Jihaad Harrison v. Ms. Woodard, Ms. Stickney

Summary

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dismissed without prejudice Jihaad Harrison’s Eighth Amendment deliberate-indifference claims against mental health professionals at SCI Phoenix. The court held that Harrison had not plausibly alleged proper exhaustion of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections’ three-step grievance process under the Prison Litigation Reform Act. The court allowed timely amendment to plead facts showing exhaustion of the relevant grievances.

Holdings

1. DC-ADM 804 governed exhaustion because Harrison's allegations concerned denial of medical treatment, verbal threats, and dissatisfaction with staff conduct, all of which fell outside DC-ADM 001's definition of abuse.
2. Harrison did not properly exhaust the claims because the allegations did not show completion of the required second step of the DC-ADM 804 process: appealing the initial grievance responses to the Facility Manager.
3. Harrison waived opposition to dismissal of the deliberate-indifference claims arising from Grievance Nos. 1146246 and 1147398 by failing to substantively respond to defendants' exhaustion arguments.
4. Failure to exhaust, although an affirmative defense rather than a pleading requirement, may be raised in an appropriate motion to dismiss when the exhaustion issue turns on indisputably authentic grievance documents.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Pennsylvania's DC-ADM 804 grievance process, rather than the separate DC-ADM 001 abuse-reporting procedure, governed exhaustion of Harrison's claims.
2. Whether Harrison properly exhausted administrative remedies for the four grievances underlying the claims against Woodard and Stickney.
3. Whether Harrison abandoned the claims associated with two grievances by failing to respond substantively to defendants' exhaustion arguments.
4. Whether the defendants could raise failure to exhaust in a motion to dismiss based on authentic grievance records.

Disposition

dismissed