Case Involving Inmate's Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies

Harvey v. Jordan, No. 07-15023, concerned an action claiming that corrections officers used excessive force and violated plaintiff-inmate's due process rights in the course of removing him from his cell.  The court of appeals affirmed the dismissal of the action in part, on the ground that, because plaintiff did not file a grievance until well after the applicable fifteen-day period had ended, he did not properly exhaust his administrative remedies on the excessive force claim.  However, the court reversed in part, holding that an inmate had no obligation to appeal from a grant of relief, or a partial grant that satisfied him, in order to exhaust his administrative remedies, and it was not his responsibility to ensure that prison officials actually provide the relief that they promised.

As the court wrote:  "Plaintiff Quillie Harvey is a prisoner at Salinas Valley State Prison. Prison officials used pepper spray to extract him from his cell on July 29, 2004, during a building-wide search of all prisoners' cells. This appeal involves two claims arising from that cell extraction."

Related Resources

• Full Text of Harvey v. Jordan, No. 07-15023