Ross v. Blake
- Decided
- June 6, 2016
- Docket
- 15–339.
- Status
- Published
- Jurisdiction
- Federal
Cited 4,310 timesNo negative treatment found in this library
What later courts said
- holding that while an inmate “must exhaust available remedies,” they “need not exhaust unavailable ones.” — Jason Gowen v. Gerald Winfield (2025)
- concluding that exhaustion is unavailable to an inmate when “‘it operates as a simple dead end” — Levy v. Green (2019)
- holding that an inmate does not have to exhaust an administrative remedy that is incapable of use — Gad v. Northampton County (2021)
Each line is a later court’s own words about this case, not a summary. Read the opinion before relying on it.
How the opinion begins
Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA) mandates that an inmate exhaust "such administrative remedies as [*1855] are available" before bringing suit to challenge prison conditions. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). The court below adopted an unwritten "special circumstances" exception to that provision, permitting some prisoners to pursue litigation even when they have failed to exhaust available administrative remedies. Today, we reject that freewheeling approach to exhaustion as inconsistent with the PLRA. But we also underscore that statute's built-in exception to the exhaustion requirement: A prisoner need not exhaust remedies if they are not "available." The briefs and other submissions filed in this case suggest the possibility that the aggrieved inmate lacked an available administrative remedy. That issue remains open for consideration on remand, in light of the principles stated below.
I
Statutes cited
Cite this
Ross v. Blake, 578 U.S. 632 (2016)Read the full opinion
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