Daryl A. Brown v. Michelle Briggs

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted May 19, 2023 *
Decided May 26, 2023
Before
DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
No. 22-1963
DARYL A. BROWN,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
MICHELLE BRIGGS,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Indiana, South Bend Division.
No. 3:21-CV-181-DRL-MGG
Damon R. Leichty,
Judge.
O R D E R
Daryl Brown, an Indiana prisoner, challenges the summary-judgment ruling on
his claim that the director of the prison’s addiction-treatment program refused to allow
* 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. FED. R. A PP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. A PP. P. 32.1

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No. 22-1963 Page 2
him to rejoin the program because of his race. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court
determined that Brown had not exhausted his administrative remedies. We affirm.
We recount the facts in the light most favorable to Brown, the nonmovant.
See White v. Woods, 48 F.4th 853, 855 (7th Cir. 2022). While imprisoned at Westville
Correctional Facility, Brown (who is African American) was accused by staff members
Lawrence Machin and Dennis Hood of fighting a white prisoner. Brown denies that any
fight occurred, but as a result of the accusation both prisoners were removed from the
addiction-treatment program. The prison investigated the charge, and the white
prisoner soon was allowed to rejoin the program. But Brown had to wait 60 days until
he was “reclassified” to another job. Brown appealed that decision, arguing that he had
been reclassified without due process because prison staff did not complete the proper
paperwork to support the investigation or his reclassification. The “classification
supervisor” (identified only as “Mr. Krueger”) rejected the appeal but told Brown that
Michelle Briggs, the program’s director, had decided to let him rejoin the program. And
shortly afterward, Brown did so.
Brown then filed an administrative grievance, challenging how Krueger had
processed the appeal of his reclassification. According to Brown, Krueger improperly
distributed the appeal paperwork: Krueger left no record of his removal from the
program, and the absence of any record prevented him from asking prison officials to
consider the culpability of Machin, Hood, and Briggs when they reclassified him
without due process. Brown also said that he suffered discrimination because the white
prisoner was allowed to resume participation in the addiction-treatment program much
earlier than he was. Brown did not identify who he thought was responsible for these
decisions. He sought backpay for the three months’ interruption in the program.
John Harvil, the prison’s grievance specialist, rejected Brown’s grievance
because, among other deficiencies, it raised a classification issue that the prison’s rules
did not authorize addressing through the grievance process. Brown did not file another
grievance.
A few months later, Brown sued Briggs, Machin, and Hood for (1) violating his
due-process rights when they removed him from the program without the proper
paperwork and (2) denying him equal protection based on race when they allowed the
white prisoner to rejoin the program more quickly than he could. The district court
screened his complaint, see 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, and ruled that Brown could proceed only
on the equal-protection claim that he had been subjected to discrimination by Briggs—
the lone defendant who Brown had alleged to be personally involved in the decision to

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No. 22-1963 Page 3
let the white prisoner back in the program much earlier than he was. Because Brown
did not allege that Machin and Hood had any role in that decision, the court dismissed
them from the suit.
Briggs then moved for summary judgment, arguing that Brown had not
exhausted his available administrative remedies, as required by the Prison Litigation
Reform Act. See 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). She relied on an affidavit from Harvil, who
attested that (1) he rejected Brown’s grievance against Krueger and (2) Brown had not
filed a grievance asserting racial discrimination on Briggs’s part in deciding whom to
allow in to the program.
Next, Brown sought leave to amend his complaint to add Machin and Hood back
into the suit as defendants. Brown argued that he had discovered new evidence
showing that they had been personally involved in deciding to let the white prisoner
rejoin the program earlier than he could.
The court entered summary judgment for Briggs. Brown could not rely on his
grievance to show that he exhausted his administrative remedies against Briggs, the
court explained, because his grievance did not allege that she had discriminated against
him based on race. Nor did Brown provide any evidence that the grievance process was
unavailable to him. The court also denied Brown leave to amend his complaint, ruling
that it would be futile to add Machin and Hood as defendants because his grievance did
not allege that either had racially discriminated against him.
On appeal, Brown first challenges the district court’s ruling that his grievance
did not allege that Briggs discriminated against him. He points out that his grievance
names her specifically and elaborates that the decision to readmit the white prisoner
into the program well before him constitutes discrimination.
The district court correctly ruled that Brown’s grievance was insufficiently
specific to allege that Briggs discriminated against him. A prisoner’s grievance must
give prison officials a fair opportunity to address the prisoner’s complaint—that is, the
grievance must raise the same claim as the lawsuit and provide enough information to
indicate that the defendant is the target. See King v. Dart, 63 F.4th 602, 608 (7th Cir.
2023); Bowers v. Dart, 1 F.4th 513, 517–18 (7th Cir. 2021). As the district court explained,
the substance of Brown’s grievance—Krueger’s mishandling of his classification-appeal
paperwork—differs from his racial-discrimination claim here. Although the grievance
names Briggs and refers to discrimination, the grievance falls short of signaling that
Brown meant to accuse Briggs of that discrimination. A fair reading of the grievance

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No. 22-1963 Page 4
suggests that Brown meant only to connect Briggs to his due-process charge, which
related to her role in reclassifying him without the right paperwork.
Next, Brown challenges the district court’s denial of leave to add Machin and
Hood as defendants. As with his argument concerning Briggs, he argues that they too
discriminated against him based on race. The grievance, he points out, names both men
and asserts that the disparate handling of the two prisoners’ readmission to the
program amounts to discrimination.
The district court appropriately exercised its discretion in denying Brown leave
to join Machin and Hood as defendants. District courts have broad discretion to deny
leave to amend when amendment would be futile. Zimmerman v. Bornick, 25 F.4th 491,
494 (7th Cir. 2022). Here, the district court reasonably concluded that adding Machin
and Hood as defendants would be futile: Brown’s grievance gives no indication that he
meant to accuse Machin and Hood of discrimination.
To argue that he did exhaust administrative remedies, Brown points to our
decision in Maddox v. Love, 655 F.3d 709 (7th Cir. 2011), in which we explained that a
procedural shortcoming in a grievance—like failing to name the defendants—does not
amount to a failure to exhaust if prison officials addressed the grievance on the merits
without rejecting it on procedural grounds. Id. at 721–22. Because Harvil allegedly
decided his grievance on the merits, Brown contends under Maddox that the district
court should have concluded that he exhausted administrative remedies, even if his
grievance did not specifically accuse the defendants of discrimination.
Maddox is inapposite, however, because Brown’s grievance in fact was never
addressed on the merits. Harvil attested that he rejected the grievance not on the merits
but because it complained about a non-grievable classification issue (Krueger’s
mishandling of Brown’s appeal of his reclassification). Harvil’s response to the
grievance corroborates that he was returning the grievance to Brown because it raised a
classification issue inappropriate for the grievance process.
Finally, Brown challenges the district court’s ruling that he lacked evidence that
the prison’s grievance process was unavailable to him. In Brown’s view, the grievance
process was unavailable because Harvil responded to Brown’s grievance by telling him
that a complaint of racial discrimination could not be grieved.

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No. 22-1963 Page 5
The district court correctly ruled that Brown did not show that the grievance
process was unavailable. Harvil did not say or even suggest that discrimination could
not be raised in a grievance. He said only that classification issues could not be grieved.
We have considered Brown’s remaining arguments, and none merits discussion.
AFFIRMED

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