Civil Rights — PLRA

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Civil Rights — PLRA

It is not error for a district court to address the merits of a prisoner’s civil rights suit, despite determining that the prisoner failed to exhaust his administrative remedies.

“Accordingly, in the interests of judicial economy and finality, it made perfect sense for the district court to address the merits of the case here. See RWJ Mgmt. Co. v. BP Prods. N. Am., 672 F.3d 476, 481 (7th Cir. 2012) (‘Evaluating considerations of judicial efficiency and duplication of judicial effort is not just a matter of toting up months or motions or the page counts of judicial orders. Rather, concerns about judicial economy have their greatest force when significant federal judicial resources have already been expended to decide the … claims, or when there is no doubt about how those claims should be decided.’). Dismissing the case without prejudice on the PLRA ground alone would have put the Defendants in a holding pattern, left to wait on the Flukers’ next move without knowing if or when the suit might be reinstated— this, after almost two years of litigation and a comprehensive opportunity to address the merits of the case. That situation would not have done justice to any of the parties, especially considering that the Flukers have not (1) demonstrated that they possess additional information the district court did not consider that might support their claims, or (2) even challenged the propriety of the district court’s conclusion. They only argue that the district court’s decision was procedurally barred, not that the dismissal on the merits was substantively incorrect.”

Affirmed.

13-2247 Fluker v. County of Kankakee

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, McCuskey, J., Durkin, J.