Jenkins v. Officer S

Background

Darell Nautigue Jenkins, proceeding without a lawyer, brought a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that Officer S (Downstate) failed to protect him from an attack by another incarcerated person. Jenkins alleged that, after a verbal confrontation, the officer left him unattended and said he would make sure something happened to him. On January 17, 2018, another incarcerated person slashed Jenkins on the right side of his face while the housing unit was being escorted to the noon meal.

Jenkins was placed in involuntary protective custody after the attack. He testified that he mailed a grievance about the incident on January 19, 2018, but that the defendant interfered with the grievance process, returned the grievance marked “return to sender,” and told him that anything he wrote would not be answered. Jenkins also testified that he submitted a second grievance and sent a copy, or possibly the grievance itself, to “Albany.” He said neither grievance produced any action.

The defendant relied on Downstate, Central Office Review Committee, and Department of Corrections and Community Supervision records, which showed no grievance concerning the January 17 incident. The defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that Jenkins had not properly completed the prison grievance process required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act and could not show that the process was unavailable to him.

Legal standard and analysis

Summary judgment is appropriate only when the evidence shows no genuine dispute about a fact that could affect the outcome and the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law. The court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and may not decide credibility disputes at this stage. The court also independently reviewed the record even though Jenkins did not submit a response to the defendant’s statement of facts, giving appropriate consideration to his status as a self-represented litigant.

The Prison Litigation Reform Act generally requires incarcerated people to use all available prison grievance procedures before bringing a federal lawsuit about prison conditions. New York’s grievance process ordinarily requires a grievance at the facility, followed by appeals to the superintendent and then the Central Office Review Committee. But an incarcerated person need not complete procedures that are unavailable in practice, including procedures prison officials block through intimidation, misrepresentation, or other interference.

The court found a factual conflict between Jenkins’s testimony that he submitted grievances and the prison records showing that no grievance had been filed. The court could not resolve that conflict or decide which witnesses were credible on summary judgment. Viewing the evidence favorably to Jenkins, the absence of a grievance in the records could mean that prison officials failed to file a grievance Jenkins had submitted, rather than that Jenkins never submitted one.

The court also relied on a Second Circuit decision involving a similar situation in which a grievance submitted by an incarcerated person in protective custody was allegedly never filed. That decision held that the grievance rules did not explain how to appeal or otherwise exhaust a grievance that prison officials never filed. Here, the court concluded that the defendant had not shown that no material factual dispute existed about whether prison officials made the grievance process unavailable.

Disposition

The court denied the defendant’s motion for summary judgment. It stated that a hearing was necessary for a fact-finder to assess witness credibility and the evidence concerning whether Jenkins attempted to exhaust administrative remedies. The court scheduled a status conference for October 11, 2023, and did not resolve the ultimate merits of Jenkins’s failure-to-protect claim.