TDCJ Denied Summary Judgment In Suit by Prisoner Who Missed Grievance Deadline Because Guard’s Assault Left Him In a Coma
It’s hard to tell who is slimier, a Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) guard who allegedly beat a prisoner into a coma or prison officials who then attempted to dismiss the prisoner’s legal claim because he was still comatose when the deadline to file a grievance passed. Given that, it’s no surprise defendants also let a settlement conference deadline pass that was set by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas for June 11, 2024.
The prisoner, Candelario Hernandez, was confined at the Stevenson Unit on November 4, 2019, when he sought medical attention for an arm injury. Guard Aaron Kloesel was on duty at the medical unit and refused Hernandez entry, closing the door on him. But Hernandez blocked the door open with his foot, insisting that he was entitled to be seen by medical staff. Kloesel allegedly became enraged, grabbed Hernandez and threw him to the ground, smashing his head on the concrete floor; he then knelt on the prisoner’s neck and handcuffed him, even as Hernandez went into a seizure from the traumatic injury.
Hernandez lost consciousness before being airlifted to a hospital. There he remained comatose for several weeks. When he finally regained consciousness, he was left with permanent cognitive disability, permanent memory and vision impairment and paralysis on the left side of his body so that he is unable to walk. But by then he also had missed TDCJ’s 15-day deadline to file a grievance over the incident, Step 1 of the two-step process which Texas prisoners must complete to exhaust administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e.
Nevertheless, with the aid attorney Susan E. Hutchison of Hutchison & Foreman, PLLC, in Fort Worth, Hernandez filed suit in the Court in May 2020 under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, accusing Kloesel and his TDCJ superiors of violating his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. TDCJ Defendants moved to dismiss the suit based on Hernandez’s failure to exhaust his administrative remedies. The district court granted the motion in part, staying the case and ordering Hernandez to submit a grievance. See: Hernandez v. Kloesel, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 188076 (S.D. Tex.).
The next day, on September 30, 2021, Hernandez filed a Step 1 grievance with TDCJ officials. They denied it as untimely, and also his Step 2 appeal. The prisoner then returned to the Court, where TDCJ Defendants again moved for summary judgment, claiming that administrative remedies were available to Hernandez during the six-month period between his injuries and the date on which he filed suit. Hernandez replied that PLRA provides an exception to the exhaustion requirement for administrative remedies that are “unavailable” to him, which his injuries rendered TDCJ’s grievance deadlines.
The Court began its analysis by noting that Hernandez was unable to timely file a Step 1 grievance due to the injuries Kloesel inflicted upon him. In fact, he was in a coma and completely non-responsive during the first 14 days following the assault. Even after he returned to a TDCJ medical facility, he remained unable to communicate until at least November 27, 2019, the Court noted—a full eight days after the Step 1 grievance deadline expired. So the prisoner’s physical injury, the Court said, left him “unable to timely file his Step 1 grievance.”
As to whether TDCJ would have considered an untimely grievance submitted by Hernandez—after he regained consciousness but prior to filing suit—TDCJ declared that reviewing officers have discretion to process untimely grievances. But the prisoner produced a copy of the TDCJ Offender Grievance Manual, which prohibits any exceptions to the 15-day filing deadline for a grievance related to excessive force claims. The Court said this presented a genuine issue of material fact that a jury must weigh.
Given these disputes, the Court reversed its earlier opinion and agreed that the grievance process may not have been available to Hernandez, after all. It then issued an order on February 26, 2023, denying Defendants’ motion for summary judgment and sending the fact issue to trial for resolution. A request by Defendants to certify this question for an interlocutory appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit was also denied on April 26, 2023. That sort of appeal, the district court said, is reserved for questions of pure law, while the “underlying question of whether the prison grievance procedure was available to Hernandez is a question of fact.” See: Hernandez v. Kloesel, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31669; and 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72485 (S.D. Tex.).
The case remains pending, and PLN will update developments as they are available. Kloesel no longer works for TDCJ; he quit after an internal investigation into the assault on Hernandez recommended that he be fired.
Additional source: Houston Chronicle