Christian Castelan v. Correctional Officer Keenan A. John, et al.

Summary

The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted summary judgment to correctional-officer defendants in Christian Castelan’s 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging Eighth Amendment excessive force and failure to intervene. The court held that Castelan failed to comply with Local Civil Rule 56.1 and failed to exhaust administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act before filing suit. The court directed the Clerk to enter judgment for the defendants and terminate the action.

Holdings

1. A nonmoving party who fails to respond to each numbered paragraph of a properly supported Rule 56.1 statement, and who offers only conclusory unsupported assertions, does not create a genuine dispute of material fact.
2. The Prison Litigation Reform Act requires a prisoner to complete available administrative remedies before filing a federal action; exhaustion completed after filing does not cure a premature complaint.
3. A prisoner who does not show that the grievance process was a dead end, was so opaque as to be unusable, or was thwarted by prison officials cannot avoid the PLRA exhaustion requirement on an unavailability theory.

Questions Presented

1. Whether plaintiff's failure to respond to defendants' Local Civil Rule 56.1 statement prevented him from creating a genuine dispute of material fact.
2. Whether plaintiff exhausted the administrative remedies required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act before filing suit.
3. Whether any exception rendered the administrative grievance process unavailable to plaintiff.
4. Whether defendants were entitled to summary judgment on plaintiff's Eighth Amendment excessive-force and failure-to-intervene claims.

Disposition

other