Dist. Ct. erred in granting defendants-prison guards’ motion for summary judgment in plaintiff-prisoner’s section 1983 action alleging that defendants used excessive force gratuitously while in prison, where Dist. Ct. found that defendant had not exhausted his administrative remedies prior to filing instant lawsuit as required under Prison Litigation Reform Act. Record showed that: (1) defendant made several attempts to file internal grievance regarding allegations at issue in instant complaint, and that all grievances were returned to defendant with notation that they had not been processed due to some defect in grievance; and (2) grievance coordinator gave plaintiff scant or no explanation as to how to cure said grievances so as to make them able to be processed. As such, granting summary judgment on nonexhaustion grounds was improper since reasonable fact-finder could conclude that plaintiff did all that was required of him, yet was prevented from filing grievance because of mixed or improper instructions from grievance coordinator.
Federal 7th Circuit Court
Civil Court
Prisoners