BOOTH v. CHURNER et al.

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731 OCTOBER TERM, 2000
Syllabus
BOOTH v. CHURNER et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the third circuit
No. 99–1964. Argued March 20, 2001—Decided May 29, 2001
The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 amended 42 U. S. C. § 1997e(a),
which now requires a prisoner to exhaust “such administrative remedies
as are available” before suing over prison conditions. Petitioner Booth
was a Pennsylvania state prison inmate when he began this 42 U. S. C.
§ 1983 action in Federal District Court, claiming that respondent cor-
rections officers violated his Eighth Amendment right to be free from
cruel and unusual punishment by assaulting him, using excessive force
against him, and denying him medical attention to treat ensuing inju-
ries. He sought various forms of injunctive relief and money damages.
At the time, Pennsylvania provided an administrative grievance and ap-
peals system, which addressed Booth’s complaints but had no provi-
sion for recovery of money damages. Before resorting to federal court,
Booth filed an administrative grievance, but did not seek administrative
review after the prison authority denied relief. Booth’s failure to ap-
peal administratively led the District Court to dismiss the complaint
without prejudice for failure to exhaust administrative remedies under
§ 1997e(a). The Third Circuit affirmed, rejecting Booth’s argument that
the exhaustion requirement is inapposite to his case because the admin-
istrative process could not award him the monetary relief he sought
(money then being the only relief still requested).
Held: Under 42 U. S. C. § 1997e(a), an inmate seeking only money dam-
ages must complete any prison administrative process capable of ad-
dressing the inmate’s complaint and providing some form of relief,
even if the process does not make specific provision for monetary relief.
The meaning of the phrase “administrative remedies . . . available” is
the crux of the case. Neither the practical considerations urged by the
parties nor their reliance on the dictionary meanings of the words “rem-
edies” and “available” are conclusive in seeking congressional intent.
Clearer clues are found in two considerations. First, the broader statu-
tory context in which Congress referred to “available” “remedies” in-
dicates that exhaustion is required regardless of the relief offered
through administrative procedures. While the modifier “available” re-
quires the possibility of some relief for the action complained of, the
word “exhausted” has a decidedly procedural emphasis. It makes no
sense, for instance, to demand that someone exhaust “such adminis-

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732 BOOTH v. CHURNER
Syllabus
trative [redress]” as is available; one “exhausts” processes, not forms
of relief, and the statute provides that one must. Second, statutory
history confirms the suggestion that Congress meant to require proce-
dural exhaustion regardless of the fit between a prisoner’s prayer for
relief and the administrative remedies possible. Before § 1997e(a) was
amended by the 1995 Act, a court had discretion (though no obligation)
to require a state inmate to exhaust “such . . . remedies as are available,”
but only if they were “plain, speedy, and effective.” That scheme is
now a thing of the past, for the amendments eliminated both the dis-
cretion to dispense with administrative exhaustion and the condition
that the remedy be “plain, speedy, and effective” before exhaustion
could be required. The significance of deleting that condition is ap-
parent in light of McCarthy v. Madigan, 503 U. S. 140. In holding
that the preamended version of § 1997e(a) did not require exhaustion
by those seeking only money damages when money was unavailable at
the administrative level, id., at 149–151, the McCarthy Court reasoned
in part that only a procedure able to provide money damages would
be “effective” within the statute’s meaning, id., at 150. It has to be
significant that Congress removed the very term, “effective,” the Mc-
Carthy Court had previously emphasized in reaching the result Booth
now seeks, and the fair inference to be drawn is that Congress meant
to preclude the McCarthy result. Congress’s imposition of an obviously
broader exhaustion requirement makes it highly implausible that it
meant to give prisoners a strong inducement to skip the administrative
process simply by limiting prayers for relief to money damages not
offered through administrative grievance mechanisms. Pp. 736–741.
206 F. 3d 289, affirmed.
Souter, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Nancy Winkelman argued the cause for petitioner. With
her on the briefs were Joseph T. Lukens and Ralph N.
Sianni.
Gerald J. Pappert, First Deputy Attorney General of
Pennsylvania, argued the cause for respondents. With him
on the brief were D. Michael Fisher, Attorney General, John
G. Knorr III, Chief Deputy Attorney General, and Gwendo-
lyn T. Mosley and Calvin R. Koons, Senior Deputy Attor-
neys General.
Irving L. Gornstein argued the cause for the United
States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. With him on

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733 Cite as: 532 U. S. 731 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
the brief were Acting Solicitor General Underwood, former
Solicitor General Waxman, former Assistant Attorney Gen-
eral Ogden, Barbara L. Herwig, and Peter R. Maier.*
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 amended 42
U. S. C. § 1997e(a), which now requires a prisoner to exhaust
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American
Civil Liberties Union et al. by David C. Fathi, Elizabeth Alexander, Mar-
garet Winter, Daniel L. Greenberg, John Boston, and Alphonse A. Ger-
hardstein; for the Association of the Bar of the City of New York by
Michael B. Mushlin and William J. Rold; and for the Brennan Center for
Justice et al. by Robert J. Lukens, Richard P. Weishaupt, and Jonathan
M. Stein.
A brief of amici curiae urging affirmance was filed for the State of
Ohio et al. by Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General of Ohio, Stephen
P. Carney, Associate Solicitor, and Todd R. Marti, Assistant Attorney
General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions
as follows: Bill Pryor of Alabama, Bruce M. Botelho of Alaska, Janet Na-
politano of Arizona, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Bill Lockyer of California,
Ken Salazar of Colorado, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, M. Jane
Brady of Delaware, Robert R. Rigsby of the District of Columbia, Robert
A. Butterworth of Florida, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, John F. Taran-
tino of Guam, Earl I. Anzai of Hawaii, Alan Lance of Idaho, James E.
Ryan of Illinois, Karen Freeman-Wilson of Indiana, Thomas J. Miller of
Iowa, Carla J. Stovall of Kansas, Albert B. Chandler III of Kentucky,
Richard P. Ieyoub of Louisiana, G. Steven Rowe of Maine, J. Joseph Cur-
ran, Jr., of Maryland, Thomas F. Reilly of Massachusetts, Jennifer M.
Granholm of Michigan, Mike Hatch of Minnesota, Mike Moore of Missis-
sippi, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Mike McGrath of Montana,
Don Stenberg of Nebraska, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, Philip T.
McLaughlin of New Hampshire, John J. Farmer, Jr., of New Jersey, Pa-
tricia A. Madrid of New Mexico, Eliot Spitzer of New York, Roy Cooper
of North Carolina, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, W. A. Drew Ed-
mondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, Sheldon Whitehouse of
Rhode Island, Charles M. Condon of South Carolina, Mark Barnett of
South Dakota, Paul G. Summers of Tennessee, John Cornyn of Texas,
Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, Mark L.
Earley of Virginia, Iver A. Stridiron of the Virgin Islands, Christine O.
Gregoire of Washington, and Gay Woodhouse of Wyoming.

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734 BOOTH v. CHURNER
Opinion of the Court
“such administrative remedies as are available” before suing
over prison conditions. The question is whether an inmate
seeking only money damages must complete a prison admin-
istrative process that could provide some sort of relief on the
complaint stated, but no money. We hold that he must.
I
Petitioner, Timothy Booth, was an inmate at the State
Correctional Institution at Smithfield, Pennsylvania, when
he began this action under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C.
§ 1983, in the United States District Court for the Middle
District of Pennsylvania. He claimed that respondent cor-
rections officers at Smithfield violated his Eighth Amend-
ment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment
by assaulting him, bruising his wrists in tightening and
twisting handcuffs placed upon him, throwing cleaning mate-
rial in his face, and denying him medical attention to treat
ensuing injuries. Booth sought various forms of injunctive
relief, including transfer to another prison, as well as several
hundred thousand dollars in money damages.
The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections provided an
administrative grievance system at the time. It called for a
written charge within 15 days of an event prompting an in-
mate’s complaint, which was referred to a grievance officer
for investigation and resolution. If any action taken or rec-
ommended was unsatisfactory to the inmate, he could appeal
to an intermediate reviewing authority, with the possibility
of a further and final appeal to a central review committee.
App. 46–50. While the grievance system addressed com-
plaints of the abuse and excessive force Booth alleged, it had
no provision for recovery of money damages.1
Before resorting to federal court, Booth filed an admin-
istrative grievance charging at least some of the acts of
1 The Commonwealth has since modified its grievance scheme to permit
awards of money. App. 60.

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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 “ad-
ministrative 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 ac-
knowledged 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 fed-
eral 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; ac-
cord, Freeman v. Francis, 196 F. 3d 641 (CA6 1999); Alexan-
der v. Hawk, 159 F. 3d 1321 (CA11 1998). We granted cer-
tiorari 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 am-
biguity 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.

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II
In the aftermath of the Prison Litigation Reform Act of
1995,3 42 U. S. C. § 1997e(a) (1994 ed., Supp. V) provides that
“[n]o action shall be brought with respect to prison
conditions under section 1983 of this title, or any other
Federal law, by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison,
or other correctional facility until such administrative
remedies as are available are exhausted.”
The meaning of the phrase “administrative remedies . . .
available” is the crux of the case, and up to a point the
parties approach it with agreement. Neither of them de-
nies that some redress for a wrong is presupposed by the
statute’s requirement of an “available” “remed[y]”; neither
argues that exhaustion is required where the relevant ad-
ministrative procedure lacks authority to provide any relief
or to take any action whatsoever in response to a complaint.4
The dispute here, then, comes down to whether or not a re-
medial scheme is “available” where, as in Pennsylvania, the
administrative process has authority to take some action in
response to a complaint, but not the remedial action an in-
mate demands to the exclusion of all other forms of redress.
In seeking the congressional intent, the parties urge us to
give weight to practical considerations, among others, and
at first glance Booth’s position holds some intuitive appeal.
Although requiring an inmate to exhaust prison grievance
procedures will probably obviate some litigation when the
administrative tribunal can award at least some of the relief
sought, Booth argues that when the prison’s process simply
cannot satisfy the inmate’s sole demand, the odds of keeping
3 110 Stat. 1321, as renumbered and amended.
4 Without the possibility of some relief, the administrative officers would
presumably have no authority to act on the subject of the complaint, leav-
ing the inmate with nothing to exhaust. The parties do not dispute that
the state grievance system at issue in this case has authority to take some
responsive action with respect to the type of allegations Booth raises.

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the matter out of court are slim. See Reply Brief for Peti-
tioner 16. The prisoner would be clearly burdened, while
the government would obtain little or no value in return.
The respondents, however, also have something to say.
They argue that requiring exhaustion in these circumstances
would produce administrative results that would satisfy at
least some inmates who start out asking for nothing but
money, since the very fact of being heard and prompting ad-
ministrative change can mollify passions even when nothing
ends up in the pocket. And one may suppose that the ad-
ministrative process itself would filter out some frivolous
claims and foster better-prepared litigation once a dispute
did move to the courtroom, even absent formal factfinding.
Although we have not accorded much weight to these pos-
sibilities in the past, see McCarthy v. Madigan, 503 U. S.
140, 155–156 (1992), Congress, as we explain below, may well
have thought we were shortsighted. See infra, at 739–741.
In any event, the practical arguments for exhaustion at least
suffice to refute Booth’s claim that no policy considerations
justify respondents’ position. The upshot is that pragma-
tism is inconclusive.
Each of the parties also says that the plain meaning of
the words “remedies” and “available” in the phrase “such
administrative remedies . . . available” is controlling. But
as it turns out both of them quote some of the same diction-
ary definitions of “available” “remedies,” and neither comes
up with anything conclusive. Booth says the term “remedy”
means a procedure that provides redress for wrong or en-
forcement of a right, and “available” means having sufficient
power to achieve an end sought. See Brief for Petitioner
15–16 (citing Webster’s Third New International Dictionary
150, 1920 (1993) (defining “remedy” as “the legal means to
recover a right or to prevent or obtain redress for a wrong”
and “available” as “having sufficient power or force to
achieve an end,” “capable of use for the accomplishment
of a purpose,” and that which “is accessible or may be ob-

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tained”)). So far so good, but Booth then claims to be able
to infer with particularity that when a prisoner demands
money damages as the sole means to compensate his injuries,
a grievance system without that relief offers no “available”
“remed[y].” The general definitions, however, just do not
entail such a specific conclusion.
It strikes us that the same definitions get the respond-
ent corrections officers and their amicus the United States
closer to firm ground for their assertion that the phrase
“such administrative remedies as are available” naturally
requires a prisoner to exhaust the grievance procedures
offered, whether or not the possible responses cover the
specific relief the prisoner demands. See Brief for Respond-
ents 21. The United States tracks Booth in citing Webster’s
Third New International Dictionary to define “remedy” as
“the legal means to recover a right or to prevent or obtain
redress for a wrong” and “available” as “capable of use for
the accomplishment of a purpose.” Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary, supra, at 150, 1920. But this ex-
ercise in isolated definition is ultimately inconclusive, for,
depending on where one looks, “remedy” can mean either
specific relief obtainable at the end of a process of seeking
redress, or the process itself, the procedural avenue leading
to some relief. See Black’s Law Dictionary 1296 (7th ed.
1999) (defining “remedy” alternatively as “[t]he means of
enforcing a right or preventing or redressing a wrong,” or
as “remedial action. . . . Cf. relief ”).
We find clearer pointers toward the congressional objec-
tive in two considerations, the first being the broader statu-
tory context in which “available” “remedies” are mentioned.
The entire modifying clause in which the words occur is
this: “until such administrative remedies as are available
are exhausted.” The “available” “remed[y]” must be “ex-
hausted” before a complaint under § 1983 may be enter-
tained. While the modifier “available” requires the possi-
bility of some relief for the action complained of (as the

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parties agree), the word “exhausted” has a decidedly proce-
dural emphasis. It makes sense only in referring to the pro-
cedural means, not the particular relief ordered. It would,
for example, be very strange usage to say that a prisoner
must “exhaust” an administrative order reassigning an abu-
sive guard before a prisoner could go to court and ask for
something else; or to say (in States that award money dam-
ages administratively) that a prisoner must “exhaust” his
damages award before going to court for more. How would
he “exhaust” a transfer of personnel? Would he have to
spend the money to “exhaust” the monetary relief given
him? It makes no sense to demand that someone exhaust
“such administrative [redress]” as is available; one “ex-
hausts” processes, not forms of relief, and the statute pro-
vides that one must.
A second consideration, statutory history, confirms the
suggestion that Congress meant to require procedural ex-
haustion regardless of the fit between a prisoner’s prayer
for relief and the administrative remedies possible. Before
§ 1997e(a) was amended by the Act of 1995, a court had
discretion (though no obligation) to require a state inmate
to exhaust “such . . . remedies as are available,” but only
if those remedies were “plain, speedy, and effective.” 42
U. S. C. § 1997e(a) (1994 ed.). That scheme, however, is now
a thing of the past, for the amendments eliminated both
the discretion to dispense with administrative exhaustion
and the condition that the remedy be “plain, speedy, and
effective” before exhaustion could be required.
The significance of deleting that condition is apparent
in light of our decision two years earlier in McCarthy v.
Madigan, supra. In McCarthy, a federal inmate, much like
Booth, sought only money damages against federal prison
officials, and the Bureau of Prison’s administrative procedure
offered no such relief. Although § 1997e(a) did not at that
time apply to suits brought against federal officials, the gov-
ernment argued that the Court should create an analogous

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740 BOOTH v. CHURNER
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exhaustion requirement for Bivens actions. See Bivens v.
Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971).
It proposed § 1997e(a) as a model, on the assumption that the
provision required exhaustion by those seeking nothing but
money damages even when money was unavailable at the
administrative level. We understood the effect of § 1997e(a)
to be quite different, however. See 503 U. S., at 149–151.
In holding that exhaustion was not required, we reasoned in
part from the language of § 1997e(a) that required an “effec-
tive” administrative remedy as a precondition to exhaustion.
Id., at 150. When a prisoner sought only money damages,
we indicated, only a procedure able to provide money dam-
ages would be “effective” within the meaning of the statute.
Ibid. (“[I]n contrast to the absence of any provision for
the award of money damages under the Bureau’s general
grievance procedure, the statute conditions exhaustion on
the existence of ‘effective administrative remedies’ ”); see
also id., at 156 (Rehnquist, C. J., joined by Scalia and
Thomas, JJ., concurring in judgment) (“[I]n cases . . . where
prisoners seek monetary relief, the Bureau’s administrative
remedy furnishes no effective remedy”).
When Congress replaced the text of the statute as con-
strued in McCarthy with the exhaustion requirement at
issue today, it presumably understood that under McCarthy
the term “effective” in the former § 1997e(a) eliminated
the possibility of requiring exhaustion of administrative
remedies when an inmate sought only monetary relief and
the administrative process offered none. It has to be sig-
nificant that Congress removed the very term we had pre-
viously emphasized in reaching the result Booth now seeks,
and the fair inference to be drawn is that Congress meant
to preclude the McCarthy result.5 Congress’s imposition
5 This inference is, to say the least, also consistent with Congress’s elimi-
nation of the requirement that administrative procedures must satisfy
certain “minimum acceptable standards” of fairness and effectiveness
before inmates can be required to exhaust them, and the elimination of

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of an obviously broader exhaustion requirement makes it
highly implausible that it meant to give prisoners a strong
inducement to skip the administrative process simply by
limiting prayers for relief to money damages not offered
through administrative grievance mechanisms.
Thus, we think that Congress has mandated exhaus-
tion clearly enough, regardless of the relief offered through
administrative procedures.6 Cf. McCarthy, 503 U. S., at 144
(“Where Congress specifically mandates, exhaustion is re-
quired”). We accordingly affirm the judgment of the Third
Circuit.
It is so ordered.
courts’ discretion to excuse exhaustion when it would not be “appropriate
and in the interests of justice.” Compare 42 U. S. C. § 1997e(a) (1994 ed.,
Supp. V) with 42 U. S. C. § 1997e(a) (1994 ed.).
6 That Congress has mandated exhaustion in either case defeats the
argument of Booth and supporting amici that this reading of § 1997e
(1994 ed., Supp. V) is at odds with traditional doctrines of administrative
exhaustion, under which a litigant need not apply to an agency that has
“no power to decree . . . relief,” Reiter v. Cooper, 507 U. S. 258, 269 (1993),
or need not exhaust where doing so would otherwise be futile. See Brief
for Petitioner 24–27; Brief for Brennan Center for Justice et al. as Amici
Curiae. Without getting into the force of this claim generally, we stress
the point (which Booth acknowledges, see Reply Brief for Petitioner 4)
that we will not read futility or other exceptions into statutory exhaustion
requirements where Congress has provided otherwise. See McCarthy
v. Madigan, 503 U. S. 140, 144 (1992); cf. Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S.
749, 766–767 (1975). Here, we hold only that Congress has provided in
§ 1997e(a) that an inmate must exhaust irrespective of the forms of relief
sought and offered through administrative avenues.