UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

SHIKEB SADDOZAI, No. 20-17519 Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. v. 5:18-cv-05558- BLF RON DAVIS, Warden of San Quentin State Prison; CLAWSON, Correctional Officer, San Quentin State Prison; OPINION MALIKIAN, Correctional Officer, San Quentin State Prison; C. SMITH, Correctional Officer, San Quentin State Prison; SERRINTINO, Correctional Officer, San Quentin State Prison; PRIETO, Correctional Officer, San Quentin State Prison; HERRERA, Sergeant Correctional Officer, San Quentin State Prison; M. GAITAN, CDCR Correctional Officer, Sergeant; DIRECTOR, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California Beth Labson Freeman, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted April 15, 2022 San Francisco, California 2 SADDOZAI V. DAVIS

Filed May 23, 2022 Before: EUGENE E. SILER, * A. WALLACE TASHIMA, and MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr.

SUMMARY **

Civil Rights

The panel reversed the district court’s dismissal of a prisoner civil rights complaint for lack of exhaustion under the Prison Litigation Reform Act and remanded.

Plaintiff alleged excessive force after being shot by a correctional officer during an incident that occurred while Plaintiff was incarcerated at California’s San Quentin State Prison. Defendants moved to dismiss Plaintiff’s third amended complaint against Defendant Clawson for failure to state a claim and because Plaintiff had not exhausted administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”) before he filed his original complaint. The district court agreed that Plaintiff failed to exhaust his claim against Defendant Clawson at the time he filed his original complaint and dismissed the third amended complaint for lack of exhaustion under the PLRA.

* The Honorable Eugene E. Siler, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation. ** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. SADDOZAI V. DAVIS 3

The panel clarified the underlying principle in Jackson v. Fong, 870 F.3d 928 (9th Cir. 2017), which controlled the outcome here. Jackson made clear that the PLRA does not supplant or modify Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15. Rule 15 allows plaintiffs, regardless of their incarceration status, to supplement pleadings with leave of court “even though the original pleading is defective in stating a claim or defense.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(d). A prisoner who has fully complied with the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement need not file an entirely new federal case simply because he had not exhausted when he filed his original federal complaint. The parties agreed that Plaintiff had fully exhausted by the time he filed his third amended complaint, which the district court deemed the “operative complaint.” Plaintiff’s operative third amended complaint was the only relevant pleading for purposes of the PLRA exhaustion analysis. The district court therefore erred in dismissing Plaintiff’s operative complaint for lack of exhaustion.

COUNSEL Katherine Cion (argued) and Christina Davis, Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center, Washington, D.C.; Easha Anand, Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center, San Francisco, California; for Plaintiff-Appellant. Oliver C. Wu (argued) and Kevin A. Voth, Deputy Attorneys General; Alicia A. Bower, Supervis