UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

August Term, 2021

Argued: December 7, 2021 Decided: June 8, 2022

Docket No. 20-2340-pr

SAMUEL JAMES SAELI,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

— v. —

CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, NY, CORRECTION OFFICER WILLIAM GENTHER, CORRECTION OFFICER JASON STEENBURN,

Defendants-Appellees.*

B e f o r e:

LYNCH, CARNEY, and SULLIVAN, Circuit Judges.

* The Clerk of Court is directed to amend the caption as set forth above. Plaintiff-Appellant Samuel James Saeli appeals from an order of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York (Siragusa, J.) granting summary judgment to Defendants-Appellees on his claims that two correction officers (“the Officers”) and Chautauqua County (“the County”) violated his constitutional rights. The district court held that there was no genuine dispute that Saeli had not exhausted his administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act. We conclude that the district court was correct that Saeli failed to present sufficient evidence to create a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether he had submitted a timely grievance related to his claims against the Officers. The district court erred, however, in holding that the Chautauqua County Jail’s grievance policy applied to his separate claim against the County. By its plain terms, the grievance procedures did not apply to matters outside the jail captain’s control, such as the County handcuffing policy that Saeli challenges here, and thus there were no administrative remedies for Saeli to exhaust with respect to that claim. We therefore AFFIRM the judgment of the district court as to the Officers, VACATE the judgment with respect to the County, and REMAND to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this Opinion.

ANDREW RHYS DAVIES, Allen & Overy LLP, New York, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

MICHAEL MCCLAREN (KEVIN G. COPE, SHANNON B. O’NEILL, on the brief), Webster Szanyi LLP, Buffalo, NY, for Defendants-Appellees.

GERARD E. LYNCH, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff-Appellant Samuel James Saeli appeals from a June 30, 2020 order of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York (Charles

2 J. Siragusa, J.) granting summary judgment on all claims to Defendants-Appellees Chautauqua County (“the County”) and Correction Officers William Genther and Jason Steenburn (“the Officers”) in this civil rights suit concerning the County’s policy of handcuffing inmates in an allegedly painful manner and the Officers’ use of force in extracting Saeli from his cell at the Chautauqua County Jail (“the Jail”). The district court granted summary judgment because it concluded that Saeli, who was proceeding pro se at the time, failed to provide sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether he complied with the Jail’s grievance policy and exhausted all available administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”), Pub. L. No. 104-134, Title VIII, § 803(d), 110 Stat. 1321 (1996), codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. § 1997e.

Saeli, now represented by counsel, argues that he did not fail to exhaust all available administrative remedies because (1) he did, in fact, timely submit an informal grievance form describing his encounter with the Officers, but the Jail failed to act on it, making the grievance process effectively unavailable to him; and (2) the Jail’s grievance policy excludes matters outsid