Buckley v. Finney et al

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
DEMETRIUS BUCKLEY,
Plaintiff,
v.
UNKNOWN FINNEY, et al.,
Defendants.
___________________________________/
Case No. 1:25-cv-470
Hon. Hala Y. Jarbou
ORDER
Plaintiff Demetrius Buckley is a state prisoner who brought this action against corrections
officers working for the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC). Among other things, he
contends that one of those officers, Defendant Sprague, retaliated against him for writing an article
in a prison publication by transferring Buckley to a cell with a volatile inmate and by refusing to
move Buckley out when he complained about that placement. Sprague filed a motion for summary
judgment, arguing that Buckley failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as to this claim. On
June 8, 2026, Magistrate Judge Sally J. Berens issued a Report and Recommendation (R&R) that
the Court grant the motion and dismiss Sprague. 	(R&R, ECF No. 57.) 	Before the Court are
Buckley’s objections to the R&R. 	(Objs., ECF No. 62.) 	For the reasons herein, the Court will
overrule the objections and adopt the R&R.
Under Rule 72 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,
The district judge must determine de novo any part of the magistrate judge’s
disposition that has been properly objected to. The district judge may accept, reject,
or modify the recommended disposition; receive further evidence; or return the
matter to the magistrate judge with instructions.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(3).
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As discussed in the R&R, none of the grievances filed and exhausted by Buckley made the
assertion that Sprague had retaliated against Buckley with regard to the cell placement. 	As a
general matter, “[t]he issues [Buckley] may raise . . . in his lawsuit are limited to the specific issues
raised . . . in his grievance.” Vandiver v. Martin, 48 F. App’x 517, 519 (6th Cir. 2002). The closest
grievance in evidence is “the 0671 Grievance addressing Plaintiff’s request to be moved out of the
cell with prisoner Perry,” which asserts that Sprague refused to move Buckley, saying he “found”
that cell for Buckley. 	(See R&R 5; 0671 Grievance, ECF No. 52-2, PageID.315.) 	But that
grievance does not contend that Sprague acted out of retaliatory animus. (See R&R 6.) And while
Buckley claimed in his Step II appeal that he “had been retaliated against by staff,” that assertion
did not cure his failure to raise the retaliation issue at Step I of the grievance process because
prisoners generally cannot raise new issues at Step II or Step III of the grievance process. 	See
Dykes v. Fuller, No. 19-2243, 2020 WL 6257023, at *3 (6th Cir. July 10, 2020) (“[A] prisoner
‘cannot raise a new issue in a grievance appeal and have it be deemed exhausted, unless the MDOC
proceeded to address that new claim on the merits.’” (quoting Newson v. Steele, No. 09-10346,
2010 WL 3123295, at *5 (E.D. Mich. July 1, 2010))). 	Here, the MDOC did not address any
retaliation claim on the merits.
In his objections, Buckley argues that his Step I grievance, when read liberally, sufficed to
give prison officials fair notice of his retaliation claim. The Court disagrees. The grievance does
indicate that Sprague personally selected the cell for Buckley, that Sprague may have done so
knowing that Perry was violent toward cellmates, and that Sprague refused to move Buckley out
of the cell. But nothing in the grievance suggests that Sprague acted out of a retaliatory motive.
Instead, it simply suggests that Sprague may have intentionally subjected Buckley to a risk of
harm. The motive for that behavior is not apparent. See Keel-Haywood v. Toogood, No. 1:24-cv-
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303, 2025 WL 1732835, at *2 (W.D. Mich. June 23, 2025) (failure to disclose retaliatory animus
did not provide fair notice of retaliation claim); Dykes v. Fuller, No. 18-CV-11528, 2019 WL
4744433, at *5 (E.D. Mich. Sept. 30, 2019) (“[E]ven when liberally construed, neither the Step I
False Misconduct Report Grievance nor the Step I Pay Grievance suggests that Defendants
committed the complained-of misconduct in retaliation for Dykes' prior grievances. 	Indeed,
neither of those Step I grievances mentions any earlier conduct by Dykes at all.”).
Buckley makes a similar argument about his Step II grievance appeal, which adds the word
“retaliation.” Buckley contended in his appeal that he requested to be moved out of the cell with
Perry but the officers “didn’t care for me or my bunky’s safety.” (Step II Appeal, ECF No. 52-2,
PageID.314.) After describing Sprague and two other officers’ refusals to move Buckley out of
the cell, Buckley asserted that he was “struck by my bunkie, gassed, and had been retaliated against
by staff.” (Step II Appeal, ECF No. 52-2, PageID.314.) But a lack of concern for Buckley’s safety
is altogether different from intentionally putting Buckley at risk as a way to retaliate for Buckley’s
protected conduct, which is the basis for his retaliation claim. Indeed, Buckley also contended in
his Step II appeal that “[t]he issue [he was] addressing in Step I is deliberate indifference,” which
is not the same as intentional retaliation. 	(Id.) 	Also, it is unclear from the Step II appeal form
what Buckley meant when he said he “had been retaliated against by staff.” He does not indicate
who retaliated against him, how they did so, or what protected conduct would have motivated that
retaliation. 	Thus, it would not have been apparent to a prison official reviewing the grievance
appeal that Buckley was complaining that Sprague had intentionally retaliated against him by
putting him in the cell with Perry or by refusing to remove him from that cell. In other words, no
reasonable jury could find that the 0671 grievance, even when considered together with the Step
II grievance appeal, exhausted Buckley’s retaliation claim.
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Buckley argues that a grievance appeal can supply additional details necessary to exhaust
a claim, citing Mattox v. Edelman, 851 F.3d 583 (6th Cir. 2017). There, the prisoner complained
in his Step I grievance that an unnamed medical provider had contributed to the denial of his
medication. He later clarified the identify of that individual in his Step II appeal. Id. at 597. The
Sixth Circuit concluded that a reasonable jury could find that “this information was sufficient
under the circumstances” to satisfy the MDOC’s rules about naming the individual being grieved.
Id. Buckley’s case is distinguishable. His appeal did not provide an additional fact that merely
clarified the identity of the individual being grieved. Nor did it clarify that Buckley was asserting
that Sprague had acted with retaliatory animus. Instead, his appeal purported to assert a deliberate
indifference claim, which is not the same claim he raises in this case. 	Although the appeal
mentioned retaliation, it did so only in passing and provided no clarity on the nature of that claim.
Thus, Buckley’s argument is unpersuasive.
For similar reasons, Buckley’s reliance on Doe v. Anderson, No. 15-13852, 2017 WL
4684614 (E.D. Mich. Oct. 18, 2017), is misplaced. That court concluded that a grievance about
the destruction of property by one officer sufficed to put other prison officers on notice of a
retaliation claim against them because the prison’s grievance response asserted that these other
officers were the ones who worked the shift when the incident occurred. 	Id. at *6. 	Buckley
apparently argues that the grievance discussed in Anderson provided sufficient notice of a
retaliation claim even though the grievance lacked any mention of retaliatory animus. 	But that
court did not discuss the contents of the grievance in any detail. 	It simply concluded that a
grievance against one official provided notice of a claim against others because the prison
identified those other officials in its response. Those circumstances are not present here.
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In the Anderson case, the court also concluded that retaliation could be “read into” a
grievance because the grievance “states that JD 8 was harassed because of people he associates
with and because of his sexual orientation.” 	Id. at *12. 	The court thought these facts were
sufficient to provide notice of the prisoner’s claim that prison officials had retaliated against him
for his participation in a class action lawsuit. Similarly, the court held that a different grievance
could be “read to allege retaliation” because it stated that the prison official “referenced [the
plaintiff’s] assault and him being gay as the reasons for his alleged actions.” Id. at *16. But unlike
those grievances, Buckley’s 0671 grievance and Step II grievance appeal provided no details
suggesting that Sprague’s actions stemmed from an improper, retaliatory motive. 	Thus, the
grievances in Anderson are distinguishable.
Buckley also relies on other grievances and grievance appeals he filed that mentioned
retaliation, arguing that these other documents provided sufficient notice of his retaliation claim
against Sprague when considered alongside the 0671 grievance and Step II appeal. One of these
documents, an appeal for a different grievance, has nothing to do with Sprague or the claim at
issue in the complaint; it asserts that “[r]eporting sexual misconducts on officials is scary because
of the retaliatory nature which has been ongoing.” 	(0670 Step II Appeal, ECF No. 52-2,
PageID.317.)
Another grievance and grievance appeal assert that Sprague searched Buckley’s cell and
scattered his legal papers in September 2023 in retaliation for Buckley’s grievances against
Sprague. 	(0674 Grievance, ECF No. 52-2, PageID.308; 0674 Step II Appeal, ECF No. 52-2,
PageID.306.) 	Those assertions would not have provided fair notice that Sprague had placed
Buckley in a cell with Perry in August 2023 in retaliation for Buckley’s prison article. Sprague’s
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asserted conduct and motive in September 2023 were different from the conduct and the motive in
August 2023 that are alleged in the complaint.
In the same vein, Buckley relies on his response to a misconduct investigation for a
misconduct ticket issued at the end of August 2023, in which Buckley asserted that an officer told
him that “none of the officers liked [him] because [he] reported on their actions against inmates
through articles.” 	(Misconduct Hearing Investigation Rep., ECF No. 54-1, PageID.341.) 	Even
when considered with Buckley’s grievances, however, that statement would not have provided
notice of a retaliation claim against Sprague regarding the cell placement. The statement does not
mention either Sprague or the cell placement. 	Moreover, the Court agrees with the magistrate
judge that Buckley’s argument for relying on the misconduct documents is legally unsupported;
he cites “no pertinent authority for this type of piecemeal approach to exhaustion comb[in]ing
grievance statements with misconduct reports.” (R&R 8.)
Buckley cites White v. Goodell, No. 2:17-CV-99, 2021 WL 1152891 (W.D. Mich. Mar.
26, 2021), but that case does not help his argument. In White, the court considered whether the
plaintiff had raised the issue of retaliation in a misconduct hearing. But that inquiry was necessary
at the time because prisoners who challenged a misconduct ticket, including a challenge
contending that the ticket was retaliatory, were required to exhaust their claim by raising the issue
at the misconduct hearing. 	See Siggers v. Campbell, 652 F.3d 681, 694 (6th Cir. 2011) (citing
MDOC Policy Directive 03.02.130); accord Rush v. Newcomb, No. 19-2013, 2020 WL 5270438,
at *2 (6th Cir. July 8, 2020); Smith v. Pallas, No. 18-1933, 2019 WL 7946345, at *3 (6th Cir. Nov.
7, 2019).1 	For other issues unrelated to misconduct proceedings, the grievance process was the
1 In September 2023, the MDOC updated its grievance policy to allow prisoners to use the grievance process to
challenge retaliatory misconduct tickets. See Kitchen v. Welicki, No. 25-cv-10547, 2026 WL 297211, at *2 (E.D.
Mich. Feb. 4, 2026).
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appropriate method of exhaustion. 	In other words, White did not hold that a court can mix and
match grievances and other communications to prison officials in order to determine whether a
prisoner has properly exhausted a claim. Instead, it held that a court could look at the misconduct
process to determine whether a prisoner had exhausted a claim related to the misconduct process,
where prison policy required exhaustion through the misconduct process. Buckley’s claim at issue
here does not involve the misconduct process, so White does not apply.
Finally, Buckley cites Kennedy v. Curtis, No. 19-13210, 2021 WL 5104577 (E.D. Mich.
Nov. 3, 2021), in which the court considered two grievances together to determine whether the
prisoner had exhausted a retaliation claim. In one grievance, the prisoner asserted that he had not
been placed in a desirable unit in retaliation for being found not guilty on a misconduct ticket
issued by the defendant. 	Id. at *2. 	In a different grievance, he asserted that the defendant had
falsified the misconduct ticket. Id. The court held that these two grievances were sufficient to put
the defendant on notice of the plaintiff’s claim that the defendant retaliated by issuing the
misconduct ticket. 	Id. 	Like the magistrate judge, this Court is not persuaded by the logic in
Kennedy, which cited no authority for its approach. 	Indeed, the two grievances in Kennedy
concerned different conduct occurring at different times by different officials. There is no reason
why a prison official reading those two grievances would assume that the retaliation occurring
after the misconduct ticket applied to the ticket itself. Likewise, there would be little reason for a
prison official reviewing Buckley’s various grievances to make the inference that Sprague had
acted with a retaliatory motive when placing Buckley in the cell with Perry or when refusing to
move him out of it.
Moreover, Buckley’s approach is inconsistent with the grievance process and would not
serve the purpose of the exhaustion requirement. 	The MDOC’s grievance process requires
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prisoners to first resolve “the issue with the staff member involved within two business days after
becoming aware of the grievable issue.” 	MDOC Policy Directive 03.02.130 ¶ Q (emphases
added). Within five business days thereafter, the prisoner may file a Step I grievance about that
particular issue with the “[d]ates, times, places, and names of all those involved in the issue being
grieved.” Id. ¶¶ R, S. If the prisoner is not satisfied with the resolution of that issue at Step I, the
prisoner can proceed to Steps II and III. This process focuses the prison’s attention on a single
issue so that it can potentially address the issue before it becomes the subject of litigation. See id.
¶ J(1) (providing that a grievance may be rejected if it contains “multiple unrelated issues”). Under
Buckley’s approach, however, prison officials would be expected to know about all the grievances
that have been filed, and to make generous inferences about possible connections between them,
when considering how to address any one issue. 	That approach is hard to reconcile with a
grievance process that is designed to focus on one issue at a time. 	Also, it would significantly
hinder the ability of the prison to discern and respond to relevant issues before they become the
basis for a lawsuit.
In short, the Court is not persuaded that there is any error in the recommended disposition
of Defendant’s motion. Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that the Report and Recommendation (ECF No. 57) is APPROVED
and ADOPTED as the opinion of the Court.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendant Sprague’s motion for summary judgment
(ECF No. 51) is GRANTED.
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IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendant Sprague is DISMISSED from the case
without prejudice due to Plaintiff’s failure to exhaust his administrative remedies.
Dated: July 29, 2026 	/s/ Hala Y. Jarbou
HALA Y. JARBOU
CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
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