Dennis Bargher v. Craig White

Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
928 F.3d 439 (2019)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

A lawsuit filed by an incarcerated person who has not exhausted administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) must be dismissed without prejudice. If the plaintiff is subsequently released from prison, they may refile the suit without being subject to the PLRA's exhaustion requirement.

Facts:

Dennis Bargher Jr., an inmate, provided the warden with information about an extortion scheme involving Major Craig White.
White learned of this, confronted Bargher, and encouraged another inmate, Johnathan Veal, to attack Bargher by falsely claiming Bargher was a "rat."
On April 18, 2015, Sergeant Davidson escorted Bargher back to his cell, where Veal was waiting, and forced Bargher inside.
Veal brutally attacked Bargher while Davidson watched, causing a broken jaw, broken teeth, and facial nerve damage.
On June 12, 2015, Bargher asserts that he submitted a formal internal grievance (an Administrative Remedy Procedure or ARP) detailing the attack and the officers' involvement.
The prison's official records do not contain this June ARP, but Bargher provided a post-marked copy he had sent to his attorney.
Bargher alleges that after he filed his lawsuit, White, whose wife worked in the prison's records department, accessed his electronic file, deleted portions of it, and destroyed paper copies in his presence.
During the pendency of his lawsuit, Bargher was released from prison.

Procedural Posture:

Dennis Bargher Jr. filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 lawsuit against prison officials in U.S. District Court.
Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing the claim was barred by the one-year statute of limitations (prescription period).
The district court initially denied the defendants' motion.
Defendants filed a renewed motion for summary judgment, again arguing the claim was time-barred and adding the alternative argument that Bargher failed to exhaust administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA).
The district court granted the defendants' motion and dismissed Bargher's claims with prejudice.
Bargher, as the appellant, appealed the dismissal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

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Issue:

Is dismissal with prejudice the proper remedy when a prisoner files a lawsuit without fully exhausting administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), even if the prisoner is subsequently released from custody during the litigation?

Opinions:

Majority - Dennis, J.

No. When a prisoner fails to exhaust administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), the proper disposition is dismissal without prejudice. The court first held that summary judgment on timeliness was improper because a genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether Bargher filed the June ARP, which would have suspended the one-year prescription period. The court reasoned that a plaintiff's detailed, sworn affidavit based on personal knowledge, corroborated by other evidence like the copy sent to his attorney and allegations of record tampering, is sufficient to create a factual dispute, even if it is 'self-serving.' However, the court then found that Bargher had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as required by the PLRA. Under Louisiana's two-step process, even if an inmate receives no response to their initial grievance, they must still proceed to the second step of appealing to the Secretary. Bargher admittedly did not take this second step. The correct remedy for failure to exhaust is dismissal without prejudice. Because Bargher was released from prison during the suit's pendency, the PLRA's exhaustion requirement no longer applies to him, and a dismissal without prejudice allows him to refile his claims.

Analysis:

This decision reinforces the procedural nature of the PLRA's exhaustion requirement, clarifying that it is a condition precedent to filing suit for incarcerated individuals, not a permanent bar to recovery. The key significance is the holding that the PLRA's constraints fall away upon a prisoner's release. This prevents a procedural misstep while incarcerated from foreclosing a potentially meritorious claim, especially in cases with allegations that prison officials are actively thwarting the grievance process. The ruling provides a critical pathway to the courthouse for former prisoners, ensuring that the exhaustion rule functions as a gatekeeper for current inmates rather than a permanent roadblock for those who have been released.

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