140
OCTOBER TERM, 1991
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the tenth circuit
No. 90-6861. Argued December 9, 1991—Decided March 4, 1992
While a federal prisoner, petitioner McCarthy filed a damages action under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388, alleging that respondent prison officials had violated his Eighth Amendment rights by their deliberate indifference to his needs and medical condition resulting from a back operation and a history of psychiatric problems. The District Court dismissed his complaint on the ground that he had failed to exhaust the Federal Bureau of Prisons' administrative remedy procedure, which, inter alia, includes rapid filing and response timetables to promote efficient dispute resolution but does not provide for any kind of hearing or for the granting of any particular type of relief. The court then denied McCarthy's motion for reconsideration, rejecting his argument that exhaustion was not required because he sought only money damages, which the Bureau could not provide. The Court of Appeals affirmed.
Held: Exhaustion of the Bureau of Prisons' administrative procedure is not required before a federal prisoner can initiate a Bivens action solely for money damages. Pp. 144-156. (a) Exhaustion serves the twin purposes of protecting administrative agency authority and promoting judicial efficiency. Where Congress specifically mandates, exhaustion is required. Otherwise, the federal courts must exercise sound judicial discretion, determining whether to require exhaustion by balancing the individual's interest in retaining prompt access to a federal judicial forum against countervailing institutional interests favoring exhaustion. Individual interests have weighed heavily where resort to the administrative remedy would occasion undue prejudice to subsequent assertion of a court action, where there is some doubt as to whether the agency is empowered to grant effective relief, or where the administrative body is shown to be biased or has otherwise predetermined the issue before it. Pp. 144-149. (b) Congress has not required exhaustion of a federal prisoner's Bivens claim. And, given the type of claim McCarthy raises and the particular characteristics of the Bureau's general grievance procedure, McCarthy's individual interests outweigh countervailing institutional interests favoring exhaustion. The procedure's short, successive filing deadlines and the absence of any monetary remedy heavily burden a
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