Smith v. Daguio

Background

Jason Smith, a state prisoner, filed a lawsuit without a lawyer under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Correctional Training Facility officers M. Daguio and R. Avalos. The court had previously dismissed some claims and allowed Smith to proceed on a First Amendment retaliation claim.

Smith alleged that on January 23, 2018, Daguio stopped him from going to the law library at 8:45 a.m., telling him that the release was for education only. Smith was later permitted to go to the library at 10:00 a.m. On January 25, after Smith told Daguio that he intended to file a grievance about the earlier incident, Smith alleged that Daguio threatened to assign him a cellmate or move him from the unit. Smith further alleged that Avalos assigned him a cellmate and threatened to issue a disciplinary report, called a Rules Violation Report, if he objected.

Exhaustion of prison grievances

The Prison Litigation Reform Act requires prisoners to complete available prison grievance procedures before filing a federal lawsuit about prison conditions. The court explained that proper exhaustion requires compliance with the prison’s grievance rules and that the grievance must alert prison officials to the nature of the alleged wrong and identify the involved staff members when required by those rules.

Smith filed grievance CTF-S-18-00262 on January 25, 2018. Its stated subject was denial of law-library access on January 23. The initial sections did not describe the later housing assignment or disciplinary report and did not identify Avalos. Smith first mentioned the alleged retaliatory housing assignment and Avalos during a later appeal stage. The grievance was ultimately denied at the third level, but that decision limited review to the original law-library-access issue and stated that newly added issues would not be addressed.

Smith also filed grievance CTF-S-18-00776 challenging the disciplinary report and related disciplinary proceedings. The grievance mentioned that the housing assignment was retaliatory, but the court found that Smith did not request action against Daguio or Avalos and that the appeal did not receive a decision on the merits at the third level. The court therefore concluded that this grievance did not exhaust the retaliation claims concerning the housing assignment or disciplinary report.

Ruling on exhaustion

The court held that Smith did not properly exhaust available administrative remedies for his claims that Daguio and Avalos retaliated against him through the housing assignment and disciplinary report. The court also found that Smith had not shown that the grievance process was unavailable to him or that he was unable to file a timely appeal. It therefore granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on those claims based on failure to exhaust administrative remedies.

The court found that grievance CTF-S-18-00262 did exhaust Smith’s claim that Daguio retaliated by delaying his access to the law library on January 23. Because the court had not previously screened that allegation as a separate retaliation claim, it considered whether the allegation stated a claim.

Screening of the law-library retaliation claim

The court dismissed the law-library retaliation claim for failure to state a claim. It found that Smith alleged an adverse action—the initial denial of library access—but did not allege that Daguio denied access because of Smith’s protected activity. The alleged threat connected to Smith’s planned grievance occurred two days later, and Smith was allowed to use the library 90 minutes after the initial denial. The court also found that Smith did not allege that the delay chilled his First Amendment rights or caused harm.

Smith had already received one opportunity to amend the complaint, and the court stated that it did not appear he could allege additional facts in good faith to fix the defect. The court therefore dismissed the claim.

Disposition

The court granted R. Avalos and M. Daguio’s motion for summary judgment, dismissed the retaliation claims for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, dismissed the law-library retaliation claim for failure to state a claim, terminated the motion, and directed the clerk to close the file.