Document Type
Brief
Publication Date
10-3-2025
Publisher
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Language
en-US
Abstract
Defendants’ response brief contains a laundry list of all the ways they think Mona Murillo fell short in trying to vindicate her rights to be free from sex discrimination and retaliation while incarcerated at Salinas Valley State Prison. They devote page after page to cataloging the regulations that govern her claims, describing the intricacies of the three-tiered grievance system, and recounting her repeated efforts to navigate that morass. And from all of that, they draw the conclusion that Murillo’s lawsuit should be thrown out of court.
In the process, Defendants take the exhaustion requirement to an extreme that even the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”) does not contemplate. The PLRA certainly was not meant to make it easier for prisoners to sue. But nor was it meant to close the courthouse doors to a plaintiff who has done all that can reasonably be expected of her. See Ross v. Blake, 578 U.S. 632, 644 (2016) (exhaustion requirement does not demand a plaintiff to pursue a mechanism for relief that is “so opaque” that “no ordinary prisoner can discern or navigate it”). Indeed, a core purpose of the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement is to encourage prisons to address grievances out of court. Sapp v. Kimbrell, 623 F.3d 813, 823 (9th Cir. 2010). That system breaks down when a prison fails to “meaningfully consider[]” the claims that a prisoner puts before it. Id.
That is what has happened here. As the response brief illustrates, Murillo has been engaged in a years-long dogged effort to seek remedies for unconstitutional discrimination and retaliation. She has done everything in her power to raise those claims within the prison. Nowhere have Defendants made any sort of colorable argument that she has abused the process or tried to sidestep its requirements in hopes of taking the fast track to federal court. Nor can they credibly contend that they lacked reasonable notice of the harms she suffered. Yet still, after all this time, Murillo has never had her discrimination or retaliation claims against Defendants-Appellees adjudicated on the merits. And she has been denied any and all relief. In short, this is not a case where penalizing Murillo’s failure to exhaust is consistent with the balance Congress struck in the PLRA. Her failure to exhaust must be excused, and reversal is required.
Recommended Citation
Madeline H. Meth,
Replacement Reply Brief for Plaintiff-Appellant Mona Salcida Murillo
(2025).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/4170
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Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons, Legal Writing and Research Commons
