Willis v. Taylor

Background

Calvin Willis filed this civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 without a lawyer. He alleged that on March 14, 2019, San Quentin State Prison correctional officer Matthew Taylor grabbed his arm and slammed him into a stair rail, injuring his lower back. The court previously found that the complaint stated an Eighth Amendment excessive-force claim.

Taylor moved for summary judgment based on failure to exhaust administrative remedies. The Prison Litigation Reform Act requires a prisoner to use available prison grievance procedures before bringing a federal lawsuit about prison conditions. Under the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation process applicable to the 2019 incident, a prisoner generally had to pursue a grievance through the third and final level of review.

Grievance history

Willis’s only grievance concerning Taylor’s alleged use of force was Grievance No. SQ-A-19-01083. The grievance was partially granted at the second level and referred for a confidential inquiry. The decision told Willis that he had to continue appealing through the final level to exhaust his remedies.

The Office of Appeals later rejected the grievance because Willis had not attached the required CDCR Form 1858, a rights-and-responsibilities statement required when a prisoner alleges staff misconduct. The rejection letter said he should correct the problem and resubmit the grievance. Willis said he resubmitted the grievance and required form in August or September 2019 but received no further response. Prison records showed no record that the Office of Appeals received the resubmission. After Willis asked about the grievance’s status, the Office of Appeals informed him in January 2020 that it had been screened out.

Court’s analysis and rulings

The court rejected Willis’s argument that the Form 1858 was not required. It held that the applicable state regulations required him to submit that form and that rejecting the grievance for failure to include it did not, by itself, make the grievance process unavailable.

However, the court found a genuine dispute of material fact about whether Willis actually submitted the corrected grievance and Form 1858 to prison officials, and whether prison officials failed to forward those materials to the Office of Appeals. The court stated that the evidence could support an inference that Willis submitted the materials but that they were not transmitted through no fault of his. Because those facts could determine whether administrative remedies were effectively unavailable, the court denied Taylor’s motion for summary judgment for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.

The court denied Willis’s request for permission to file a sur-reply. It also denied Willis’s motion for summary judgment without prejudice to refiling if the court later sets a merits-based briefing schedule. The court denied as moot Taylor’s request to stay the response deadline and merits-based discovery. Discovery could proceed under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

The court directed Taylor, within 14 days, to inform the court whether he would choose a limited evidentiary hearing on whether Willis resubmitted the grievance and whether remedies were unavailable, or instead proceed to briefing on the merits. The order did not decide whether Taylor used excessive force.