WILLIAMS v. BUENOSTROME (2021)

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.2021-05-27No. No. 20-55393

Summary · law.co

Holding. The court affirmed the district court's summary judgment, finding that Williams failed to exhaust administrative remedies as required by law and did not raise a genuine factual dispute about whether administrative remedies were effectively unavailable to him.

Lance Elliot Williams, a California state prisoner, appealed a district court's grant of summary judgment in his federal civil rights lawsuit alleging constitutional violations. Williams filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming violations of the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court granted summary judgment against him, finding that he had failed to complete the required administrative remedies process available within the prison system and had not presented sufficient evidence that those remedies were genuinely unavailable to him.

The appellate court reviewed the summary judgment decision and determined the district court acted properly. Williams did not demonstrate that he had exhausted all the steps the prison system required him to take before filing his lawsuit, nor did he establish that pursuing those remedies would have been futile or impossible. The court also rejected Williams's argument that the trial court should have considered his unverified written response to the summary judgment motion.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

Whether prisoner exhausted administrative remedies before filing federal civil rights action
Whether administrative remedies were effectively unavailable
Whether unverified opposition to summary judgment should be considered as evidence

Procedural posture

The district court granted summary judgment against the prisoner for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, and the prisoner appealed.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion · public domain

MEMORANDUM **

California state prisoner Lance Elliot Williams appeals pro se from the district courts summary judgment in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging violations of the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo a district courts summary judgment for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. Albino v. Baca, 747 F.3d 1162, 1168 (9th Cir. 2014). We affirm.

The district court properly granted summary judgment because Williams failed to exhaust his administrative remedies and failed to raise a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether administrative remedies were effectively unavailable. See Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 90, 126 S.Ct. 2378, 165 L.Ed.2d 368 (2006) (“[P]roper exhaustion of administrative remedies ․ means using all steps that the agency holds out, and doing so properly (so that the agency addresses the issues on the merits).” (citation, internal quotation marks, and emphasis omitted)); Andres v. Marshall, 867 F.3d 1076, 1079 (9th Cir. 2017) (exhaustion is measured at the time the action is filed); McBride v. Lopez, 807 F.3d 982, 986-87 (9th Cir. 2015) (to show that a threat rendered the prison grievance system unavailable, a prisoner must show that he was actually deterred from filing a grievance).

We reject as without merit Williamss contention that the district court should have considered as evidence Williamss unverified opposition to summary judgment.

AFFIRMED.