Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA); Administrative exhaustion; 42 USC § 1997e(a); MDOC grievance process; Step I grievance; Mail rejection; First Amendment free speech; Fourteenth Amendment due process; Action under § 1983; Summary judgment; Fed R Civ P 56(a); Failure to exhaust as affirmative defense; Jones v Bock; Morgan v Trierweiler; Surles v Andison; Genuine issue of material fact; Anderson v Liberty Lobby, Inc; Prisoner affidavit; Lamb v Kendrick; Sham affidavit doctrine; France v Lucas; Pro se filings

[This appeal was from the WD-MI.] The court held that defendant-mailroom clerk (Payton) was not entitled to summary judgment on PLRA exhaustion because a genuine factual dispute existed over when plaintiff-prisoner (Tubbs) learned that his challenge to the mail rejection was unresolved. After MDOC rejected his Step I grievance as untimely, Tubbs sued under § 1983, alleging that Payton violated his First Amendment and due-process rights by withholding a book written by his sister. The district court granted summary judgment to Payton on failure to exhaust administrative remedies grounds. On appeal, the court held that the material fact was when Tubbs understood the final outcome of the administrative hearing process, because under MDOC policy he could file a Step I grievance only once the issue was unresolved. The court reasoned that Payton had the burden to prove nonexhaustion as an affirmative defense and “failed to carry her burden” because her evidence did not conclusively disprove Tubbs’s claim that he received the hearing report on May 9 and filed his grievance the same day. It also held that Tubbs’s sworn affidavit created a genuine dispute because it directly contradicted the inference that he received notice in April, and a prisoner’s affidavit may foreclose summary judgment “‘even if the record lacks corroborating evidence.’” The court rejected Payton’s sham-affidavit argument because Tubbs had not contradicted prior sworn testimony and had consistently claimed that he learned the final decision when he received the report. The court further concluded that the district court improperly faulted Tubbs for not pleading exhaustion because failure to exhaust “must be established by the defendants.” Reversed and remanded.