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Mercer v. Rodriquez6/8/2004
f also claims that 42 U.S.C. § 1997e (a) does not require that he exhaust the department's grievance procedure because the grievance procedure does not provide for damages. This is precisely the question that was decided to the contrary in Booth v. Churner, supra, 532 U.S. 734 ("question is whether an inmate seeking only money damages must complete a prison administrative process that could provide some sort of relief on the complaint stated, but no money"). "The meaning of the phrase 'administrative remedies ... available' is the crux of the case.... Neither of [the parties] denies that some redress for a wrong is presupposed by the statute's requirement of an ' available' 'remed '; neither argues that exhaustion is required where the relevant administrative procedure lacks authority to provide any relief or to take any action whatsoever in response to a complaint. The dispute here, then, comes down to whether or not a remedial scheme is 'available' where... the administrative process has authority to take some action in response to a complaint, but not the remedial action an inmate demands to the exclusion of all other forms of redress." Id., 736.
"The 'available' 'remed ' must be 'exhausted' before a complaint under [42 U.S.C.] § 1983 may be entertained. While the modifier 'available' requires the possibility of some relief for the action complained of... the word 'exhausted' has a decidedly procedural emphasis. It makes sense only in referring to the procedural means, not the particular relief ordered." Id., 738-39. "It makes no sense to demand that someone exhaust 'such administrative [redress]' as is available; one 'exhausts' processes, not forms of relief, and the statute provides that one must." Id., 739. In the matter before us, we therefore conclude that the plaintiff was required to exhaust the available department grievance procedure before he brought an action in the Superior Court seeking relief under federal law.
Although the plaintiff failed to sustain his burden of exhausting the available administrative remedies before he sought judicial assistance, we must consider, in view of Richardson v. Goord, supra, 347 F.3d 431, whether the court properly determined that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction. "If [the trial court] applied any wrong rule of law to the situation, it was not acting without jurisdiction but in the erroneous exercise of its jurisdiction." Artman v. Artman, 111 Conn. 124, 130, 149 A. 246 (1930).
In Richardson v. Goord, supra, 347 F.3d 431, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit agreed to follow the holding of its sister circuit courts of appeal that have ruled on the question of whether the exhaustion requirement of 42 U.S.C. § 1997e (a) controls subject matter jurisdiction. Those courts have concluded that the language of the statute "simply governs the timing of the action and does not contain the type of sweeping and direct language that would indicate a jurisdictional bar rather than a mere codification of administrative exhaustion requirements." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Ali v. District of Columbia, 278 F.3d 1, 5-6 (D.C. Cir. 2002), citing Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U.S. 749, 757, 95 S. Ct. 2457, 45 L. Ed. 2d 522 (1975). " n administrative claim is not essential to a case or controversy, and 28 U.S.C. § 1331, 1343 supply subject-matter jurisdiction. Section 1997e (a) does not affect the jurisdiction established by those statutes." Perez v. Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections, 182 F.3d 532, 536 (7th Cir. 1999). In the federal courts, a case in which a prisoner fails to exhaust the available administrative remedies may be dismissed for failure to exhaust administrative remedies under 42 U.S.C. § 1997e (a), but not for lack of
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