Jones v. Bock

(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2006 1

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

JONES v. BOCK, WARDEN, ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

No. 05–7058. Argued October 30, 2006—Decided January 22, 2007*
The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA), in order to address
the large number of prisoner complaints filed in federal court, man
dates early judicial screening of prisoner complaints and requires
prisoners to exhaust prison grievance procedures before filing suit.
42 U. S. C. §1997e(a). Petitioners, inmates in Michigan prisons, filed
grievances using the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC)
grievance process. After unsuccessfully seeking redress through that
process, petitioner Jones filed a 42 U. S. C. §1983 suit against six
prison officials. The District Court dismissed on the merits as to four
of them and as to two others found that Jones had failed to ade
quately plead exhaustion in his complaint. Petitioner Williams also
filed a §1983 suit after his two MDOC grievances were denied. The
District Court found that he had not exhausted his administrative
remedies with regard to one of the grievances because he had not
identified any of the respondents named in the lawsuit during the
grievance process. While the court found Williams’s other claim
properly exhausted, it dismissed the entire suit under the Sixth Cir
cuit’s total exhaustion rule for PLRA cases. Petitioner Walton’s
§1983 lawsuit also was dismissed under the total exhaustion rule be
cause his MDOC grievance named only one of the six defendants in
his lawsuit. The Sixth Circuit affirmed in each case, relying on its
procedural rules that require a prisoner to allege and demonstrate
exhaustion in his complaint, permit suit only against defendants
identified in the prisoner’s grievance, and require courts to dismiss
——————
* Together with No. 05–7142, Williams v. Overton et al., and Walton
v. Bouchard et al. (see this Court’s Rule 12.4), also on certiorari to the
same court.
2 JONES v. BOCK

Syllabus

the entire action if the prisoner fails to satisfy the exhaustion re
quirement as to any single claim in his complaint.
Held: The Sixth Circuit’s rules are not required by the PLRA, and craft
ing and imposing such rules exceeds the proper limits of the judicial
role. Pp. 10–24.
(a) Failure to exhaust is an affirmative defense under the PLRA,
and inmates are not required to specially plead or demonstrate ex
haustion in their complaints. There is no question that exhaustion is
mandatory under the PLRA, Porter v. Nussle, 534 U. S. 516, 524, but
it is less clear whether the prisoner must plead and demonstrate ex
haustion in the complaint or the defendant must raise lack of exhaus
tion as an affirmative defense. Failure to exhaust is better viewed as
an affirmative defense. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a) requires
simply a “short and plain statement of the claim” in a complaint, and
PLRA claims are typically brought under 42 U. S. C. §1983, which
does not require exhaustion at all. The fact that the PLRA dealt ex
tensively with exhaustion, but is silent on the issue whether exhaus
tion must be pleaded or is an affirmative defense, is strong evidence
that the usual practice should be followed, and the practice under the
Federal Rules is to regard exhaustion as an affirmative defense, in
cluding in the similar statutory scheme governing habeas corpus,
Day v. McDonough, 547 U. S. ___, ___. Courts should generally not
depart from the Federal Rules’ usual practice based on perceived pol
icy concerns. See, e.g., Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics In
telligence and Coordination Unit, 507 U. S. 163 Those courts that re
quire prisoners to plead and demonstrate exhaustion contend that
prisoner complaints must be treated outside of the typical framework
if the PLRA’s screening requirement is to function effectively. But
the screening requirement does not—explicitly or implicitly—justify
deviating from the usual procedural practice beyond the departures
specified by the PLRA itself. Although exhaustion was a “center
piece” of the PLRA, Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U. S. ___, ___, failure to ex
haust was notably not added in terms to the enumerated grounds
justifying dismissal upon early screening. Section1997e(g)—which
allows defendants to waive their right to reply to a prisoner com
plaint without being deemed to have admitted the complaint’s allega
tions—shows that when Congress meant to depart from the usual
procedural requirements, it did so expressly. Given that the PLRA
does not itself require plaintiffs to plead exhaustion, such a result
“must be obtained by . . . amending the Federal Rules, and not by ju
dicial interpretation.” Leatherman, supra, at 168. Pp. 10–16.
(b) Exhaustion is not per se inadequate under the PLRA when an
individual later sued was not named in the grievance. Nothing in the
MDOC policy supports the conclusion that the grievance process was
 Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 3

Syllabus

improperly invoked because an individual later named as a defen
dant was not named at the first step of the process; at the time each
grievance was filed here, the MDOC policy did not specifically require
a prisoner to name anyone in the grievance. Nor does the PLRA im
pose such a requirement. The “applicable procedural rules” that a
prisoner must properly exhaust, Woodford, supra, at ___, are defined
not by the PLRA, but by the prison grievance process itself. As the
MDOC’s procedures make no mention of naming particular officials,
the Sixth Circuit’s rule imposing such a prerequisite to proper ex
haustion is unwarranted. The Circuit’s rule may promote early no
tice to those who might later be sued, but that has not been thought
to be one of the leading purposes of the exhaustion requirement. The
court below should determine in the first instance whether petition
ers’ grievances otherwise satisfied the exhaustion requirement.
Pp. 16–19.
(c) The PLRA does not require dismissal of the entire complaint
when a prisoner has failed to exhaust some, but not all, of the claims
included in the complaint. Respondents argue that had Congress in
tended courts to dismiss only unexhausted claims while retaining the
balance of the lawsuit, it would have used the word “claim” instead of
“action” in §1997e(a), which provides that “[n]o action shall be
brought” unless administrative procedures are exhausted. That boi
lerplate language is used in many instances in the Federal Code, and
statutory references to an “action” have not typically been read to
mean that every claim included in the action must meet the pertinent
requirement before the “action” may proceed. If a complaint contains
both good and bad claims, the court proceeds with the good and
leaves the bad. Respondents note that the total exhaustion require
ment in habeas corpus is an exception to this general rule, but a
court presented with a mixed habeas petition typically “allow[s] the
petitioner to delete the unexhausted claims and to proceed with the
exhausted claims,” Rhines v. Weber, 544 U. S. 269, 278, which is the
opposite of the rule the Sixth Circuit adopted, and precisely the rule
that respondents argue against. Although other PLRA sections dis
tinguish between actions and claims, respondents’ reading of
§1997e(a) creates its own inconsistencies, and their policy arguments
are also unpersuasive. Pp. 19–23.
No. 05–7058, 135 Fed. Appx. 837; No. 05–7142, 136 Fed. Appx. 846
(second judgment) and 859 (first judgment), reversed and remanded.

ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
 Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 1

Opinion of the Court

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash
ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order
that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________

Nos. 05–7058 and 05–7142
_________________

LORENZO L. JONES, PETITIONER
05–7058 v.
BARBARA BOCK, WARDEN, ET AL.

TIMOTHY WILLIAMS, PETITIONER
05–7142 v.
WILLIAM S. OVERTON ET AL.

JOHN H. WALTON v. BARBARA BOUCHARD ET AL.
ON WRITS OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
[January 22, 2007]

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the
Court.
In an effort to address the large number of prisoner
complaints filed in federal court, Congress enacted the
Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA), 110 Stat.
1321–71, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §1997e et seq. Among
other reforms, the PLRA mandates early judicial screen
ing of prisoner complaints and requires prisoners to ex
haust prison grievance procedures before filing suit. 28
U. S. C. §1915A; 42 U. S. C. §1997e(a). The Sixth Circuit,
along with some other lower courts, adopted several pro
cedural rules designed to implement this exhaustion
requirement and facilitate early judicial screening. These
rules require a prisoner to allege and demonstrate exhaus
2 JONES v. BOCK

Opinion of the Court

tion in his complaint, permit suit only against defendants
who were identified by the prisoner in his grievance, and
require courts to dismiss the entire action if the prisoner
fails to satisfy the exhaustion requirement as to any single
claim in his complaint. Other lower courts declined to
adopt such rules. We granted certiorari to resolve the
conflict and now conclude that these rules are not required
by the PLRA, and that crafting and imposing them ex
ceeds the proper limits on the judicial role.
I
Prisoner litigation continues to “account for an outsized
share of filings” in federal district courts. Woodford v.
Ngo, 548 U. S. ___, ___, n. 4 (2006) (slip op., at 12, n. 4). In
2005, nearly 10 percent of all civil cases filed in federal
courts nationwide were prisoner complaints challenging
prison conditions or claiming civil rights violations.1 Most
of these cases have no merit; many are frivolous. Our
legal system, however, remains committed to guarantee
ing that prisoner claims of illegal conduct by their custodi
ans are fairly handled according to law. The challenge lies
in ensuring that the flood of nonmeritorious claims does
not submerge and effectively preclude consideration of the
allegations with merit. See Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U. S.
319, 327 (1989).
Congress addressed that challenge in the PLRA. What
this country needs, Congress decided, is fewer and better
prisoner suits. See Porter v. Nussle, 534 U. S. 516, 524
(2002) (PLRA intended to “reduce the quantity and im
prove the quality of prisoner suits”). To that end, Con
——————
1 See Administrative Office of the United States Courts, Judicial

Facts and Figures, Tables 4.4, 4.6, http://www.uscourts.gov/
judicialfactsfigures/contents.html (as visited Jan. 17, 2007, and avail
able in Clerk of Court’s case file). That number excludes habeas corpus
petitions and motions to vacate a sentence. If these filing are included,
prisoner complaints constituted 24 percent of all civil filings in 2005.
 Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 3

Opinion of the Court

gress enacted a variety of reforms designed to filter out
the bad claims and facilitate consideration of the good.
Key among these was the requirement that inmates com
plaining about prison conditions exhaust prison grievance
remedies before initiating a lawsuit.
The exhaustion provision of the PLRA states:
“No action shall be brought with respect to prison con
ditions under [42 U. S. C. §1983], or any other Federal
law, by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other
correctional facility until such administrative reme
dies as are available are exhausted.” 42 U. S. C.
§1997e(a).
Requiring exhaustion allows prison officials an opportu
nity to resolve disputes concerning the exercise of their
responsibilities before being haled into court. This has the
potential to reduce the number of inmate suits, and also to
improve the quality of suits that are filed by producing a
useful administrative record. Woodford, supra, at ___ (slip
op., at 12). In an attempt to implement the exhaustion
requirement, some lower courts have imposed procedural
rules that have become the subject of varying levels of
disagreement among the federal courts of appeals.
The first question presented centers on a conflict over
whether exhaustion under the PLRA is a pleading re
quirement the prisoner must satisfy in his complaint or an
affirmative defense the defendant must plead and prove.2
——————
2 Compare Steele v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, 355 F. 3d 1204, 1210

(CA10 2003) (pleading requirement); Brown v. Toombs, 139 F. 3d 1102,
1104 (CA6 1998) (per curiam) (same); Rivera v. Allin, 144 F. 3d 719,
731 (CA11 1998) (same), with Anderson v. XYZ Correctional Health
Servs., Inc., 407 F. 3d 674, 681 (CA4 2005) (affirmative defense); Wyatt
v. Terhune, 315 F. 3d 1108, 1119 (CA9 2003) (same); Casanova v.
Dubois, 304 F. 3d 75, 77, n. 3 (CA1 2002) (same); Ray v. Kertes, 285 F.
3d 287, 295 (CA3 2002) (same); Foulk v. Charrier, 262 F. 3d 687, 697
(CA8 2001) (same); Massey v. Helman, 196 F. 3d 727, 735 (CA7 1999)
(same); Jenkins v. Haubert, 179 F. 3d 19, 28–29 (CA2 1999) (same). See
4 JONES v. BOCK

Opinion of the Court

The Sixth Circuit, adopting the former view, requires
prisoners to attach proof of exhaustion—typically copies of
the grievances—to their complaints to avoid dismissal. If
no written record of the grievance is available, the inmate
must plead with specificity how and when he exhausted
the grievance procedures. Knuckles El v. Toombs, 215
F. 3d 640, 642 (2000).
The next issue concerns how courts determine whether
a prisoner has properly exhausted administrative reme
dies—specifically, the level of detail required in a griev
ance to put the prison and individual officials on notice of
the claim. The Sixth Circuit requires that a prisoner have
identified, in the first step of the grievance process, each
individual later named in the lawsuit to properly exhaust
administrative remedies. Burton v. Jones, 321 F. 3d 569,
575 (2003). Other circuits have taken varying approaches
to this question, see, e.g., Butler v. Adams, 397 F. 3d 1181,
1183 (CA9 2005) (proper exhaustion requires use of the
administrative process provided by the State; if that proc
ess does not require identification of specific persons,
neither does the PLRA); Johnson v. Johnson, 385 F. 3d
503, 522 (CA5 2004) (“[T]he grievance must provide ad
ministrators with a fair opportunity under the circum
stances to address the problem that will later form the
basis of the suit”); Riccardo v. Rausch, 375 F. 3d 521, 524
(CA7 2004) (exhaustion satisfied if grievance “served its
function of alerting the state and inviting corrective ac
tion”), none going as far as the Sixth Circuit in requiring
in every case that the defendants have been named from
the beginning of the grievance process.
Finally, the circuits are divided over what the PLRA

——————
also Johnson v. Johnson, 385 F. 3d 503, 516, n. 7 (CA5 2004) (noting
the conflict but not deciding the question); Jackson v. District of Co
lumbia, 254 F. 3d 262, 267 (CADC 2001) (treating exhaustion as an
affirmative defense).
 Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 5

Opinion of the Court

requires when both exhausted and unexhausted claims
are included in a complaint.3 Some circuits, including the
Sixth Circuit, apply a “total exhaustion” rule, under which
no part of the suit may proceed if any single claim in the
action is not properly exhausted. See, e.g., Jones Bey v.
Johnson, 407 F. 3d 801, 805 (CA6 2005). Among circuits
requiring total exhaustion there is further disagreement
over what to do if the requirement is not met. Most courts
allow the prisoner to amend his complaint to include only
exhausted claims, e.g., Kozohorsky v. Harmon, 332 F. 3d
1141, 1144 (CA8 2003), but the Sixth Circuit denies leave
to amend, dismisses the action, and requires that it be
filed anew with only unexhausted claims, Baxter v. Rose,
305 F. 3d 486, 488 (2002); Jones Bey, supra, at 807. See
also McGore v. Wrigglesworth, 114 F. 3d 601, 612 (1997).
Other circuits reject total exhaustion altogether, instead
dismissing only unexhausted claims and considering the
rest on the merits. See, e.g., Ortiz v. McBride, 380 F. 3d
649, 663 (CA2 2004).
A
Petitioners are inmates in the custody of the Michigan
Department of Corrections (MDOC). At the time petition
ers filed their grievances, MDOC Policy Directive
03.02.130 (Nov. 1, 2000) set forth the applicable grievance
procedures. 1 App. 138–157.4 The policy directive de
——————
3 Compare Jones Bey v. Johnson, 407 F. 3d 801, 805 (CA6 2005) (re
quiring dismissal of the entire action if one unexhausted claim is
present); Ross v. County of Bernalillo, 365 F. 3d 1181, 1189 (CA10
2004) (same); Vazquez v. Ragonese, 142 Fed. Appx. 606, 607 (CA3 2005)
(per curiam) (same); Kozohorsky v. Harmon, 332 F. 3d 1141, 1144 (CA8
2003) (same), with Lira v. Herrera, 427 F. 3d 1164, 1175 (CA9 2005)
(allowing dismissal of only unexhausted claims); Ortiz v. McBride, 380
F. 3d 649, 663 (CA2 2004) (same); Lewis v. Washington, 300 F. 3d 829,
835 (CA7 2002) (same). See also Johnson, supra, at 523, n. 5 (suggest
ing that total exhaustion is an open question in the Fifth Circuit).
4 MDOC has since revised its policy. See Policy Directive 03.02.130
6 JONES v. BOCK

Opinion of the Court

scribes what issues are grievable and contains instructions
for filing and processing grievances.
Inmates must first attempt to resolve a problem orally
within two business days of becoming aware of the griev
able issue. Id., at 147. If oral resolution is unsuccessful,
the inmate may proceed to Step I of the grievance process,
and submit a completed grievance form within five busi
ness days of the attempted oral resolution. Id., at 147,
149–150. The Step I grievance form provided by MDOC (a
one-page form on which the inmate fills out identifying
information and is given space to describe the complaint)
advises inmates to be “brief and concise in describing your
grievance issue.” 2 id., at 1. The inmate submits the
grievance to a designated grievance coordinator, who
assigns it to a respondent—generally the supervisor of the
person being grieved. 1 id., at 150.
If the inmate is dissatisfied with the Step I response, he
may appeal to Step II by obtaining an appeal form within
five business days of the response, and submitting the
appeal within five business days of obtaining the form.
Id., at 152. The respondent at Step II is designated by the
policy, id., at 152–153 (e.g., the regional health adminis
trator for medical care grievances). If still dissatisfied
after Step II, the inmate may further appeal to Step III
using the same appeal form; the MDOC director is desig
nated as respondent for all Step III appeals. Id., at 154.
Lorenzo Jones
Petitioner Lorenzo Jones is incarcerated at the MDOC’s
Saginaw Correctional Facility. In November 2000, while
in MDOC’s custody, Jones was involved in a vehicle acci
dent and suffered significant injuries to his neck and back.
Several months later Jones was given a work assignment

——————

(effective Dec. 19, 2003), App. to Brief for Respondents 1b. The new

policy is not at issue in these cases.

 Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 7

Opinion of the Court

he allegedly could not perform in light of his injuries.
According to Jones, respondent Paul Morrison—in charge
of work assignments at the prison—made the inappropri
ate assignment, even though he knew of Jones’s injuries.
When Jones reported to the assignment, he informed the
staff member in charge—respondent Michael
Opanasenko—that he could not perform the work;
Opanasenko allegedly told him to do the work or “ ‘suffer
the consequences.’ ” Id., at 20. Jones performed the re
quired tasks and allegedly aggravated his injuries. After
unsuccessfully seeking redress through the MDOC’s
grievance process, Jones filed a complaint in the Eastern
District of Michigan under 42 U. S. C. §1983 for deliberate
indifference to medical needs, retaliation, and harassment.
Jones named as defendants, in addition to Morrison and
Opanasenko, respondents Barbara Bock (the warden),
Valerie Chaplin (a deputy warden), Janet Konkle (a regis
tered nurse), and Ahmad Aldabaugh (a physician).
A Magistrate recommended dismissal for failure to state
a claim with respect to Bock, Chaplin, Konkle, and Alda
baugh, and the District Court agreed. 1 App. 41. With
respect to Morrison and Opanasenko, however, the Magis
trate recommended that the suit proceed, finding that
Jones had exhausted his administrative remedies as to
those two. Id., at 18–29. The District Court disagreed. In
his complaint, Jones provided the dates on which his
claims were filed at various steps of the MDOC grievance
procedures. Id., at 41. He did not, however, attach copies
of the grievance forms or describe the proceedings with
specificity. Respondents attached copies of all of Jones’s
grievances to their own motion to dismiss, but the District
Judge ruled that Jones’s failure to meet his burden to
plead exhaustion in his complaint could not be cured by
respondents. Id., at 42. The Sixth Circuit agreed, holding
both that Jones failed to comply with the specific pleading
requirements applied to PLRA suits, 135 Fed. Appx. 837,
8 JONES v. BOCK

Opinion of the Court

839 (2005) (per curiam) (citing Knuckles El, 215 F. 3d, at
642), and that, even if Jones had shown that he exhausted
the claims against Morrison and Opanasenko, dismissal
was still required under the total exhaustion rule, 135
Fed. Appx., at 839 (citing Jones Bey, 407 F. 3d, at 806).
Timothy Williams
Petitioner Timothy Williams is incarcerated at the
MDOC’s Adrian Correctional Facility. He suffers from
noninvoluting cavernous hemangiomas in his right arm, a
medical condition that causes pain, immobility, and dis
figurement of the limb, and for which he has undergone
several surgeries. An MDOC physician recommended
further surgery to provide pain relief, but MDOC’s Correc
tional Medical Services denied the recommendation (and
subsequent appeals by the doctor) on the ground that the
danger of surgery outweighed the benefits, which it
viewed as cosmetic. The MDOC Medical Services Advi
sory Committee upheld this decision. After Correctional
Medical Services indicated that it would take the request
under advisement, Williams filed a grievance objecting to
the quality of his medical care and seeking authorization
for the surgery. He later filed another grievance com
plaining that he was denied a single-occupancy handi
capped cell, allegedly necessary to accommodate his medi
cal condition. After both grievances were denied at all
stages, Williams filed a complaint in the Eastern District
of Michigan under §1983, naming as respondents William
Overton (former director of MDOC), David Jamrog (the
warden), Mary Jo Pass and Paul Klee (assistant deputy
wardens), Chad Markwell (corrections officer), Bonnie
Peterson (health unit manager), and Dr. George Pram
staller (chief medical officer for MDOC).
The District Judge found that Williams had failed to
exhaust his administrative remedies with regard to his
medical care claim because he had not identified any of
 Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 9

Opinion of the Court

the respondents named in his lawsuit during the griev
ance process.5 Although Williams’s claim concerning the
handicapped cell had been properly exhausted, the Dis
trict Judge—applying the total exhaustion rule—
dismissed the entire suit. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. 136
Fed. Appx. 859, 861–863 (2005) (citing Burton, 321 F. 3d,
at 574, Curry v. Scott, 249 F. 3d 493, 504–505 (CA6 2001),
and Jones Bey, 407 F. 3d, at 805).
John Walton
Petitioner John Walton is incarcerated at the MDOC’s
Alger Maximum Correctional Facility. After assaulting a
guard, he was sanctioned with an indefinite “upper slot”
restriction.6 Several months later, upon learning that
other prisoners had been given upper slot restrictions of
only three months for the same infraction, he filed a griev
ance claiming that this disparity was the result of racial
discrimination (Walton is black, the two other prisoners he
identified in his grievances are white). After the grievance
was denied, Walton filed a complaint in the Western
District of Michigan under §1983, claiming race discrimi
nation. He named as respondents Barbara Bouchard
(former warden), Ken Gearin, David Bergh, and Ron Bobo
——————
5 Dr. Pramstaller was mentioned at Step III of the grievance process,

but was apparently never served with the complaint initiating the
lawsuit. The Magistrate stated that even if the claims against Pram
staller had been properly exhausted they nonetheless were subject to
dismissal under the total exhaustion rule. 1 App. 86, 101. It also
appears that under the Sixth Circuit’s rule requiring a defendant to be
named at Step I of the grievance process, the claims against Pram
staller, who was not mentioned until Step III, would not have been
exhausted. See supra, at 4; n. 7, infra. Because Pramstaller was never
served, he is not a respondent in this Court.
6 An upper slot restriction limits the inmate to receiving food and

paperwork via the lower slot of the cell door. Brief for Respondents 5–
6. Presumably, this is less desirable than access through the upper
slot; the record does not reveal how effective this particular sanction is
in discouraging assaults on staff.
10 JONES v. BOCK

Opinion of the Court

(assistant deputy wardens), Catherine Bauman (resident
unit manager), and Denise Gerth (assistant resident unit
supervisor).
The District Judge dismissed the lawsuit because
Walton had not named any respondent other than Bobo in
his grievance. His claims against the other respondents
were thus not properly exhausted, and the court dismissed
the entire action under the total exhaustion rule. The
Sixth Circuit affirmed, reiterating its requirement that a
prisoner must “file a grievance against the person he
ultimately seeks to sue,” Curry, supra, at 505, and that
this requirement can only be satisfied by naming each
defendant at Step I of the MDOC grievance process.
Because Walton had exhausted prison remedies only as to
respondent Bobo, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the District
Court’s dismissal of the entire action. 136 Fed. Appx. 846,
848–849 (2005).
B
Jones sought review in a petition for certiorari, arguing
that the Sixth Circuit’s heightened pleading requirement
and total exhaustion rule contravene the clear language of
the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the PLRA. Wil
liams and Walton filed a joint petition under this Court’s
Rule 12.4, contending that the rule requiring every defen
dant to be named during the grievance process is not
required by the PLRA, and also challenging the total
exhaustion rule. We granted both petitions for certiorari,
547 U. S. ___ (2006), and consolidated the cases for our
review.
II
There is no question that exhaustion is mandatory
under the PLRA and that unexhausted claims cannot be
brought in court. Porter, 534 U. S., at 524. What is less
clear is whether it falls to the prisoner to plead and dem
 Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 11

Opinion of the Court

onstrate exhaustion in the complaint, or to the defendant
to raise lack of exhaustion as an affirmative defense. The
minority rule, adopted by the Sixth Circuit, places the
burden of pleading exhaustion in a case covered by the
PLRA on the prisoner; most courts view failure to exhaust
as an affirmative defense. See n. 2, supra.
We think petitioners, and the majority of courts to
consider the question, have the better of the argument.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a) requires simply a
“short and plain statement of the claim” in a complaint,
while Rule 8(c) identifies a nonexhaustive list of affirma
tive defenses that must be pleaded in response. The PLRA
itself is not a source of a prisoner’s claim; claims covered
by the PLRA are typically brought under 42 U. S. C.
§1983, which does not require exhaustion at all, see Patsy
v. Board of Regents of Fla., 457 U. S. 496, 516 (1982).
Petitioners assert that courts typically regard exhaustion
as an affirmative defense in other contexts, see Brief for
Petitioners 34–36, and nn. 12–13 (citing cases), and re
spondents do not seriously dispute the general proposition.
We have referred to exhaustion in these terms, see, e.g.,
Wright v. Universal Maritime Service Corp., 525 U. S. 70,
75 (1998) (referring to “failure to exhaust” as an “affirma
tive defens[e]”), including in the similar statutory scheme
governing habeas corpus, Day v. McDonough, 547 U. S.
___, ___ (2006) (slip op., at 8) (referring to exhaustion as a
“defense”). The PLRA dealt extensively with the subject of
exhaustion, see 42 U. S. C. §§1997e(a), (c)(2), but is silent
on the issue whether exhaustion must be pleaded by the
plaintiff or is an affirmative defense. This is strong evi
dence that the usual practice should be followed, and the
usual practice under the Federal Rules is to regard ex
haustion as an affirmative defense.
In a series of recent cases, we have explained that courts
should generally not depart from the usual practice under
the Federal Rules on the basis of perceived policy con
12 JONES v. BOCK

Opinion of the Court

cerns. Thus, in Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics
Intelligence and Coordination Unit, 507 U. S. 163 (1993),
we unanimously reversed the court of appeals for imposing
a heightened pleading standard in §1983 suits against
municipalities. We explained that “[p]erhaps if [the] Rules
. . . were rewritten today, claims against municipalities
under §1983 might be subjected to the added specificity
requirement . . . . But that is a result which must be
obtained by the process of amending the Federal Rules,
and not by judicial interpretation.” Id., at 168.
In Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N. A., 534 U. S. 506 (2002),
we unanimously reversed the court of appeals for requir
ing employment discrimination plaintiffs to specifically
allege the elements of a prima facie case of discrimination.
We explained that “the Federal Rules do not contain a
heightened pleading standard for employment discrimina
tion suits,” and a “requirement of greater specificity for
particular claims” must be obtained by amending the
Federal Rules. Id., at 515 (citing Leatherman). And just
last Term, in Hill v. McDonough, 547 U. S. ___ (2006), we
unanimously rejected a proposal that §1983 suits challeng
ing a method of execution must identify an acceptable
alternative: “Specific pleading requirements are mandated
by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and not, as a
general rule, through case-by-case determinations of the
federal courts.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 8) (citing
Swierkiewicz).
The Sixth Circuit and other courts requiring prisoners
to plead and demonstrate exhaustion in their complaints
contend that if the “new regime” mandated by the PLRA
for prisoner complaints is to function effectively, prisoner
complaints must be treated outside of this typical frame
work. See Baxter, 305 F. 3d, at 489. These courts explain
that the PLRA not only imposed a new mandatory exhaus
tion requirement, but also departed in a fundamental way
from the usual procedural ground rules by requiring judi
 Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 13

Opinion of the Court

cial screening to filter out nonmeritorious claims: Courts
are to screen inmate complaints “before docketing, if
feasible, or . . . as soon as practicable after docketing,” and
dismiss the complaint if it is “frivolous, malicious, . . . fails
to state a claim upon which relief may be granted[,] or . . .
seeks monetary relief from a defendant who is immune
from such relief.” 28 U. S. C. §§1915A(a), (b). All this may
take place before any responsive pleading is filed—unlike
in the typical civil case, defendants do not have to respond
to a complaint covered by the PLRA until required to do so
by the court, and waiving the right to reply does not con
stitute an admission of the allegations in the complaint.
See 42 U. S. C. §1997e(g)(1), (2). According to respon
dents, these departures from the normal litigation frame
work of complaint and response mandate a different
pleading requirement for prisoner complaints, if the
screening is to serve its intended purpose. See, e.g., Bax
ter, supra, at 489 (“This court’s heightened pleading stan
dards for complaints covered by the PLRA are designed to
facilitate the Act’s screening requirements . . .”); Knuckles
El, 215 F. 3d, at 642. See also Brief for Respondents 17.
We think that the PLRA’s screening requirement does
not—explicitly or implicitly—justify deviating from the
usual procedural practice beyond the departures specified
by the PLRA itself. Before the PLRA, the in forma pau
peris provision of §1915, applicable to most prisoner litiga
tion, permitted sua sponte dismissal only if an action was
frivolous or malicious. 28 U. S. C. §1915(d) (1994 ed.); see
also Neitzke, 490 U. S., at 320 (concluding that a com
plaint that fails to state a claim was not frivolous under
§1915(d) and thus could not be dismissed sua sponte). In
the PLRA, Congress added failure to state a claim and
seeking monetary relief from a defendant immune from
such relief as grounds for sua sponte dismissal of in forma
pauperis cases, §1915(e)(2)(B) (2000 ed.), and provided for
judicial screening and sua sponte dismissal of prisoner
14 JONES v. BOCK

Opinion of the Court

suits on the same four grounds, §1915A(b); 42 U. S. C.
§1997e(c)(1). Although exhaustion was a “centerpiece” of
the PLRA, Woodford, 548 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 1–2),
failure to exhaust was notably not added in terms to this
enumeration. There is thus no reason to suppose that the
normal pleading rules have to be altered to facilitate
judicial screening of complaints specifically for failure to
exhaust.
Some courts have found that exhaustion is subsumed
under the PLRA’s enumerated ground authorizing early
dismissal for “fail[ure] to state a claim upon which relief
may be granted.” 28 U. S. C. §§1915A(b)(1), 1915(e)(2)(B);
42 U. S. C. §1997e(c)(1). See Baxter, supra, at 489; Steele
v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, 355 F. 3d 1204, 1210 (CA10
2003); Rivera v. Allin, 144 F. 3d 719, 731 (CA11 1998).
The point is a bit of a red herring. A complaint is subject
to dismissal for failure to state a claim if the allegations,
taken as true, show the plaintiff is not entitled to relief. If
the allegations, for example, show that relief is barred by
the applicable statute of limitations, the complaint is
subject to dismissal for failure to state a claim; that does
not make the statute of limitations any less an affirmative
defense, see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 8(c). Whether a particu
lar ground for opposing a claim may be the basis for dis
missal for failure to state a claim depends on whether the
allegations in the complaint suffice to establish that
ground, not on the nature of the ground in the abstract.
See Leveto v. Lapina, 258 F. 3d 156, 161 (CA3 2001) (“[A]
complaint may be subject to dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6)
when an affirmative defense . . . appears on its face” (in
ternal quotation marks omitted)). See also Lopez-
Gonzalez v. Municipality of Comerio, 404 F. 3d 548, 551
(CA1 2005) (dismissing a complaint barred by the statute
of limitations under Rule 12(b)(6)); Pani v. Empire Blue
Cross Blue Shield, 152 F. 3d 67, 74–75 (CA2 1998) (dis
missing a complaint barred by official immunity under
 Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 15

Opinion of the Court

Rule 12(b)(6)). See also 5B C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal
Practice and Procedure §1357, pp. 708–710, 721–729 (3d
ed. 2004). Determining that Congress meant to include
failure to exhaust under the rubric of “failure to state a
claim” in the screening provisions of the PLRA would thus
not support treating exhaustion as a pleading requirement
rather than an affirmative defense.
The argument that screening would be more effective if
exhaustion had to be shown in the complaint proves too
much; the same could be said with respect to any affirma
tive defense. The rejoinder that the PLRA focused on
exhaustion rather than other defenses simply highlights
the failure of Congress to include exhaustion in terms
among the enumerated grounds justifying dismissal upon
early screening. As noted, that is not to say that failure to
exhaust cannot be a basis for dismissal for failure to state
a claim. It is to say that there is no basis for concluding
that Congress implicitly meant to transform exhaustion
from an affirmative defense to a pleading requirement by
the curiously indirect route of specifying that courts
should screen PLRA complaints and dismiss those that
fail to state a claim.
Respondents point to 42 U. S. C. §1997e(g) as confirm
ing that the usual pleading rules should not apply to
PLRA suits, but we think that provision supports petition
ers. It specifies that defendants can waive their right to
reply to a prisoner complaint without the usual conse
quence of being deemed to have admitted the allegations
in the complaint. See §1997e(g)(1) (allowing defendants to
waive their response without admitting the allegations
“[n]otwithstanding any other law or rule of procedure”).
This shows that when Congress meant to depart from the
usual procedural requirements, it did so expressly.
We conclude that failure to exhaust is an affirmative
defense under the PLRA, and that inmates are not re
quired to specially plead or demonstrate exhaustion in
16 JONES v. BOCK

Opinion of the Court

their complaints. We understand the reasons behind the
decisions of some lower courts to impose a pleading re
quirement on plaintiffs in this context, but that effort
cannot fairly be viewed as an interpretation of the PLRA.
“Whatever temptations the statesmanship of policy-
making might wisely suggest,” the judge’s job is to con
strue the statute—not to make it better. Frankfurter,
Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47 Colum.
L. Rev. 527, 533 (1947). The judge “must not read in by
way of creation,” but instead abide by the “duty of re
straint, th[e] humility of function as merely the translator
of another’s command.” Id., at 533–534. See United
States v. Goldenberg, 168 U. S. 95, 103 (1897) (“No mere
omission . . . which it may seem wise to have specifically
provided for, justif[ies] any judicial addition to the lan
guage of the statute”). Given that the PLRA does not
itself require plaintiffs to plead exhaustion, such a result
“must be obtained by the process of amending the Federal
Rules, and not by judicial interpretation.” Leatherman,
507 U. S., at 168.
III
The Sixth Circuit threw out the Williams and Walton
suits because those prisoners had not identified in their
initial grievances each defendant they later sued. 136
Fed. Appx., at 862–863; id., at 848–849. See Burton, 321
F. 3d, at 575.7 Here again the lower court’s procedural
——————
7 This “name all defendants” rule apparently applies even when a

prisoner does not learn the identity of the responsible party until a
later step of the grievance process. Upon learning the identity of the
responsible party, the prisoner is required to bring an entirely new
grievance to properly exhaust. 136 Fed. Appx. 846, 849 (CA6 2005) (“At
that point [after he learned, in response to a Step I grievance, that
Gearin was responsible for the upper slot restriction], Walton was
armed with all of the information that he needed to file a Step I griev
ance against . . . Gearin—and a federal complaint against Gearin once
the claim had been exhausted—but he simply chose not to follow this
 Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 17

Opinion of the Court

rule lacks a textual basis in the PLRA. The PLRA re
quires exhaustion of “such administrative remedies as are
available,” 42 U. S. C. §1997e(a), but nothing in the stat
ute imposes a “name all defendants” requirement along
the lines of the Sixth Circuit’s judicially created rule.
Respondents argue that without such a rule the exhaus
tion requirement would become a “ ‘useless appendage,’ ”
Brief for Respondents 44 (quoting Woodford, 548 U. S., at
___ (slip op., at 11)), but the assertion is hyperbole, and
the citation of Woodford misplaced.
Woodford held that “proper exhaustion” was required
under the PLRA, and that this requirement was not satis
fied when grievances were dismissed because prisoners
had missed deadlines set by the grievance policy. Id., at
___ (slip op., at 11–13). At the time each of the grievances
at issue here was filed, in contrast, the MDOC policy did
not contain any provision specifying who must be named
in a grievance. MDOC’s policy required only that prison
ers “be as specific as possible” in their grievances, 1 App.
148, while at the same time the required forms advised
them to “[b]e brief and concise.” 2 id., at 1. The MDOC
grievance form does not require a prisoner to identify a
particular responsible party, and the respondent is not
necessarily the allegedly culpable prison official, but
rather an administrative official designated in the policy
to respond to particular types of grievances at different
levels. Supra, at 6. The grievance policy specifically
provides that the grievant at Step I “shall have the oppor
tunity to explain the grievance more completely at [an]
interview, enabling the Step I respondent to gather any
additional information needed to respond to the griev
ance.” 1 App. 151. Nothing in the MDOC policy itself
supports the conclusion that the grievance process was
——————

route”). At oral argument, Michigan admitted that it did not agree

with at least this application of the rule. Tr. of Oral Arg. 44–45.

18 JONES v. BOCK

Opinion of the Court

improperly invoked simply because an individual later
named as a defendant was not named at the first step of
the grievance process.
Nor does the PLRA impose such a requirement. In
Woodford, we held that to properly exhaust administrative
remedies prisoners must “complete the administrative
review process in accordance with the applicable proce
dural rules,” 548 U. S., at __ (slip op., at 5)—rules that are
defined not by the PLRA, but by the prison grievance
process itself. Compliance with prison grievance proce
dures, therefore, is all that is required by the PLRA to
“properly exhaust.” The level of detail necessary in a
grievance to comply with the grievance procedures will
vary from system to system and claim to claim, but it is
the prison’s requirements, and not the PLRA, that define
the boundaries of proper exhaustion. As the MDOC’s
procedures make no mention of naming particular offi
cials, the Sixth Circuit’s rule imposing such a prerequisite
to proper exhaustion is unwarranted.
We have identified the benefits of exhaustion to include
allowing a prison to address complaints about the program
it administers before being subjected to suit, reducing
litigation to the extent complaints are satisfactorily re
solved, and improving litigation that does occur by leading
to the preparation of a useful record. See id., at ___ (slip
op., at 6–8); Porter, 534 U. S., at 524–525. The Sixth
Circuit rule may promote early notice to those who might
later be sued, but that has not been thought to be one of
the leading purposes of the exhaustion requirement. See
Johnson, 385 F. 3d, at 522 (“We are mindful that the
primary purpose of a grievance is to alert prison officials
to a problem, not to provide personal notice to a particular
official that he may be sued; the grievance is not a sum
mons and complaint that initiates adversarial litigation”);
see also Brief for American Civil Liberties Union et al. as
Amici Curiae 8–9, and n. 6 (collecting grievance proce
 Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 19

Opinion of the Court

dures and noting that the majority do not require prison
ers to identify specific individuals).
We do not determine whether the grievances filed by
petitioners satisfied the requirement of “proper exhaus
tion,” Woodford, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 11), but simply
conclude that exhaustion is not per se inadequate simply
because an individual later sued was not named in the
grievances. We leave it to the court below in the first
instance to determine the sufficiency of the exhaustion in
these cases.
IV
The final issue concerns how courts should address
complaints in which the prisoner has failed to exhaust
some, but not all, of the claims asserted in the complaint.8
All agree that no unexhausted claim may be considered.
The issue is whether the court should proceed with the
exhausted claims, or instead—as the Sixth Circuit has
held—dismiss the entire action if any one claim is not
properly exhausted. See Jones Bey, 407 F. 3d, at 807.9
Here the Sixth Circuit can point to language in the
PLRA in support of its rule. Section 1997e(a) provides
that “[n]o action shall be brought” unless administrative
——————
8 Although we reverse the Sixth Circuit’s rulings on the substantive

exhaustion requirements as to all three petitioners, the question
whether a total exhaustion rule is contemplated by the PLRA is not
moot. In Jones’s case, the Sixth Circuit ruled in the alternative that
total exhaustion required dismissal. 135 Fed. Appx. 837, 839 (CA6
2005) (per curiam) (“[E]ven if Jones had shown he had exhausted some
of his claims, the district court properly dismissed the complaint
because Jones did not show that he had exhausted all of his claims”).
9 After we granted certiorari, the Sixth Circuit suggested that the

adoption of a total exhaustion rule in that Circuit in Jones Bey ran
contrary to previous panel decisions and was therefore not controlling.
Spencer v. Bouchard, 449 F. 3d 721, 726 (2006). See also Rule 206(c)
(CA6 2006). As total exhaustion was applied in the cases under review,
and the Sixth Circuit is not the only court to apply this rule, we do not
concern ourselves with this possible intracircuit split.
20 JONES v. BOCK

Opinion of the Court

procedures are exhausted. Respondents argue that if
Congress intended courts to dismiss only unexhausted
claims while retaining the balance of the lawsuit, the word
“claim” rather than “action” would have been used in this
provision.
This statutory phrasing—“no action shall be brought”—
is boilerplate language. There are many instances in the
Federal Code where similar language is used, but such
language has not been thought to lead to the dismissal of
an entire action if a single claim fails to meet the perti
nent standards. Statutes of limitations, for example, are
often introduced by a variant of the phrase “no action shall
be brought,” see, e.g., Beach v. Ocwen Fed. Bank, 523 U. S.
410, 416 (1998); 18 U. S. C. §1030(g) (2000 ed., Supp. IV),
but we have never heard of an entire complaint being
thrown out simply because one of several discrete claims
was barred by the statute of limitations, and it is hard to
imagine what purpose such a rule would serve. The same
is true with respect to other uses of the “no action shall be
brought” phrasing. See, e.g., Hawksbill Sea Turtle v.
Federal Emergency Management Agency, 126 F. 3d 461,
471 (CA3 1997) (dismissing only claims that fail to comply
with the citizen suit notification requirement of 16 U. S. C.
§1540(g)(2), which states that “[n]o action may be com
menced” until an agency has declined to act after being
given written notice).
More generally, statutory references to an “action” have
not typically been read to mean that every claim included
in the action must meet the pertinent requirement before
the “action” may proceed. See, e.g., Exxon Mobil Corp. v.
Allapattah Services, Inc., 545 U. S. 546, 560–563 (2005)
(District Court had jurisdiction over a “civil action” under
28 U. S. C. §1367(a), even if it might not have jurisdiction
over each separate claim comprising the action); Chicago
v. International College of Surgeons, 522 U. S. 156, 166
(1997) (District Court had jurisdiction over removed “civil
 Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 21

Opinion of the Court

action” even if every claim did not satisfy jurisdictional
prerequisites).
As a general matter, if a complaint contains both good
and bad claims, the court proceeds with the good and
leaves the bad. “[O]nly the bad claims are dismissed; the
complaint as a whole is not. If Congress meant to depart
from this norm, we would expect some indication of that,
and we find none.” Robinson v. Page, 170 F. 3d 747, 748–
749 (CA7 1999) (considering §1997e(e)).
Respondents note an exception to this general rule, the
total exhaustion rule in habeas corpus. In Rose v. Lundy,
455 U. S. 509, 522 (1982), we held that “mixed” habeas
petitions—containing both exhausted and unexhausted
claims—cannot be adjudicated. This total exhaustion rule
applied in habeas was initially derived from considera
tions of “comity and federalism,” not any statutory com
mand. Rhines v. Weber, 544 U. S. 269, 273 (2005); id., at
274 (noting that Congress “preserved Lundy’s total ex
haustion requirement” in 28 U. S. C. §2254(b)(1)(A)).
Separate claims in a single habeas petition generally seek
the same relief from custody, and success on one is often
as good as success on another. In such a case it makes
sense to require exhaustion of all claims in state court
before allowing the federal action to proceed. A typical
PLRA suit with multiple claims, on the other hand, may
combine a wide variety of discrete complaints, about in
teractions with guards, prison conditions, generally appli
cable rules, and so on, seeking different relief on each
claim. There is no reason failure to exhaust on one neces
sarily affects any other. In any event, even if the habeas
total exhaustion rule is pertinent, it does not in fact depart
from the usual practice—as we recently held, a court
presented with a mixed habeas petition “should allow the
petitioner to delete the unexhausted claims and to proceed
with the exhausted claims . . . .” Rhines, supra, at 278.
This is the opposite of the rule the Sixth Circuit adopted,
22 JONES v. BOCK

Opinion of the Court

and precisely the rule that respondents argue against.
Respondents’ reading of 42 U. S. C. §1997e(a) to contain
a total exhaustion rule is bolstered by the fact that other
sections of the PLRA distinguish between actions and
claims. Section 1997e(c)(1), for example, provides that a
court shall dismiss an action for one of four enumerated
deficiencies, while §1997e(c)(2) allows a court to dismiss a
claim for one of these reasons without first determining
whether the claim is exhausted. Similarly, 28 U. S. C.
§1915A(b) directs district courts to dismiss “the complaint,
or any portion of the complaint” before docketing under
certain circumstances. This demonstrates that Congress
knew how to differentiate between the entire action and
particular claims when it wanted to, and suggests that its
use of “action” rather than “claim” in 42 U. S. C. §1997e(a)
should be given effect.
But the interpretation respondents advocate creates its
own inconsistencies. Section 1997e(e) contains similar
language, “[n]o . . . action may be brought . . . for mental or
emotional injury suffered while in custody without a prior
showing of physical injury,” yet respondents cite no case
interpreting this provision to require dismissal of the
entire lawsuit if only one claim does not comply, and again
we see little reason for such an approach. Accord, Cassidy
v. Indiana Dept. of Corrections, 199 F. 3d 374, 376–377
(CA7 2000) (dismissing only the portions of the complaint
barred by §1997e(e)); see also Williams v. Ollis, 230 F. 3d
1361 (CA6 2000) (unpublished table decision) (same).
Interpreting the phrase “no action shall be brought” to
require dismissal of the entire case under §1997e(a) but
not §1997e(e) would contravene our normal rules of statu
tory construction. National Credit Union Admin. v. First
Nat. Bank & Trust Co., 522 U. S. 479, 501–502 (1998).
In pressing the total exhaustion argument, respondents
also marshal the policy and purpose underlying the
PLRA—this time in a supporting rather than lead role.
 Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 23

Opinion of the Court

The invigorated exhaustion requirement is a “centerpiece”
of the statute, Woodford, 548 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 1–2),
and if the exhaustion requirement of §1997e(a) is not
effectuated by a total exhaustion rule, they argue, inmates
will have little incentive to ensure that they have ex
hausted all available administrative remedies before
proceeding to court. The PLRA mandated early judicial
screening to reduce the burden of prisoner litigation on the
courts; a total exhaustion rule allows courts promptly to
dismiss an action upon identifying an unexhausted claim.
The alternative approach turns judges into editors of
prisoner complaints, rather than creating an incentive for
prisoners to exhaust properly. See Ross v. County of
Bernalillo, 365 F. 3d 1181, 1190 (CA10 2004).
We are not persuaded by these policy arguments. In
fact, the effect of a total exhaustion rule could be that
inmates will file various claims in separate suits, to avoid
the possibility of an unexhausted claim tainting the oth
ers. That would certainly not comport with the purpose of
the PLRA to reduce the quantity of inmate suits. Addi
tionally, district judges who delve into a prisoner com
plaint only to realize it contains an unexhausted claim,
requiring dismissal of the entire complaint under the total
exhaustion rule, will often have to begin the process all
over again when the prisoner refiles. In light of typically
short prison grievance time limits, prisoners’ refiled com
plaints will often be identical to what the district court
would have considered had it simply dismissed unex
hausted claims as it encountered them and proceeded with
the exhausted ones. Perhaps filing fees and concerns
about the applicability of the “three strikes” rule, 28
U. S. C. §1915(g), would mitigate these effects, but the
debate about consequences is close enough that there is no
clear reason to depart from the more typical claim-by
claim approach.
24 JONES v. BOCK

Opinion of the Court

* * *
We are not insensitive to the challenges faced by the
lower federal courts in managing their dockets and at
tempting to separate, when it comes to prisoner suits, not
so much wheat from chaff as needles from haystacks. We
once again reiterate, however—as we did unanimously in
Leatherman, Swierkiewicz, and Hill—that adopting differ
ent and more onerous pleading rules to deal with particu
lar categories of cases should be done through established
rulemaking procedures, and not on a case-by-case basis by
the courts.
The judgments of the United States Court of Appeals for
the Sixth Circuit are reversed, and the cases are re
manded for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
It is so ordered.