Dist. Ct. erred in dismissing plaintiff-prisoner’s section 1983 action, alleging that defendants-prison officials denied him his 8th Amendment rights by being deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs, where Dist. Ct. found that plaintiff had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies prior to filing instant lawsuit. Record showed that plaintiff had failed to file internal grievance within 14 days of occurrence giving rise to instant complaint, as required by Wisconsin law. However, plaintiff was not required to comply with said law prior to filing instant lawsuit, where his medical limitations arising out of his severe muscle disease, as well as defendants’ failure to assign study table for plaintiff to write out grievance during relevant 14-day period, made grievance process effectively unavailable to plaintiff. Result is same even if defendants had acted in good-faith in following prison rules with respect to assignment of tables to inmates.
Federal 7th Circuit Court
Civil Court
Prisoners