Aaron Templeton v. SCOTT PARKS and DEBRA GLEASON

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted January 16, 2025*
Decided January 21, 2025
Before
DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge
CANDACE JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge
No. 24-2091
AARON TEMPLETON,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
SCOTT PARKS and DEBRA GLEASON,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Western District of
Wisconsin.
No. 23-cv-109-jdp
James D. Peterson,
Chief Judge.
O R D E R
Aaron Templeton alleges that in 2020, while he was detained at Marathon
County Jail in Wausau, Wisconsin, jail officials housed him near a detainee who they
knew had tuberculosis. Three months after he was transferred to another facility, he
was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Following this diagnosis, Templeton filed a grievance
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 24-2091 Page 2
against the jail officials, leading to this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for a violation of his
Fourteenth Amendment rights. The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing
that Templeton did not timely file his grievance and thus did not exhaust his
administrative remedies. See 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). After an evidentiary hearing, see Pavey
v. Conley, 544 F.3d 739 (7th Cir. 2008), the district judge entered summary judgment for
the defendants, reasoning that the grievance was untimely. But because the defendants
denied the grievance on the merits, a defense of exhaustion based on the grievance’s
untimeliness is not available to the defendants; therefore we vacate and remand.
The relevant facts regarding exhaustion are not in dispute. Upon receiving his
diagnosis of tuberculosis three months after moving to another facility in 2021,
Templeton attempted to file two grievances. First, within 14 days of the diagnosis, he
sent a letter to the Marathon County Sheriff. The sheriff replied about five months later,
stating that under the jail’s grievance policy, Templeton had to address his grievance to
the jail administrator. Within days, Templeton filed a second grievance, this time to the
jail administrator, who denied his grievance on the merits. She wrote that, based on her
review of jail records, “housing a tuberculosis patient in general population while the
patient was contagious, or positive and undergoing treatment … did not occur.”
Both the jail administrator and Templeton testified at the Pavey hearing. The
administrator testified that detainees who are transferred to another facility but wish to
file a grievance about the jail must send a grievance to the jail administrator—not the
sheriff—within 14 days of the incident. Templeton’s first grievance was sent to the
sheriff; the second grievance, although addressed to the administrator, was sent months
after his diagnosis. In response, Templeton testified why he thought he had properly
exhausted. He explained that the jail’s rules required him first to seek an informal
resolution, which officers told him meant meeting with medical staff, but they were
unable to see him before he was transferred. When he mailed his grievance to the
sheriff, he did not have a copy of the jail’s rules, did not recall the proper recipient, and
thought that the sheriff would promptly tell him of the proper recipient rather than
delay several months before responding.
Following the hearing, the judge entered summary judgment for the defendants.
As relevant here, he ruled that, because Templeton’s attempt at informal resolution at
the jail had “plainly failed,” he had to escalate the issue to a timely formal grievance,
but his grievance to the jail administrator was untimely by many months.

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No. 24-2091 Page 3
On appeal, Templeton argues that the defendants waived the defense of
untimely exhaustion because the jail rejected his grievance on the merits. This is an
issue of law, which we review de novo. Maddox v. Love, 655 F.3d 709, 720 (7th Cir. 2011).
The Prison Litigation Reform Act demands a prisoner’s “strict compliance” with
“each of the steps prescribed by the state’s administrative rules governing prison
grievances” before filing suit. Williams v. Rajoli, 44 F.4th 1041, 1045 (7th Cir. 2022)
(internal quotation marks omitted). But this strict compliance must be insisted upon by
the jail itself: “[A] procedural shortcoming like failing to follow the prison’s time
deadlines amounts to a failure to exhaust only if prison administrators explicitly relied
on that shortcoming.” Maddox, 655 F.3d at 722 (quoting Conyers v. Abitz, 416 F.3d 580,
585 (7th Cir. 2005)). If the jail instead rejects a grievance on the merits, “the grievance
has served its function of alerting the state and inviting corrective action, and
defendants cannot rely on the failure to exhaust defense.” Id.; see also Riccardo v. Rausch,
375 F.3d 521, 524 (7th Cir. 2004) (“[W]hen a state treats a filing as timely and resolves it
on the merits, the federal judiciary will not second-guess that action, for the grievance
has served its function of alerting the state and inviting corrective action.”).
The defendants argue that Templeton did not properly exhaust because his
grievance to the jail administrator was untimely, but their conclusion is wrong. First,
they insist that Templeton had to file his grievance within 14 days of when he was at
risk of contracting tuberculosis (i.e., when he was housed with the infected patient at
the jail in 2020) rather than after he was diagnosed in 2021. But this argument runs
headfirst into our contrary holding in Turnage v. Dart, 16 F.4th 551 (7th Cir. 2021). We
ruled that the “failure to file a grievance about the risk of injury” does not “permanently
block[] any complaint about actual injury when the risk comes to pass.” Id. at 552. Thus,
Templeton could wait until after he became sickened with tuberculosis to grieve. Id.
Next, they argue that, because Templeton sent his grievance to the administrator
months after his diagnosis—well outside the jail’s 14-day window—he did not exhaust
his administrative remedies. But his delay does not mean that Templeton failed to
exhaust, because the jail administrator never “explicitly relied on that shortcoming”
when denying his grievance. See Maddox, 655 F.3d at 722. Instead, the administrator
rejected Templeton’s grievance on the merits: She stated that the jail’s records did not
support Templeton’s claim that he was housed with a tuberculosis-infected patient, and
she never mentioned untimeliness or any other procedural irregularity. Thus, the
defendants have waived the asserted untimeliness of the grievance. See id. And because

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untimeliness is the defendants’ only argument about a lack of exhaustion, they have not
established their defense that Templeton failed to exhaust. See id.
We note that Templeton did not present in the district court the argument that he
raises here (that the defendants considered his grievance on the merits and thus waived
untimeliness), but this omission does not prevent him from successfully doing so on
appeal. The defendants do not argue that Templeton may not now raise this argument,
which he expressly presents on appeal. He writes that after he filed his grievance with
the jail administrator, “the issue [was] ruled on its merits by the jail administrator … . [I
appealed] that to the jail inspector and [got] an answer … . [I] had fully exhausted a
year before [I] filed suit. The PLRA suggests this waived any procedural object[ion]s if
there were any.” The defendants’ failure to respond to this explicit argument on appeal
is waiver. See, e.g., Bradley v. Village of University Park, 59 F.4th 887, 897 (7th Cir. 2023).
But even if the defendants had contended on appeal that Templeton did not
argue to the district judge that the administrator addressed his grievance on the merits,
we would not prevent him from raising that argument now. In Maddox, the defendants
also contended that a prisoner failed to preserve his appellate argument that they had
considered on the merits his otherwise untimely grievance. See 655 F.3d at 721 n.6. We
rejected that argument for two reasons. First, pro se litigants (like Templeton) are held
to less exacting standards about formulating arguments than represented parties.
Second, in opposing summary judgment, the prisoner (like Templeton) had argued that
he exhausted his administrative remedies. That contention about exhaustion is enough
to preserve the Maddox-style argument for appeal. See id.
Thus, we VACATE the judgment and REMAND the case for further proceedings.

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