Missouri Prisoner’s Excessive Force Claim Proceeds Against Guards After Court Excuses Missed Deadlines Under “Unavailable” Grievance Procedure
On February 12, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri denied a motion to dismiss a prisoner’s pro se lawsuit by Defendant officials with the state Department of Corrections (DOC), who argued that he failed to exhaust administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e. The Court ruled that DOC officials failed to prove that Moreno Salinas’ delay in completing the grievance process at Southeast Correctional Center (SECC) was his fault and not their own.
While imprisoned at SECC on January 28, 2021, Salinas alleged in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint, he was subjected to excessive force by guards Lt. Stephan V. Clark, Cole Hansens, Johnny Clubbs, Vanissa Lemons, Darrel Wilson, Tyler Womach and Jerry Walls, in violation of the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. During the PLRA screening process, the Court found that Salinas stated a plausible excessive force claim against the seven guards, plus a plausible failure to intervene claim against another guard named Rangdale and DOC Case Manager Brandi Merideth. Though the Court did not mention her by name, claims against Darcie Bolin, another Defendant DOC case manager, also survived.
After Salinas filed an amended complaint, Defendants moved to dismiss it, raising the affirmative defense that he failed to satisfy the PLRA exhaustion requirement. Specifically, they argued that he was untimely at each stage of prison grievance procedure, beginning with the first-step Informal Resolution Request (IRR); DOC policy provides a 15-day window to file it after an incident, but Salinas waited 21 days. However, Salinas responded, he spent a week after the alleged attack at an outside hospital, and upon his return to the prison, infirmary staff allegedly failed to respond to his requests for an IRR form. Though Defendants argued that this defense failed because Salinas couldn’t name the infirmary staffers who allegedly stonewalled his IRR form request, the Court said it found no case law to support that argument, nor did Defendants cite any.
Defendants further noted that Salinas missed the seven-day deadline to file a formal grievance after his IRR was denied on March 17, 2021. But that same day, Salinas responded, he was transferred from the infirmary at SECC to one at another prison. Defendants did not refute this. But they also pointed to the time between denial of the formal grievance and Salinas’ filing of an appeal; that was done three weeks late, they said. Again the prisoner claimed this wasn’t his fault, and SECC records showed that he signed an acknowledgement of the grievance response on the day that he received it—filing his grievance appeal the very next day.
Viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, the Court said, these facts defeated the motion to dismiss. Precedent from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, the Court said, finds administrative remedies become “unavailable” to a prisoner—in the meaning of that term under PLRA—when his incapacity prevents timely filing of a grievance, and the system’s rules do not allow late filing. Since that’s what happened here, Defendants’ motion to dismiss was denied. See: Salinas v. Clark, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23682 (E.D. Mo.).
After that, the Court ordered pro bono counsel for Salinas on March 28, 2024, and St. Louis attorney Kevin F. Hormuth of UB Greenfelder LLP appeared for Plaintiff the following month. The case is now set for trial in October 2025, and PLN will update developments as they are available. See: Salinas v. Clark, USDC (E.D. Mo.), Case No. 1:22-cv-00159.