Gonzalez v. Bendt, No. 18-2360 (8th Cir. 2020)
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In 2016, plaintiff filed a pro se damages action asserting equal protection and First Amendment claims arising out of his grievances stemming from his transfer to FPC Yankton where he was denied permission to possess an aviation manual he had been allowed to have at his prior correction facility. The district court dismissed all but one claim asserting that plaintiff's First Amendment rights were violated when an FPC Yankton Correctional Counselor retaliated against him for filing grievances by denying him prison grievance forms. The district court interpreted the action as one brought against the counselor under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), and granted summary judgment, concluding that a Bivens remedy should not be implied for retaliatory denials of administrative remedies.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed, holding that plaintiff failed to prove an essential element of a First Amendment retaliation claim -- that denial of a few grievance forms would chill an inmate of ordinary firmness from filing future grievances. In this case, the record establishes that the BOP's flexible four-step process allowed plaintiff to have his initial grievance decided on the merits and then to submit a second grievance that initially bypassed the informal resolution step, which was also decided on the merits. Furthermore, there is no evidence that other inmates would not be granted comparable procedural access to BOP administrative grievance remedies.
Court Description: [Loken, Author, with Benton and Kelly, Circuit Judges] Prisoner case - Prisoner civil rights. In action alleging a federal prison official violated plaintiff's First Amendment rights by retaliating against him for filing grievances by denying him access to prison grievance forms, the district court did not err in granting the official's motion for summary judgment because plaintiff failed to prove an essential element of a First Amendment retaliation claim - that denial of a few grievance forms would chill an inmate of ordinary firmness from filing future grievances; the record establishes that BOP's flexible four-step process allowed plaintiff to have his initial grievance decided on the merits and then to submit a second grievance that initially bypassed the informal resolution stage, which was also decided on the merits; there is no evidence that other inmates would not be granted comparable procedural access to BOP administrative grievance remedies.
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