The Seventh Amendment requires a jury trial when the resolution of the exhaustion issue under the PLRA would also resolve a genuine dispute of material fact regarding the merits of the plaintiff’s substantive case.

Kyle Brandon Richards, a Michigan prisoner, appeals the district court’s judgment dismissing his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil-rights suit because Richards failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. For the reasons set forth below, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court and REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. BACKGROUND Richards and two fellow inmates at the Baraga Correctional Facility in Michigan (the Plaintiffs) sued Resident Unit Manager Thomas Perttu based on allegations of sexual harassment, retaliation, and destruction of property, but only Richards has appealed the adverse judgment against them. In his retaliation claim, Richards alleges that Perttu prevented him from filing grievances related to Perttu’s alleged sexual abuse by ripping up the grievances or otherwise destroying them. The complaint lays out several specific instances when Perttu allegedly destroyed grievances that Richards had intended to file. Richards also claims that Perttu threatened to kill him if he persisted in trying to file more grievances, and that he was wrongfully held in administrative segregation for doing so. The complaint seeks both injunctive relief and monetary damages.

Perttu moved for summary judgment, arguing that the Plaintiffs had failed to exhaust their administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). Richards thereafter cross-moved for summary judgment, raising various First Amendment retaliation and Eighth Amendment claims. The district court denied Perttu’s motion because questions of fact precluded summary judgment on the exhaustion issue. Richards’s motion for summary judgment was similarly denied as premature. A magistrate judge then held an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the Plaintiffs had exhausted their administrative remedies.  No. 22-1298 Richards v. Perttu Page 3 The Report and Recommendation of the magistrate judge recommended that the district court find that Perttu had proved by a preponderance of the evidence that the Plaintiffs had failed to exhaust their administrative remedies, and that they had failed to prove that Perttu had prevented them from filing grievances. See Richards v. Perttu, No. 2:20-CV-76, 2021 WL 8055485 (W.D. Mich. Dec. 3, 2021) (Report and Recommendation). Over the Plaintiffs’ objections, the district court adopted the Report and Recommendation and dismissed the case without prejudice. See Richards v. Perttu, No. 2:20-CV-76, 2022 WL 842654 (W.D. Mich. Mar. 22, 2022).

Richards, as the sole appellant, raises the following three issues on appeal: (1) whether the district court erred by ordering an evidentiary hearing to decide the disputed questions of fact that are intertwined with the exhaustion issue (rather than submitting the exhaustion issue to a jury), (2) whether the magistrate judge was biased in finding that Richards’s witnesses were not credible, and (3) whether the district court should have provided him with a free transcript of the evidentiary hearing. He has also requested us to order the production of the evidentiary-hearing transcript, as well as for a stay and remand of proceedings until the transcript is produced.

After reviewing the arguments in the present case, we directed both parties to file supplemental briefs to address the question of whether the Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires a jury to decide disputed questions of fact relating to exhaustion under the PLRA when the exhaustion issue is intertwined with the merits of the underlying dispute. In response, Richards reiterated his previous argument that disputed questions of fact related to exhaustion that are intertwined with the merits should be heard by a jury. Perttu, in contrast, argues that (1) the factual disputes concerning exhaustion a