A Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual Chapter 14 - Columbia Law School

are not about “prison conditions” and need not be exhausted are no longer good law. This is
not an issue in use-of-force cases arising in the New York City jails, since you cannot bring
“complaints pertaining to an alleged assault” under that system’s grievance procedure, and
therefore you do not need to exhaust use-of-force or prisoner assault claims. 237 But, you
would need to exhaust other claims arising out of those incidents, like prison staff preventing
you from receiving medical care for injuries.
Actions of persons or agencies outside the prison system are generally not prison
conditions. 238 Occurrences or conditions in police custody are generally not prison
conditions. 239 The same should be true of medical facilities outside the prison. 240 Disputes
over whether you should be in prison at all are not about prison conditions. 241 Courts have
237. City of New York, Department of Corrections, Directive No. 3375R § II.B, Inmate Grievance
Program (1998) (as revised Mar. 4, 1985). This directive has recently been revised but the substance of
this point is unchanged: “Inmate allegations of assault or harassment by either staff or inmates are not
grievable under the grievance mechanism.” City of New York, Department of Corrections, Directive
3375R-A, Inmate Grievance Resolution Program at § II.C.2 (March 13, 2008), available at
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doc/downloads/pdf/3375R-A.pdf. If a complaint is not grievable, and there is no
other administrative remedy that is applicable to a problem, then there is no exhaustion requirement.
238. For example, one court held that the Department of Homeland Security’s placement of a
prisoner on a “watch list” was not a prison condition requiring exhaustion; however, the prison’s actions
in placing him in segregation or depriving him of telephone privileges required exhaustion. Almahdi v.
Ridge, No. 04-3120, 201 F. App’x 865, 868, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 26938, at *6 (3d Cir. Oct. 27, 2006)
(unpublished). Another has held that a prisoner’s claim that prosecutors and investigators conspired to
harm him in jail because he had information about official corruption was not a prison condition claim,
even though it had an impact on prison conditions, and the exhaustion requirement did not apply.
Johnson v. Quinn, No. 96 C 6598, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2434, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 26, 1999)
(unpublished). Holtz v. Monsanto, Inc., No. 05-070-GPM, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36893, at *1 (S.D. Ill.
June 6, 2006) (unpublished) (holding prisoner’s claim of “negligence, strict products liability, ‘deceit and
misrepresentation,’ and breach of express or implied warranties arising out of Defendants’ involvement
with the product Aspartame,” was not about prison conditions). Compare Reid v. Fed. Bureau of
Prisons, No. 04-1845 (ESH), 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15138, at *10 (D.D.C. July 20, 2005) (unpublished)
(holding Privacy Act claim about inaccuracy in prison records affecting classification was about prison
conditions), with Lee v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 235 F.R.D. 274, 290 (W.D. Pa. Mar. 30, 2006) (holding
alleged violation of Privacy Act resulting in plaintiff’s and his agents’ being unable to access his outside
bank accounts for a year “did not related to prison life” and need not be exhausted).
239. See Brewer v. Philson, No. 06-1013, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2036, at *6 (W.D. Ark. Jan. 10,
2007) (unpublished); Bowers v. City of Philadelphia, No. 06-CV-3229, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5804, at
*116, n.40 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 25, 2007) (unpublished) (holding police holding cells were not prisons for
purpose of prisoner release provisions of PLRA).
240. In Borges v. Adm’r for Strong Mem. Hosp., No. 99-CV-6351Fe, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS
18596, at *11 (W.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2002) (unpublished), the court expressed doubt that a claim made by
prisoners injured by dentists at an outside hospital involved prison conditions, since the grievance
system probably could not take any action against defendants. The court reached the opposite
conclusion in Abdur-Raqiyb v. Erie County Med. Ctr., 536 F. Supp. 2d 299, 304 (W.D.N.Y. 2008), on the
grounds that the statute is supposed to be read broadly and the plaintiff was clearly a prisoner.
241. White v. Thompson, No. 406CV207, 2007 WL 628121, at *2 (S.D. Ga. Feb. 26, 2007)
(unpublished) (holding false imprisonment claims are about prison conditions); Bost v. Adams, No.
1:04-0446, 2006 WL 1674485, at *5 (S.D. W.Va. June 12, 2006) (unpublished) (holding a challenge to a
restriction on the time a prisoner could serve in a community corrections center was not about prison
conditions); Fuller v. Kansas, No. 04-2457-CM, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18977, at *5 (D. Kan. Aug. 8,
2005) (unpublished) (holding claims of false arrest and imprisonment are not prison conditions claims
under the statute), aff’d, 175 F. App’x 234 (10th Cir. 2006); Wishom v. Hill, No. 02-2291-KHV, 2004
U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2171, at *33 (D. Kan. Feb. 13, 2004) (unpublished) (holding detention without
probable cause not a prison condition); Monahan v. Winn, 276 F. Supp. 2d 196, 204 (D. Mass. 2003)
(holding a Bureau of Prisons rule revision abolishing its discretion to designate some offenders to
community confinement facilities did not involve conditions).