by Chuck Sharman

On May 22, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit refused a request by officials with the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) for a rehearing before the full Court en banc of their challenge to a ruling, which came down in favor of a former state prisoner who sued them for failing to treat a hand injury he suffered at Minnesota Correctional Facility in Fairbault. See: Allen v. Amsterdam, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 12565 (8th Cir.).

That left the ruling to stand as it was issued by a panel of the Court, finding the former prisoner, Jeremy James Allen, was not required to exhaust his administrative remedies before filing his suit; because his second and operative complaint was filed after his release, the Court said that it was no longer governed by the provisions of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e. In that same ruling, the Eighth Circuit rejected Defendants’ argument that the relation-back doctrine tied Allen’s amended complaint to the one he originally filed while still incarcerated. For that to be true, the Court said, the amended complaint would have to correct a “mistake” in the original; instead, it merely identified “Doe” Defendants.

Allen injured his hand in a fall from the bunk in his cell in December 2017. He was taken to a local hospital, where a doctor splinted the hand and told him to return in several days—only to find the hand was then still too swollen to determine whether surgical intervention was needed. The doctor ordered Allen to return for a third visit in two weeks. But that didn’t happen for six weeks, by which time Allen’s hand had healed in a way that left him “permanently disabled,” as the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota later recalled in detail: “[H]is hands and nerves are weakened and deformed; he cannot make a closed fist and he has lost a significant range of motion.” In addition, Allen continued to suffer from “excruciating pain.”

Allen filed suit in state District Court for Ramsey County in December 2021, just inside the state’s four-­year statute of limitations for a medical malpractice claim. To that he also added a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging deliberate indifference to his serious medical need, in violation of his Eighth Amendment guarantee of freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.

Citing that federal claim, Defendants successfully removed the case to federal court, which in April 2022—a week after his release—granted Allen leave to amend his complaint with the names of two “Doe” defendants obtained via subpoena: DOC Nurse Charles Brooks and Scheduling Clerk Cheryl Peipho. They were also the only remaining defendants when the district court refused to dismiss Allen’s surviving claims on January 23, 2023. The district court denied the staffers qualified immunity because the rights they allegedly violated were clearly established at the time. See: Allen v. Piepho, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10713 (D. Minn.). 

Brooks and Peipho then filed for summary judgment, arguing that Allen’s failure to file grievances about his treatment with DOC prior to his release ran afoul of the PLRA’s requirement for prisoners to exhaust administrative remedies before filing suit. 

Relation Back Rule Dispute 

The district court denied the motion on June 29, 2023, reasoning that Allen’s operative complaint at the time was filed after his release from DOC custody, when he was no longer subject to the PLRA. Defendants attempted to refute this by arguing that Allen’s amended complaint was tied to his original by the relation back doctrine. The district court disagreed, citing Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. 

“Under Rule 15(c), relation back is permitted only when the action originally is brought against the wrong person because of a ‘mistake,’” the district court said, citing Heglund v. Aitkin Cnty., 871 F.3d 572 (8th Cir. 2017). But “[u]sing ‘John Doe’ or ‘Jane Doe’ in an initial complaint, and then amending it to include named defendants once their identities are known, is not a ‘mistake’”—it is instead a signal to the court that additional defendants remain to be identified by name. Accordingly, the summary judgment motion was denied on June 29, 2023. See: Allen v. Piepho, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 223993 (D. Minn.).

Brooks and Piepho then turned to the Eighth Circuit, which affirmed the district court’s judgment on March 26, 2025. “In our Circuit,” the Court said, “‘[i]t is well-­established that an amended complaint supersedes an original complaint and renders the original complaint without legal effect,’” quoting In re Atlas Van Lines, Inc., 209 F.3d 1064 (8th Cir. 2000) (citing Washer v. Bullitt Cnty., 110 U.S. 558 (1884)).

Moreover, under Foulk v. Charrier, 262 F.3d 687 (8th Cir. 2001), the Court said, “when an amended complaint identifies by name a defendant previously docketed as John or Jane Doe, the ‘amendment ordinarily will not be treated as relating back to the prior pleading, unless certain conditions set forth in Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(c) are satisfied.’” Those conditions include (i) that the party being named “received such notice of the action that it will not be prejudiced in defending on the merits”; and (ii) that the newly named defendant “knew or should have known that … the action would have been brought against [him or her], but for a mistake concerning the proper party’s identity.”

Allen had no way to give notice to Brook and Piepho, since he didn’t even know their names before subpoenaing them from the DOC. The Court added that nothing else in the record indicated they were on notice, either. Moreover, Allen’s decision to name “Doe” defendants was not a mistake but an “intentional misidentification,” the Court said. Therefore, his amended complaint did not relate back to the original, meaning it was filed by a non-­prisoner and not subject to the PLRA. 

Circuit Judge James Burton Loken dissented, insisting that the timing of Allen’s amended complaint did not change the fact that his suit was “brought” while he was a prisoner, and so it was subject to the PLRA. However, his dissent quoted the text of the PLRA to say that it applies to an action “brought in federal court”; the judge did not say what that meant for Allen, who filed his suit in state court; it was defendants who removed it to the federal court. Accordingly, the majority of the Eighth Circuit panel affirmed the judgment of the district court. See: Allen v. Amsterdam, 132 F.4th 1065 (8th Cir. 2025).

It seems clear that Allen didn’t need to exhaust remedies to sue under Minnesota malpractice law in a Minnesota court; other states have different rules, so prisoners should proceed with caution. They should also exhaust grievance procedures, to avoid imperiling any federal claims made under § 1983; in the PLRA, that is what triggers its requirements. 

Defendants have signaled this is the argument they’d like to make in a petition they filed for a writ of certiorari from the Supreme Court of the U.S. to hear their appeal. PLN will continue to update developments. Allen is represented by attorneys Vincent J. Moccio of Bennerotte & Assoc. P.A. in Eagan and Phillip Fishman of his eponymous law office in Bloomington. See: Allen v. Brooks, USDC (D. Minn.), Case No. 0:21-­cv-­2689.

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