The Prison Litigation Reform Act: Exhaustion Of Administrative Remedies As An Affirmative Defense

• Published date: 08 January 2024
• Law Firm: Meissner Tierney Fisher & Nichols
• Author: Jacob A. Sosnay

Convicted prisoners, pre-trial and pre-sentencing detainees confined to correctional facilities enjoy the same constitutional rights as those of us that are not incarcerated.¹ Unsurprisingly, individuals confined to correctional facilities, with little or nothing productive to do with their time, find ample reasons to claim they are treated poorly during confinement. As a result, and without comment on the veracity of any given claim as - certainly - many of the claims asserted by inmates are valid, incarcerated persons tend to file an incredible number of lawsuits. Because of the volume of lawsuits filed by inmates, to deter the frivolous ones, Congress passed the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. ' 1997e ("PLRA") in 1996. One of its primary functions mandates that, prior to a lawsuit filed by an incarcerated pro se inmate moving forward - i.e. service of process on the targeted defendant(s) - the District Courts first "screen" prisoner complaints to ensure the allegations sufficiently set forth viable causes of action. 28 U.S.C. '1915(a).

If, after the District Court screens the prisoner complaint, the action is permitted to proceed, the PLRA establishes a powerful defense for institutional defendants. A necessary prerequisite to any prisoner litigation is the...