Crosdale v. Hillsborough County DOC CV-08-216-PB 05/11/09

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

Raymond Crosdale

v. Case No. 08-cv-216-PB Opinion No.

Hillsborough County Department of Corrections, Superintendent, et a l .

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Pursuant to

, Raymond Crosdale, currently

an inmate at the Strafford County Department of Corrections,

alleges that various correctional officers are liable for using

excessive force against him, while he was incarcerated as a

pretrial inmate at the Hillsborough County Department of

Corrections (HCDOC). Crosdale seeks to hold officers George

Antilus, Jason Riley, Ronald Potter, Nicholas Granville, Chad

Pinciaro, and Keith O'Neil, and superintendant James O'Mara, Jr.

liable for the alleged use of excessive force. Before the court

are the parties' cross motions for summary judgment. For the

reasons given below, I grant the defendants' motion for summary

judgment. I. BACKGROUND

At all times relevant to this action, Crosdale was a pre­

trial detainee at the HCDOC. The HCDOC Inmate Handbook is given

to each inmate upon entry to the jail, and is required to be

maintained by each inmate until their release. (See Aff. of

James M. O'Mara, Jr., Doc. No. 23, at 5 2.) The HCDOC has a

grievance procedure that is set forth in the inmate handbook,

which provides:

If you have a grievance concerning any matter related to your confinement, a grievance procedure is available to you. The following are the steps of the grievance procedure: Step 1: Informal Resolution - You must make a genuine attempt to seek an informal resolution of your problem with the staff member concerned. Step 2: The second step is initiated using the Inmate Request Form format. Fill out an Inmate Request Form stating your problem and suggested remedy. Submit the form to your Unit Officer. Most request forms will be answered within seven (7) working days of receipt. Step 3: If you are dissatisfied with the response to your Inmate Request Form, you may file an Inmate Grievance Form. The Captain or designee has fifteen (15) working days from receipt to review your grievance and reply unless there are extenuating circumstances. Decisions made by the county correctional facility's disciplinary hearings officer, or classification officer, cannot be appealed through the grievance procedure. Grievances involving other agencies must be addressed directly to those agencies.

(Def.'s Exhibit H at 20.) Per HCDOC procedure, an inmate must

- 2 - use a request form in order to obtain a formal grievance form

(each of which bears an identifying control number, so that the

submission may be tracked); each grievance is responded to and a

copy of each grievance is thereafter placed in their respective

inmate institutional file and administrative file. (Aff. of

James M. O'Mara, Jr., Doc. No. 23, at 5 3.)

In his motion for summary judgment1, Crosdale identifies

seven incidents in which he alleges that correctional officers

used excessive force on him while he was incarcerated at HCDOC.

He has provided some of the incident reports of these seven

incidents, which allegedly occurred on March 26, March 27, March

31, April 1, May 26, June 6, and August 31, 2006.2

O'Mara, who is the Superintendant of the HCDOC and the

1 Defendants assert that Crosdale's "Motion for Summary Judgment in full" (Doc. No. 18), does not meet any of the technical requirements of Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or of this Court's Local Rules 7.1(a) and 7.2(b). Further, defendants assert that Crosdale's submission is merely an affidavit pinpointing incidents and is not a pleading in which he moves for summary judgment. However, because I grant defendants' motion for summary judgment on other grounds, I need not address these issues.

2 Crosdale's affidavit notes the last incident as occurring on "8-21", however the incident report he has submitted as an exhibit indicates that this incident occurred on August 31, 2006.

- 3 - custodian of all institutional records, including inmate files,

has asserted in a sworn affidavit that he has reviewed Crosdale's

inmate institutional file and the administrative file, and that

Crosdale did not file any grievances. (Aff. of James M. O'Mara,

Jr., Doc. No. 23, at 5 4.) Crosdale has been given his entire

HCDOC inmate file. (Aff. of Jennifer Poisson, Def.'s Exhibit A,

Doc. No. 21-2.) Review of Crosdale's inmate file shows numerous

documents that he completed in writing while at the HCDOC,

including medical reguest forms and inmate reguest forms for new

shoes, a bible and other literature, a property exchange, to have

recreation time restored with a former cellmate, and to be taken

off the "keep separate" list of another inmate. (Aff. of

Jennifer Poisson, Def.'s Exhibit A, Doc. No. 27-2.)

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Summary judgment is appropriate when the "pleadings, the

discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits

show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and

that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law."

Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). The evidence submitted in support of the

motion for summary judgment must be considered in the light most

- 4 - favorable to the nonmoving party, indulging all reasonable

inferences in its favor. See Torres-Negron v. Merck & Co.,

(1st Cir. 2007).

A party seeking summary judgment must first identify the

absence of any genuine issues of material fact. Celotex Corp. v.

Catrett,

(1986) . The burden then shifts to the

nonmoving party to "produce evidence on which a reasonable finder

of fact, under the appropriate proof burden, could base a verdict

for it; if that party cannot produce such evidence, the motion

must be granted." Ayala-Gerena v. Bristol Myers-Sguibb Co.,

(1st Cir. 1996); see Celotex,

. The

opposing party "may not rely merely on allegations or denials in

its own pleading; rather, its response must . . . set out

specific facts showing a genuine issue for trial." Fed. R. Civ.

P. 56(e)(2). On cross motions for summary judgment, the standard

of review is applied to each motion separately. See Am. Home

Assur. Co. v. AGM Marine Contractors, Inc.,

(1st Cir. 2 00 6).

- 5 - III. ANALYSIS

Defendants argue, inter alia, that Crosdale failed to

exhaust administrative remedies as required under the Prison

Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA"), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). That

statute pertinently 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.

42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). Moreover, the PLRA requires "proper

exhaustion," which is defined as "compliance with an agency's

deadlines and other critical procedural rules." Woodford v. Ngo,

(2006). "[T]he PLRA's exhaustion requirement

applies to all inmate suits about prison life, . . . whether they

allege excessive force or some other wrong." Porter v. Nussle,

(2002). "[FJailure to exhaust is an

affirmative defense under the PLRA." Jones v. Bock,

(2007). The plaintiff need not plead exhaustion in the

complaint; rather, failure-to-exhaust must be asserted by and

proven by the defendant.

A defendant who shows lack of

exhaustion is entitled to dismissal of the unexhausted claims in

the plaintiff's complaint. See Medina-Claudio v. Rodriguez-

- 6 - Mateo,

(1st Cir. 2002). Defendants who are

invoking the affirmative defense may be required to show that

there were available (albeit unexhausted) remedies. Casanova v.

Dubois,

(1st Cir. 2002).

The defendants have established that administrative remedies

do exist at the HCDOC and that there is no record that Crosdale

attempted to exhaust these administrative remedies. Further,

Crosdale does not dispute that the administrative remedies

available to him at the HCDOC were not exhausted before he filed

suit. Instead, he merely asserts in his objection to the

defendants' cross motion for summary judgment that he was "going

through a very difficult time in [his] life where [he] was deemed

incompetent" and that he "knew nothing of a grievance procedure."

(Pl.'s Obj. of Def.'s Cross Mot. for Summ. J., Doc. No. 24.)

However, the PLRA foes not permit liberalized pleading

standards merely because a plaintiff is proceeding pro se. See

Woodford,

(noting that an argument that

"requiring proper exhaustion is harsh for prisoners, who

generally are untrained in the law and often poorly educated . .

. overlooks the informality and relative simplicity of prison

grievance systems"); see also Ellison v. New Hampshire Dep't of

- 7 - Corr.,

, at *5 (D.N.H. Feb. 19, 2009) ("Since the

vast majority of claims subject to the PLRA exhaustion

requirement are brought by pro se plaintiffs, excusing them from

the requirements would be tantamount to eliminating it

altogether."). Further, the grievance procedures at the HCDOC

are straightforward and simple. While Crosdale suggests that his

incompetence may have prevented him from following the HCDOC

grievance procedure, he has failed to produce any evidence to

support his claim. Moreover, while Crosdale asserts that he knew

nothing of a grievance procedure, such lack of knowledge is not

an excuse where the evidence indicates that the grievance

procedure was knowable to Crosdale through the HCDOC Inmate

Handbook. C f . Goebert v. Lee County,

(11th

Cir. 2007)(determining that failure to exhaust an administrative

remedy was excused because the prison grievance procedure was not

in the Inmate Handbook or laid out in documents that inmates were

ever permitted to see, and an administrative remedy that is

"unknown and unknowable is unavailable" for purposes of the

PLRA).

The evidence indicates that Crosdale had sufficient

competence and knowledge of the prison's administrative

- 8 - procedures to draft many inmate request forms requesting

medication, new shoes, and other property, access to other

inmates and reading material. Inmates are informed about Inmate

Request Forms in the same way they are informed of the grievance

procedure - in the Inmate Handbook. Crosdale had a copy of the

Inmate Handbook. Thus, the evidence simply does not support a

claim that the grievance procedures were unknowable to Crosdale.

IV. CONCLUSION

Because Crosdale did not exhaust the administrative remedies

available to him before filing his complaint, defendants' motion

for summary judgment (Doc. No. 19) is granted.3 The clerk shall

enter judgment accordingly and close the case. Plaintiff's

motion for summary judgment (Doc. No. 18) is denied as moot.

SO ORDERED.

/s/Paul Barbadoro________ Paul Barbadoro United States District Judge May 11, 200 9

cc: Raymond Crosdale, pro se

3 It is not necessary to address the other grounds for summary judgment raised in the defendants' motion given this disposition. John A. Curran, Esq. Elizabeth L. Hurley, Esq.

- 10 -