Judgment against correction officer for excessive force is vacated

This is a case that civil procedure mavens will love. The plaintiff is an inmate who sued various correction officers under the Constitution, claiming they subjected him to excessive force. The attorney general's office withdrew its representation of one of the defendants over his failure to cooperate with the litigation. The trial court entered judgment against that officer in the amount of $50,000. So what's the problem?

The case is Moore v. Booth, issued on November 27. First, the background, plaintiff claimed the defendants assaulted him while he was having a seizure, causing plaintiff to lose several teeth and suffer hearing loss in one ear, among other injuries. Defendant Booth did not show up for a deposition or otherwise participate in the litigation, and the AG's office withdrew its representation of this defendant. This led the trial court to strike Booth's answer, and plaintiff won a default judgment against Booth. 

Here is the problem: the trial court did address this case on the merits for the other defendants, finding that plaintiff has no case because he did not exhaust administrative remedies in pursuit of his constitutional claim. Under the Prisoners Litigation Reform Act, you have to file an internal grievance with the jail before you can bring a lawsuit, even if the case alleges excessive force. 

What it means is that if plaintiff does not have a case against the other officers, he could not have had a case against Booth, even if Booth did not participate in the litigation. In 1872, the Supreme Court said that a default judgment cannot create an "incongruity" with a judgment on the merits. Courts have interpreted that case, Frow v. De La Vega, to mean that you cannot have inconsistent judgments. The judgment against Booth is inconsistent with the judgment in favor of the other correction officers. Here is the reasoning:

Applying the Frow principle to this case, we conclude that the district court abused its discretion when it entered a default judgment against  Booth  that  was  inconsistent  with  its  prior  judgment dismissing  identical  claims  against  the  four  other  officers. Thompson’s claims against each of the five officer defendants were identical. Each claim arose from the same alleged incident in which all five officers allegedly participated. Each claim was subject to the same exhaustion requirement under the PLRA. See Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 532 (2002) (“[T]he PLRA’s exhaustion requirement applies to all inmate suits about prison life, whether they involve general circumstances or particular episodes, and whether they allege excessive force or some other wrong.”). And because the claims against each of the officers arose from the same incident, the remedies Thompson was required to exhaust were the same.