On November 15, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reinstated a deliberate indifference claim lodged by Missouri prisoner Tremonti Perry, whose alleged medical neglect left him in a coma—and therefore unable to complete the prison grievance process. His complaint had been dismissed for just that reason by the federal court for the Eastern District of Missouri, citing the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) requirement to exhaust administrative remedies before filing suit. But the appellate Court said that Perry’s inability to file grievances made the process unavailable to him, thereby excusing his failure to exhaust. 

Perry accused Defendant state Department of Corrections (DOC) officials of neglecting what turned out to be his end-stage renal disease while he was incarcerated at the Southeast Correctional Center (SECC), in violation of his Eighth Amendment rights. When finally diagnosed, he was placed in a medically induced coma for a month. Several years later, Perry filed a complaint against DOC Director Anne L. Precythe and SECC Warden Ian Wallace, as well as DOC’s contracted healthcare providers, Corizon Health LLC and Centurion of Missouri, LLC, along with their physicians Glen Babich and John Matthews. 

In his pro se complaint, filed pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Perry admitted that he had not used the prison’s grievance system. But he argued that he should be excused from the exhaustion requirement of the PLRA, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e, because he was in a coma throughout the prescribed 15-day filing window. Defendants moved to dismiss under Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 12(b)(6), arguing that even if the grievance process was unavailable “during the period that he was in a medically induced coma and for a reasonable time period following that event,” nothing prevented him from making a “diligent effort to exhaust his claims” after he recovered.

Nothing except that pesky grievance-filing deadline, of course, which had long since passed. But the district court—though agreeing with Perry that the grievance procedure was unavailable to him while he was in a coma and “during his medical issues thereafter”—granted the Defendants’ motion, reasoning that Perry “could have [filed a grievance] when his medical conditions resolved.” Perry appealed dismissal of his complaint.

The Eighth Circuit began its analysis by noting that administrative remedies “are defined by the prison and are exhausted when an inmate has used and properly followed all required steps,” citing Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199 (2007). The PLRA requires that “prisoners must exhaust ‘available’ administrative remedies before bringing suit,” as held in Ross v. Blake, 578 U.S. 632 (2016), the Court said. 

But that requirement is excused, the Court continued, when a remedy is “unavailable” because “(1) the inmate was unable to file a timely grievance due to physical or mental incapacity; and (2) the administrative system’s rules do not accommodate the condition by allowing a late filing,” quoting Smith v. Andrews, 75 F.4th 805 (8th Cir. 2023).

Here, Perry was comatose throughout the entire 15-day window for filing a grievance. Even after he was restored to consciousness, “he could not avail himself of the prison’s grievance process” because it “did not permit late filings,” the Court continued, concluding therefore “that the prison’s administrative remedy was unavailable to Perry.”

Defendants argued that a remedy remained available to Perry based on the possibility that his untimely grievance might have been addressed anyway. But the Court rejected that argument, reasoning that it is not the officials’ largesse but the grievance system rules which must allow a filing in order for the process to be “available” to a prisoner. “The possibility that officials might have ignored or abandoned the deadline set forth in the grievance procedure and considered an out-of-time request has no bearing on availability,” the Court declared. 

Accordingly, the district court’s dismissal of Perry’s complaint was reversed and the case remanded. Before the Court, Perry was represented by attorneys Michael A. Brockland, of SWMW Law in Saint Louis and Gregory Cui of the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center in Washington, DC. See: Perry v. Precythe, 121 F.4th 711 (8th Cir. 2024).

This is not the first time that the notoriously conservative Eighth Circuit has stopped prison officials from taking advantage of a prisoner’s medical incapacity to play “gotcha” with the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement. As PLN reported, Arkansas prisoner John J. Smith was left in a coma after an attack by a fellow prisoner that he blamed on guards’ failure to protect him; though he didn’t wake up before the grievance filing deadline passed, he also beat back a motion to dismiss his complaint. [See: PLN, Jan. 2024, p.47.] That case, like Perry’s remains pending, and PLN will update developments in both cases as they are available. Back at the district court, Perry continues to be represented by Brockland. See: Perry v. Witty, USDC (E.D. Mo.), Case No. 1:17-cv-00115.  

Subscribe today

Already a subscriber? Login

Related legal case