United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division
Elizabeth A. Stafford United States Magistrate Judge
OPINION AND ORDER (1) ADOPTING THE MAGISTRATE
JUDGE'S REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION (ECF NO. 31), (2)
OVERRULING THE PLAINTIFF'S OBJECTIONS, AND (3) GRANTING
IN PART AND DENYING IN PART THE MDOC DEFENDANTS' MOTION
FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT (ECF NO. 20)
PAUL
D. BORMAN UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
This is
a prisoner civil rights case. On April 1, 2019, Magistrate
Judge Elizabeth A. Stafford issued a Report and
Recommendation to sua sponte dismiss certain claims
of Plaintiff's Complaint and to grant in part and deny in
part Michigan Department Of Corrections (“MDOC”)
Defendants Donna Butler, Jennifer Denney, Steven Adams,
Derrick Lee, Eboni Chavers, Alexia Johnson, Maya Nelson,
Jamie Strickland, Natasha Reed, Amber Brown, Laura Williams,
Richard Jackson, and Cheryl White's (“the MDOC
Defendants”) motion for partial summary judgment. (ECF
No. 20, Report and Recommendation) (“the
Report”). On April 18, 2019, Plaintiff filed an
Objection to the Report. (ECF No. 35.) The MDOC Defendants
did not file a Response to the Plaintiff's Objection.
Having conducted a de novo review, pursuant to 28
U.S.C. § 636(b)(1), of those parts of the Magistrate
Judge's Report and Recommendation to which specific
objections have been filed, the Court OVERRULES
Plaintiff's Objections, ADOPTS the Magistrate Judge's
Report, sua sponte dismisses certain allegations of
Plaintiff's Complaint, and GRANTS IN PART AND DENIES IN
PART the MDOC Defendants' motion for summary judgment.
I.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff
brings this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 Complaint against several
MDOC employees claiming that they violated her constitutional
rights during her incarceration at the Women's Huron
Valley Correctional Facility. Magistrate Judge Stafford has
issued a Report and Recommendation in part dismissing certain
of Plaintiff's claims for failure to exhaust her remedies
under the MDOC grievance procedures. Plaintiff has objected
to the exhaustion rulings of the Magistrate Judge's
Report and Recommendation, asserting that she has “used
all exhaustion steps as best she could, ” but that her
inability to control when prison officials act on her
grievances, along with her mental well-being issues, should
excuse any untimeliness. Because mental health is not an
excuse for untimeliness in the grievance procedure, and
because Plaintiff does not dispute the Magistrate Judge's
calculation of the timing of her grievances, the Court will
adopt the Report and Recommendation.
II.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
Pursuant
to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(b) and 28 U.S.C. §
636(b)(1), the Court conducts a de novo review of
the portions of the Magistrate Judge's Report and
Recommendation to which a party has filed “specific
written objection” in a timely manner. Lyons v.
Comm'r Soc. Sec., 351 F.Supp.2d 659, 661 (E.D. Mich.
2004). A district court “may accept, reject, or modify,
in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by
the magistrate judge.” 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C).
Only those objections that are specific are entitled to a
de novo review under the statute. Mira v.
Marshall, 806 F.2d 636, 637 (6th Cir. 1986). “The
parties have the duty to pinpoint those portions of the
magistrate's report that the district court must
specially consider.” Id. (quotation marks and
citation omitted). “A general objection, or one that
merely restates the arguments previously presented is not
sufficient to alert the court to alleged errors on the part
of the magistrate judge.” Aldrich v. Bock, 327
F.Supp.2d 743, 747 (E.D. Mich. 2004). “‘[B]are
disagreement with the conclusions reached by the Magistrate
Judge, without any effort to identify any specific errors in
the Magistrate Judge's analysis that, if corrected, might
warrant a different outcome, is tantamount to an outright
failure to lodge objections to the R & R.'”
Arroyo v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec., No. 14-cv-14358,
2016 WL 424939, at *3 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 4, 2016) (quoting
Depweg v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec., No. 14-11705,
2015 WL 5014361, at *1 (E.D. Mich. Aug. 24, 2015) (citing
Howard v. Secretary of Health & Human Services,
932 F.2d 505, 509 (6th Cir. 1991)).
III.
ANALYSIS
As an
initial matter, Plaintiffs objects broadly to the lack of
assistance she received from prison staff in completing her
grievance forms, but fails to identify any specific error in
the Magistrate Judge's analysis regarding the timeliness
of her various grievances that this Court should review and
correct. Such “general objections” that fail to
pinpoint errors in the Magistrate Judge's analysis are
insufficient to warrant de novo review.
The
Magistrate Judge correctly concluded that there is no
“mental-capacity” exception to the exhaustion
requirement. See, e.g. Williams v. White, 724
Fed.Appx. 380, 383 (6th Cir. 2018) (rejecting plaintiff's
excuse that he lacked the mental capacity to make sense of
the exhaustion process, noting that “there is no
mental-capacity exception to the PLRA” exhaustion
requirements). Plaintiff cannot rely on her mental health
issues as an excuse for failing to comply with the MDOC
exhaustion requirements.
Regarding
the Magistrate Judge's analysis of the timeliness of
Plaintiff's grievances, the Court notes that the
Plaintiff appears quite capable of drafting and filing
grievances. Plaintiff complains that none of the MDOC staff
assisted her in filing grievances, but she cites no specific
instance in which she was prevented from timely filing a
grievance due to some conduct of an MDOC staff member.
Plaintiff also complains that the MDOC did not timely respond
to her grievances but, as the Magistrate Judge pointed out,
the grievance process accounts for this potential failure to
respond on the part of the MDOC by permitting Plaintiff to
move to the next Step in the grievance process if she fails
to receive a timely response from the MDOC. The failure of
the MDOC to timely respond is thus not an excuse for
Plaintiff's own untimeliness. In any event, the
grievances that the Magistrate Judge concludes were not
properly exhausted were untimely due to Plaintiff's
failure to timely attempt to informally resolve the issues
before proceeding with the grievance process. Plaintiff does
not dispute these time frames and does not dispute that by
her conduct, the grievances were untimely.
IV.
CONCLUSION
The
Magistrate Judge correctly ruled that grievances
2017-01-0001-28E, 2017-01-0003-28E, 2017-02-0739-28I, and
2017-01-0004-28E, were untimely and not properly exhausted.
Plaintiff's Objection is OVERRULED and Defendants are
entitled to summary judgment as to these grievances.
Plaintiff
does not object to the Magistrate Judge's ruling that
certain allegations of Plaintiff's Complaint contained in
grievances 17-02-0736-28B, 17-02-0737-28B, 17-02-0940-28B,
17-02-0942-28E, 17-02-0989-[27B], 17-03-127[7]-28I, and
17-0[3]-1316-28B, should be dismissed sua sponte for
failure to state a claim under 42 U.S.C. ยง
...