BATON ROUGE— A court has dismissed an appeal with prejudice following an inmate’s attack while in prison.
Dennis Bargher filed an appeal on July 1 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana against Major Craig White and other officials.
The plaintiff brought a suit against the defendants alleging they arranged for another inmate to attack him and stood by while he was severely injured. The plaintiff’s claims were dismissed with prejudice and the district court granted summary judgment for the defendants, holding that the plaintiff failed to exhaust administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act.
While an inmate at Elayn Hunt Correctional Center, the plaintiff alleged that he was taken from his cell and escorted back by a Sgt. Davidson on April 18, 2015. While the plaintiff was returning to his cell, he saw that another inmate was already inside and objected to his going in. The plaintiff was commanded by Officer Bargher to get in his cell and the plaintiff allegedly began to be attacked by the other inmate. The plaintiff’s jaw and teeth were broken and he suffered facial nerve damage, he claims.
The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana has found that the plaintiff failed to exhaust administrative remedies and that the proper disposition was therefore dismissal without prejudice. As the plaintiff was released from prison during the pendency of this suit, he is not relieved of the requirement to exhaust administrative remedies for this legal action that he initiated while in prison. The appeals court vacated the district court’s judgment and remanded with instructions to dismiss the plaintiff’s claims without prejudice to his ability to refile now that he is not bound by the PLRA’s exhaustion.
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana Case No. 17-30455