Heriberto Rodriguez v. County of Los Angeles, 891 F.3d 776 (2018)

Citation: Heriberto Rodriguez v. County of Los Angeles, 891 F.3d 776 (2018)
Parent Document: Heriberto Rodriguez v. County of Los Angeles, 891 F.3d 776 (2018)
Jurisdiction: United States (federal)
Effective Date: 2018-05-30
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4502306/heriberto-rodriguez-v-county-of... ↗

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Appellants further contend that appellees failed to exhaust
administrative remedies at the Men’s Central Jail. Under the
Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”), a pretrial detainee
or convicted prisoner may not file suit challenging conditions
in a correctional facility unless he or she has exhausted
administrative remedies at the facility. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a);
see also Kingsley, 135 S. Ct. at 2476 (noting that the PLRA
“applies to both pretrial detainees and convicted prisoners”).
However, a prisoner is excused from the exhaustion
requirement in circumstances where administrative remedies
are effectively unavailable, including circumstances in which
a prisoner has reason to fear retaliation for reporting an
incident. McBride v. Lopez, 807 F.3d 982, 987 (9th Cir.
2015). In order for a fear of retaliation to excuse the PLRA’s
exhaustion requirement, the prisoner must show that (1) “he
actually believed prison officials would retaliate against him
if he filed a grievance”; and (2) “a reasonable prisoner of
ordinary firmness would have believed that the prison
official’s action communicated a threat not to use the prison’s
grievance procedure and that the threatened retaliation was of
sufficient severity to deter a reasonable prisoner from filing
a grievance.” Id. The district court found that administrative
remedies were effectively unavailable to appellees because
they “reasonably believed that they would suffer additional
physical force if they complained.”
26                   RODRIGUEZ V. CRUZ

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