Cite as: 532 U. S. 731 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
abuse he later alleged in his action. Id., at 10-14. He did not, however, go beyond the first step, and never sought intermediate or final administrative review after the prison authority denied relief.
Booth's failure to avail himself of the later stages of the administrative process led the District Court to dismiss the complaint without prejudice for failure to exhaust "administrative remedies . . . available" within the meaning of 42 U. S. C. § 1997e(a) (1994 ed., Supp. V). See App. to Pet. for Cert. 38a. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed, 206 F. 3d 289 (2000), rejecting Booth's argument that the statutory exhaustion requirement is inapposite to his case simply because the Commonwealth's administrative process could not award him the monetary relief he sought (money then being the only relief still requested, since Booth's transfer to another institution had mooted his claims for injunctive orders).2 Although the Third Circuit acknowledged that several other Courts of Appeals had held the exhaustion requirement subject to exception when the internal grievance procedure could not provide an inmate-plaintiff with the purely monetary relief requested in his federal action, see, e. g., Whitley v. Hunt, 158 F. 3d 882 (CA5 1998); Lunsford v. Jumao-As, 155 F. 3d 1178 (CA9 1998); Garrett v. Hawk, 127 F. 3d 1263 (CA10 1997), the court found no such exception in the statute, 206 F. 3d, at 299-300; accord, Freeman v. Francis, 196 F. 3d 641 (CA6 1999); Alexander v. Hawk, 159 F. 3d 1321 (CA11 1998). We granted certiorari to address this conflict among the Circuits, 531 U. S. 956 (2000), and we now affirm.
2 There is some uncertainty, probably stemming in part from the ambiguity of Booth's pro se filings in District Court, as to whether all of Booth's claims for relief other than money damages became moot when he was transferred. See Brief for Petitioner 12, n. 7; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 10, n. 2. We assume for present purposes that only Booth's claims for money damages remain.
735
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007