acknowledged that he had not sought a remedy through the ARP—because, he thought, the IIU investigation served as a substitute for that otherwise standard process. The District Court rejected that explanation and dismissed the suit, holding that “the commencement of an internal investigation does not relieve prisoners from the [PLRA‘s] exhaustion requirement.” Blake v. Maynard, No. 8:09-cv-2367 (D Md., Nov. 14, 2012), App. to Pet. for Cert. 38, 2012 WL 5568940, *5.
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed in a divided decision. Stating that the PLRA‘s “exhaustion requirement is not absolute,” the court adopted an extratextual exception originally formulated by the Second Circuit. 787 F. 3d 693, 698 (2015). Repeated the Court of Appeals: “[T]here are certain ‘special circumstances’ in which, though administrative remedies may have been available[,] the prisoner‘s failure to comply with administrative procedural requirements may nevertheless have been justified.” Ibid. (quoting Giano v. Goord, 380 F. 3d 670, 676 (CA2 2004)). In particular, that was true when a prisoner “reasonably“—even though mistakenly—“believed that he had sufficiently exhausted his remedies.” 787 F. 3d, at 695. And Blake, the court concluded, fit within that exception because he reasonably thought that “the IIU‘s investigation removed his complaint from the typical ARP process.” Id., at 700. Judge Agee dissented, stating that the PLRA‘s mandatory exhaustion requirement is not “amenable” to “[j]udge-made exceptions.” Id., at 703. This Court granted certiorari. 577 U. S. 1042 (2015).
II
The dispute here concerns whether the PLRA‘s exhaustion requirement,
A
Statutory interpretation, as we always say, begins with the text, see, e.g., Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., 560 U. S. 242, 251 (2010)—but here following that approach at once distances us from the Court of Appeals. As Blake acknowledges, that court made no attempt to ground its analysis in the PLRA‘s language. See 787 F. 3d, at 697-698; Brief for Respondent 47-48, n. 20 (labeling the Court of Appeals’ rule an “extra-textual exception to the PLRA‘s exhaustion requirement“). And that failure makes a difference, because the statute speaks in unambiguous terms opposite to what the Fourth Circuit said.
Section 1997e(a) provides: “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.” As we have often observed, that language is “mandatory“: An inmate “shall” bring “no action” (or said more conversationally, may not bring any action) absent exhaustion of available administrative remedies. Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U. S. 81, 85 (2006); accord, Jones v. Bock, 549 U. S. 199, 211 (2007) (“There is no question that exhaustion is mandatory under the PLRA“). As later discussed, that edict contains one significant qualifier: the remedies must indeed be “available” to the prisoner. See infra, at 8–10. But aside from that exception, the PLRA‘s text suggests no
And that mandatory language means a court may not excuse a failure to exhaust, even to take such circumstances into account. See Miller v. French, 530 U. S. 327, 337 (2000) (explaining that “[t]he mandatory ‘shall’ . . . normally creates an obligation impervious to judicial discretion“). No doubt, judge-made exhaustion doctrines, even if flatly stated at first, remain amenable to judge-made exceptions. See McKart v. United States, 395 U. S. 185, 193 (1969) (“The doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies . . . is, like most judicial doctrines, subject to numerous exceptions“). But a statutory exhaustion provision stands on a different footing. There, Congress sets the rules and courts have a role in creating exceptions only if Congress wants them to. For that reason, mandatory exhaustion statutes like the PLRA establish mandatory exhaustion regimes, foreclosing judicial discretion. See, e.g., McNeil v. United States, 508 U. S. 106, 111, 113 (1993) (“We are not free to rewrite the statutory text” when Congress has strictly “bar[red] claimants from bringing suit in federal court until they have exhausted their administrative remedies“). Time and again, this Court has taken such statutes at face value—refusing to add unwritten limits onto their rigorous textual requirements. See, e.g., id., at 111; Shalala v. Illinois Council on Long Term Care, Inc., 529 U. S. 1, 12–14 (2000); see also 2 R. Pierce, Administrative Law Treatise §15.3, p. 1241 (5th ed. 2010) (collecting cases).
We have taken just that approach in construing the PLRA‘s exhaustion provision—rejecting every attempt to deviate (as the Fourth Circuit did here) from its textual mandate. In Booth v. Churner, 532 U. S. 731 (2001), for example, the prisoner argued that exhaustion was not necessary because he wanted a type of relief that the administrative process did not provide. But
So too, the history of the PLRA underscores the mandatory nature of its exhaustion regime. Section 1997e(a)‘s precursor, enacted in the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), §7, 94 Stat. 352 (1980), was a “weak exhaustion provision.” Woodford, 548 U. S., at 84. Under CRIPA, a court would require exhaustion only if a State provided “plain, speedy, and effective” remedies meeting federal minimum standards—and even then, only if the court believed exhaustion “appropriate and in the inter-
The PLRA‘s history (just like its text) thus refutes a “special circumstances” exception to its rule of exhaustion. That approach, if applied broadly, would resurrect CRIPA‘s scheme, in which a court could look to all the particulars of a case to decide whether to excuse a failure to exhaust available remedies. But as we have observed, such wide-ranging discretion “is now a thing of the past.” Booth, 532 U. S., at 739. And the conflict with the PLRA‘s history (as again with its text) becomes scarcely less stark if the Fourth Circuit‘s exception is confined, as the court may have intended, to cases in which a prisoner makes a reasonable mistake about the meaning of a prison‘s grievance procedures. Understood that way, the exception reintroduces CRIPA‘s requirement that the remedial process be “plain“—that is, not subject to any reasonable misunderstanding or disagreement. §7(a), 94 Stat. 352. When Congress amends legislation, courts must “presume it intends [the change] to have real and substantial effect.” Stone v. INS, 514 U. S. 386, 397 (1995). The Court of Appeals instead acted as though the amendment—from a
B
Yet our rejection of the Fourth Circuit‘s “special circumstances” exception does not end this case—because the PLRA contains its own, textual exception to mandatory exhaustion. Under
To state that standard, of course, is just to begin; courts in this and other cases must apply it to the real-world
First, as Booth made clear, an administrative procedure is unavailable when (despite what regulations or guidance materials may promise) it operates as a simple dead end—with officers unable or consistently unwilling to provide any relief to aggrieved inmates. See 532 U. S., at 736, 738. Suppose, for example, that a prison handbook directs inmates to submit their grievances to a particular administrative office—but in practice that office disclaims the capacity to consider those petitions. The procedure is not then “capable of use” for the pertinent purpose. In Booth‘s words: “[S]ome redress for a wrong is presupposed by the statute‘s requirement” of an “available” remedy; “where the relevant administrative procedure lacks authority to provide any relief,” the inmate has “nothing to exhaust.” Id., at 736, and n. 4. So too if administrative officials have apparent authority, but decline ever to exercise it. Once again: “[T]he modifier ‘available’ requires the possibility of some relief.” Id., at 738. When the facts on the ground demonstrate that no such potential exists, the inmate has no obligation to exhaust the remedy.
Next, an administrative scheme might be so opaque that it becomes, practically speaking, incapable of use. In this situation, some mechanism exists to provide relief, but no ordinary prisoner can discern or navigate it. As the Solici-
And finally, the same is true when prison administrators thwart inmates from taking advantage of a grievance process through machination, misrepresentation, or intimidation. In Woodford, we recognized that officials might devise procedural systems (including the blind alleys and quagmires just discussed) in order to “trip[] up all but the most skillful prisoners.” 548 U. S., at 102. And appellate courts have addressed a variety of instances in which officials misled or threatened individual inmates so as to prevent their use of otherwise proper procedures. As all those courts have recognized, such interference with an inmate‘s pursuit of relief renders the administrative process unavailable.3 And then, once again,
no bar.
The facts of this case raise questions about whether, given these principles, Blake had an “available” administrative remedy to exhaust. As explained earlier, Ross‘s exhaustion defense rests on Blake‘s failure to seek relief through Maryland‘s ARP process, which begins with a grievance to the warden and may continue with appeals to the Commissioner of Correction and the IGO. See supra, at 2-3; Inmate Handbook, at 30–31. That process is the standard method for addressing inmate complaints in the State‘s prisons: The Inmate Handbook provides that prisoners may use the ARP for “all types” of grievances (subject to four exceptions not relevant here), including those relating to the use of force. Id., at 30; see App. 312. But recall that Maryland separately maintains the IIU to look into charges of staff misconduct in prisons, and the IIU did just that here. See supra, at 2. Blake urged in the courts below that once the IIU commences such an inquiry, a prisoner cannot obtain relief through the standard ARP process—whatever the Handbook may say to the contrary. See 787 F. 3d, at 697; App. to Pet. for Cert. 38, 2012 WL 5568940, *5. And in this Court, that issue has taken on new life. Both Blake and Ross (as represented by the
Blake‘s filings include many administrative dispositions (gleaned from the records of other prisoner suits) indicating that Maryland wardens routinely dismiss ARP grievances as procedurally improper when parallel IIU investigations are pending. One warden, for example, wrote in response to a prisoner‘s complaint: “Your Request for Administrative Remedy has been received and is hereby dismissed. This issue has been assigned to the Division of Correction‘s Internal Investigative Unit (Case #07-35-010621I/C), and will no longer be addressed through this process.” Lodging of Respondent 1; see also, e.g., id., at 18 (“Admin. Dismiss Final: This is being investigated outside of the ARP process by I.I.U.“). In addition, Blake has submitted briefs of the Maryland attorney general (again, drawn from former prisoner suits) specifically recognizing that administrative practice. As the attorney general stated in one case: “Wilkerson filed an ARP request,” but “his complaint already was being investigated by the [IIU], superceding an ARP investigation.” Id., at 23-24; see also, e.g., id., at 5 (Bacon‘s grievance “was dismissed because the issue had been assigned to [the] IIU and would no longer be addressed through the ARP process“).4
And Ross‘s own submissions offer some confirmation of Blake‘s view. Ross does not identify a single case in which a warden considered the merits of an ARP grievance while an IIU inquiry was underway. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 6 (Maryland attorney general‘s office conceding that it had found none). To the contrary, his lodging contains still further evidence that wardens consistently dismiss such complaints as misdirected. See, e.g., Lodging of Petitioner 15 (District Court noting that “Gladhill was advised that no further action would be taken through the ARP process because the matter had been referred to the [IIU]“). Indeed, Ross’ materials suggest that some wardens use a rubber stamp specially devised for that purpose; the inmate, that is, receives a reply stamped with the legend: “Dismissed for procedural reasons . . . This issue is being investigated by IIU case number: ____. No further action shall be taken within the ARP process.” Id., at 25, 32, 38; see Tr. of Oral Arg. 8-9 (Maryland attorney general‘s office conceding the stamp‘s existence and use).
Complicating the picture, however, are several cases in which an inmate refused to take a warden‘s jurisdictional “no” for an answer, resubmitted his grievance up the chain to the IGO, and there received a ruling on the merits, without any discussion of the ARP/IIU issue. We confess to finding these few cases perplexing in relation to normal appellate procedure. See id., at 3–10, 13–15, 18–20 (multiple Justices expressing confusion about Maryland‘s procedures). If the IGO thinks the wardens wrong to dismiss complaints because of pending IIU investigations, why does it not say so and stop the practice? Conversely, if the IGO thinks the wardens right, how can it then issue merits decisions? And if that really is Maryland‘s proce-
In light of all these lodgings and the questions they raise about Maryland‘s grievance process, we remand this case for further consideration of whether Blake had “available” remedies to exhaust. The materials we have seen are not conclusive; they may not represent the complete universe of relevant documents, and few have been analyzed in the courts below. On remand, in addition to considering any other arguments still alive in this case, the court must perform a thorough review of such materials, and then address the legal issues we have highlighted concerning the availability of administrative remedies. First, did Maryland‘s standard grievance procedures potentially offer relief to Blake or, alternatively, did the IIU investigation into his assault foreclose that possibility? Second, even if the former, were those procedures knowable by an ordinary prisoner in Blake‘s situation, or was the system so confusing that no such inmate could make use of it? And finally, is there persuasive evidence that Maryland officials thwarted the effective invocation of the administrative process through threats, game-playing, or misrepresentations, either on a system-wide basis or in the individual case? If the court accepts Blake‘s probable arguments on one or more of these scores, then it should find (consistent this time with the PLRA) that his suit may proceed even though he did not file an ARP complaint.
III
Courts may not engraft an unwritten “special circum-
It is so ordered.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 15-339
MICHAEL ROSS, PETITIONER v. SHAIDON BLAKE
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
[June 6, 2016]
JUSTICE THOMAS, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I join the Court‘s opinion except for the discussion of Maryland‘s prison-grievance procedures, ante, at 11–14, which needlessly wades into respondent Shaidon Blake‘s questionable lodgings of new documents in this Court. Those documents are not part of the appellate record. See
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 15-339
MICHAEL ROSS, PETITIONER v. SHAIDON BLAKE
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
[June 6, 2016]
JUSTICE BREYER, concurring in part.
I join the opinion of the Court, with the exception that I described in Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U. S. 81 (2006). There, I agreed that “Congress intended the term ‘exhausted’ to ‘mean what the term means in administrative law, where exhaustion means proper exhaustion.‘” Id., at 103 (opinion concurring in judgment). Though that statutory term does not encompass “freewheeling” exceptions for any “special circumstanc[e],” ante, at 1, it does include administrative law‘s “well-established exceptions to exhaustion.” Woodford, supra, at 103 (opinion of BREYER, J.). I believe that such exceptions, though not necessary to the Court‘s disposition of this case, may nevertheless apply where appropriate.