Santos v. Cuomo

Background

Byron Santos, proceeding without a lawyer and without prepaying filing fees, sued Correction Officer R. Feldman under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Santos alleged that Feldman failed to protect him from an attack by another inmate at Downstate Correctional Facility on October 18, 2017. The claim was based on the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The court stated that it had federal-question jurisdiction.

Feldman moved for summary judgment. Summary judgment is appropriate when the evidence shows that no genuine dispute about an important fact requires a trial and the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law.

Exhaustion Requirement

The Prison Litigation Reform Act requires incarcerated people to exhaust available prison grievance procedures before bringing a federal lawsuit about prison conditions. The court explained that New York’s grievance process required a prisoner to submit a complaint to the facility’s grievance committee, appeal to the facility superintendent, and then appeal to the Central Office Review Committee.

The court also described three circumstances that can excuse exhaustion: when the process is effectively a dead end, when its rules are too confusing to use, or when prison officials prevent its use through misconduct, false statements, or intimidation.

Court’s Analysis

The court found that Feldman established that a grievance process existed at Downstate and applied to Santos’s claim. Feldman submitted Santos’s deposition testimony, in which Santos said he had not filed a grievance about the October 18 incident. Grievance officials at Downstate and the Central Office Review Committee also submitted sworn declarations stating that searches of their records found no grievance or appeal concerning the incident.

Santos later asserted in unsworn written submissions that he had filed numerous grievances and that they may have been lost because of actions by correctional personnel. He also said that, nearly two years after the incident, he filed a late grievance at another facility and was told the incident was not grievable. The court rejected these assertions because they contradicted Santos’s earlier sworn deposition testimony and were unsupported by admissible evidence. The court therefore found no genuine factual dispute and concluded that Santos had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies.

Disposition

The court granted Feldman’s motion for summary judgment, directed the clerk to terminate the motion and close the case, and denied Santos permission to appeal without paying filing fees after certifying that any appeal would not be taken in good faith. The opinion resolved the case based on exhaustion and did not decide whether Feldman actually violated the Eighth Amendment.