Al-Amin v. Johnson

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 05-6455
RASHID QAWI AL-AMIN,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
LINDA SHEAR, in her individual and official
capacities; RUFUS FLEMING, in his individual
and official capacities; G. P. WILLIAMS, in
his individual and official capacities; D. M.
FERGUSON, in his/her individual and official
capacities; S. J. ADVENT, in his individual
and official capacities; S. BAYLOR, in his
individual and official capacities; CHARLIE
DAVIS, in his individual and official
capacities; M. L. POPE, in his individual and
official capacities; MR. FERROW, in his
individual and official capacities; C.
ALDERMAN, in his individual and official
capacities; B. BROCK, in his individual and
official capacities,
Defendants - Appellees,
and
GENE JOHNSON, in his official capacity,
Defendant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Norfolk. Raymond A. Jackson, District
Judge. (CA-04-346-2)
Argued: May 25, 2006 Decided: February 21, 2007
Before WILLIAMS and MICHAEL, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: Paul F. Rugani, Third Year Law Student, UNIVERSITY OF
VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF LAW, Appellate Litigation Clinic,
Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Mark Ralph Davis, Senior
Assistant Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL,
Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Neal L. Walters,
Pauletta J. Brown, Third Year Law Student, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
SCHOOL OF LAW, Appellate Litigation Clinic, Charlottesville,
Virginia, for Appellant. Judith W. Jagdmann, Attorney General,
Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
Rashid Qawi Al-Amin contends that the district court erred in
dismissing his suit for failure to exhaust administrative remedies;
in the alternative, Al-Amin contends that the district court should
have dismissed any unexhausted claims from his complaint and
allowed his exhausted claims to proceed forward. In light of the
Supreme Court’s decision in Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. __ (Jan. 22,
2007), we conclude that the district court erred in dismissing all
of Al-Amin’s claims; accordingly, we vacate the district court’s
order and remand for further proceedings.
I.
Rashid Qawi Al-Amin is a state prisoner at the Greensville
Correctional Center in Virginia. In 1991, Al-Amin formerly changed
his name from Donald Tracy Jones to Rashid Qawi Al-Amin after
converting to Islam. In 1999, Al-Amin was transferred to the
Greensville Correctional Center, where the prison officials have
refused to recognize his legal name change. Over a period of
years, Al-Amin filed several administrative grievances relating to
his name and the accommodation of his religious practices at the
prison. In May 2004, Al-Amin filed the present suit in the Eastern
District of Virginia alleging violations of 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983(West 2003 & Supp. 2006) and the Religious Land Use and
Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000c et seq.
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(West 2003 & Supp. 2006). Al-Amin divided his claims into five
broad categories: (1) the prison’s “failure to give proper effect
to [a] court order which legally changed his name,” (2) the “denial
of religious diet during Ramadan,” (3) the “discriminate denial of
religious material,” (4) the “discriminate imposition of [a] burden
on his right to observe his religious prayer,” and (5) “inadequate
religious diet.” (J.A. at 7-8.) Contained within Al-Amin’s first
issue were the following grievances: (a) he was denied incoming
and outgoing mail privileges unless he used the name “Jones”; (b)
he was denied access to his inmate account unless he used the name
“Jones”; (c) the prison staff continues to refer to him as “Jones”
and threatens him with disciplinary action if he refuses to
acknowledge the name “Jones”; and (d) the prison requires him to
use “Jones” to receive (1) his medication, (2) his daily meals, (3)
medical services, and (4) to attend religious services. Al-Amin
requested a declaratory judgment and compensatory damages.
The named prison system defendants (the prison officials)
moved to dismiss Al-Amin’s complaint, alleging that Al-Amin had not
exhausted his administrative remedies on each of the claims. In
support of its motion to dismiss, the prison system submitted the
affidavit of R. Woodson, the Grievance Coordinator at the
Greensville Correctional Center. Woodson stated that Al-Amin had
exhausted his administrative remedies “pertaining to [the] denial
of his religious diet during Ramadan,” “pertaining to an Islamic
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videotape and two audio tapes he purchased to donate to the
chaplain library,” and “pertaining to Muslims being denied the
right to pray in common areas.” (J.A. at 59-60.) Woodson could
find no grievance petitions relating to the seven claims listed
under Al-Amin’s “Failure to give proper Effect to the Court order”
heading. In response to the prison system’s motion to dismiss, Al-
Amin stated that he had a copy of the exhausted grievance
pertaining to the denial of access to his inmate account and copies
of a grievance filed on January 14, 2004, pertaining to the medical
and food services departments’ failure to recognize his legal name
and his inability to receive incoming or outgoing mail under that
name.
The district court granted the prison system’s motion to
dismiss Al-Amin’s complaint without prejudice. The district court
based its decision only on a review of the facts related to Al-
Amin’s claims concerning the prison system’s alleged failure to
give effect to the court order, reasoning that Al-Amin had not
exhausted his administrative remedies on his claims relating to his
inability to send or receive mail under his legal name, the prison
system’s requirement that he use the name “Jones” to attend
religious services, threats by prison staff requiring him to
acknowledge the name “Jones,” and the medical and food service
departments’ refusal to recognize his new name. The district court
did find, however, that Al-Amin exhausted his grievance relating to
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the denial of access to his inmate account. The district court
deemed it unnecessary to further review the complaint because it
found that the failure to exhaust these claims required dismissal
of the entire complaint without prejudice under 42 U.S.C.A. § 1997e
(West 2003 & Supp. 2006). The district court interpreted §
1997e(a)’s language -- that “[n]o action shall be brought with
respect to prison conditions . . . until such administrative
remedies as are available are exhausted” -- to require it to
dismiss Al-Amin’s suit in its entirety. Al-Amin timely appealed.
II.
Before we may examine the § 1997e issue, we must first assure
ourselves that Al-Amin has presented us with a final appealable
order under 28 U.S.C.A. § 1291 (West 2006). “Generally, an order
dismissing a complaint without prejudice is not an appealable final
order under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 when ‘the plaintiff could save his
action by merely amending his complaint.’” Young v. Nickols, 413
F.3d 416, 418 (4th Cir. 2005)(quoting Domino Sugar Corp. v. Sugar
Workers Local Union 392, 10 F.3d 1064, 1066-67 (4th Cir. 1993)).
The posture of Al-Amin’s suit is similar to that of the plaintiff’s
in Domino Sugar. In Domino Sugar, the district court had
dismissed the Company’s complaint without prejudice “on account of
the Company’s failure to exhaust contractual remedies.” Id. at
1067 (internal alteration and quotation marks omitted). We
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concluded that the district court’s order was final and appealable
because no amendment to the complaint could cure the defect and
because the district court “essentially made a final ruling that
the Company had to proceed to arbitration before seeking judicial
relief.” Id. Here, the district court issued a similar ruling; it
required Al-Amin to proceed with the administrative grievance
process prior to seeking judicial relief. Because the alleged
defect in Al-Amin’s action is not apparent on the face of his
complaint, such as a pleading error, the defect cannot be remedied
through an amendment to the complaint.* We, therefore, are
satisfied that we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.A. § 1291.
III.
Having satisfied ourselves that Al-Amin’s appeal presents us
with a final appealable order, we turn to the merits of his case.
“Whether a district court properly required a plaintiff to exhaust
her administrative remedies before bringing suit in federal court
is a question of law. . . . Therefore, we review the district
*
In Anderson v. XYZ Corr. Health Servs., Inc., 407 F.3d 674,
681 (4th Cir. 2005), we held that an inmate is not required to
allege exhaustion of remedies in his complaint; instead, we viewed
an inmate’s failure to exhaust remedies as an affirmative defense.
Id. The Supreme Court recently affirmed this understanding. See
Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. __, __(Jan. 22, 2007) (slip op. at 15) (“We
conclude that failure to exhaust is an affirmative defense under
the PLRA, and that inmates are not required to specially plead or
demonstrate exhaustion in their complaints.”).
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court’s order de novo.” Talbot v. Lucy Corr Nursing Home, 118 F.3d
215, 218 (4th Cir. 1997).
It is undisputed that the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act
(PLRA) requires prisoners to exhaust their administrative remedies
before seeking relief in the federal courts. 42 U.S.C.A. §
1997e(a); see also Woodford v. Ngo, 126 S. Ct. 2378, 2384
(2006)(“There is no dispute that [the] language [of § 1997(e)]
requires a prisoner to ‘exhaust’ administrative remedies. . . .”).
Here, however, we must determine the proper course for a district
court to follow when a prisoner’s complaint contains a mixture of
unexhausted and exhausted claims. Because this issue has divided
the courts, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide, inter
alia, whether the PLRA prescribes a “total exhaustion rule” that
requires a district court to dismiss a prisoner’s complaint
whenever that complaint contains multiple claims and at least one
of those claims is not exhausted. We held decision in this case in
abeyance pending the Court’s opinion.
In Jones v. Bock, the Supreme Court answered that question in
the negative. 549 U.S. __, __(Jan. 22, 2007) (slip op. at 20-23).
The district court in Jones had dismissed prisoner Jones’s
complaint because it failed to allege how he had exhausted his
administrative remedies. On appeal, the Sixth Circuit held in the
alternative that “even if Jones had shown he had exhausted some of
his claims, the district court properly dismissed the compliant
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because Jones did not show that he had exhausted all of his
claims.” Jones v. Bock, 135 Fed. Appx. 837, 839 (6th Cir. 2006)
(per curiam). The Supreme Court reversed the Sixth Circuit’s
holding and remanded for further proceedings. In so doing, the
Court explained that the correct path for a district court to take
under the PLRA when faced with multiple claims, some of which are
exhausted and some of which are not, is to “proceed[] with the good
and leave[] the bad.” Jones, 549 U.S. at __ (slip. op. at 21). In
short, “only the bad claims [should be] dismissed; the complaint as
a whole [should] not.” Id. (internal alteration and quotation
marks omitted).
Here, the district court “adopt[ed] the total exhaustion rule
for complaints governed by the PLRA,” (J.A. at 186), and dismissed
Al-Amin’s complaint after finding that he had failed to exhaust
administrative remedies “for some claims raised in this action,”
(J.A. at 187.) In light of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Jones,
however, we can now say with certainty that the district court’s
interpretation of the statue was incorrect. The district court
committed legal error in reading a total exhaustion requirement
into the PLRA.
IV.
Because the district court erred in interpreting the PLRA to
require total exhaustion, we vacate its judgment and remand for
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further proceedings. Although Al-Amin also contends that the
district court erred in finding that some of his claims were not
exhausted, we find no error in the district court’s specific
exhaustion determinations. But because the district court was
operating under the mistaken assumption that the PLRA required
total exhaustion, it found only that some of Al-Amin’s claims were
not exhausted, which made it unnecessary to address whether his
remaining claims had been exhausted. Accordingly, we leave it for
the district court to address in the first instance all of Al-
Amin’s remaining claims and determine which of those claims have
been properly exhausted.
VACATED AND REMANDED
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