Supreme Court: Administrative Exhaustion Issues May Require Jury Trial
Last month, the Supreme Court issued a decision holding that the right to a jury trial extends to the issue of administrative exhaustion when the exhaustion issue is intertwined with the merits of a claim requiring a jury trial. That is, if resolving a factual dispute regarding administrative exhaustion would also resolve a claim in the case, parties are entitled to a jury trial on both issues.
Congress passed the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA) with the aim of ensuring only prisoner complaints that had some merit were litigated in the courts. To accomplish this, the PLRA requires inmates exhaust all available administrative remedies. An exception to the requirement exists where prison officials take some action that effectively thwarts an inmates ability to exhaust, or otherwise makes the process unavailable. Failure to exhaust administrative remedies is a commonly asserted affirmative defense. Frequently, the exhaustion issue is resolved by a judge deciding motions to dismiss or a motion for summary judgment.
Kyle Richards, a prisoner in Michigan, sued Thomas Perttu, a prison employee, alleging sexual abuse and that Perttu impeded Richards’ ability to file grievances regarding the abuse by destroying forms and threatening to kill Richards. Perttu moved for summary judgment at the district court on grounds that Richards failed to exhaust administrative remedies prior to bringing suit. The district court denied Perttu’s motion and held an evidentiary hearing to resolve the factual dispute of whether Richards properly exhausted his administrative remedies. The magistrate judge recommended finding that Richards failed to exhaust; the district court adopted this recommendation and dismissed the case. Richards appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the district court and held that the Seventh Amendment requires the issue of exhaustion to be submitted to a jury when the facts surrounding exhaustion are intertwined with the facts underlying the merits of the case. Perttu appealed to the Supreme Court, which affirmed the Sixth Circuit.
Chief Justice Roberts noted for the Court that the PLRA is silent on who should resolve exhaustion issues as between judges and juries, and that the normal practice under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is that factual disputes go to the jury. The Court continued that in other scenarios, where the factual dispute is intertwined with the merits of the underlying claim to be decided by a jury, such issues are left for the jury to decide. Specifically, the Court drew on its cases involving both legal and equitable claims, and those involving subject matter jurisdiction. The Court observed that in both lines of cases, judges were not permitted to resolve factual disputes that were intertwined with the underlying merits because doing so would decide the ultimate issue and circumvent the right to a jury trial.
The Court concluded that because the usual practice when issues are intertwined is for the jury to resolve both issues, and because nothing in the PLRA suggested Congress sought to depart from the usual practice, parties are entitled to a jury trial when the issue of exhaustion under the PLRA is intertwined with the merits of the underlying claim. Justice Barret filed a dissent, in which Justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh joined.
Read the full opinion: Perttu v. Richards