King v. Dart

Dist. Ct. erred in granting defendants-jail officials’ motion for summary judgment in plaintiff-pre-trial detainee’s section 1983 action, alleging that defendants failed to protect him from another prisoner, where Dist. Ct. found that plaintiff could not proceed on instant claim because he had not exhausted his administrative remedies prior to filing instant lawsuit. Plaintiff was not required to exhaust administrative remedies, where plaintiff received confusing response from jail officials after he filed grievance on instant matter that was so obscure in attempting to inform plaintiff of required appeal procedure, where jail officials had merely referred grievance to different entity, such that no prisoner could make sense as to when he or she could file any required appeal from denial of grievance. Dist. Ct., though, did not err in dismissing plaintiff's failure to promptly afford him medical care claim, where plaintiff had failed to include named defendant-officer in his grievance so as to allow defendants ability to address issue internally on merits.