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Creppel v. Dixon Correctional Institute6/21/2002
This is an appeal brought by Leonce Creppel, an inmate in the custody of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, seeking reversal of the district court's action dismissing his suit without prejudice on the grounds of prematurity.
Creppel originally filed suit in the district court seeking judicial review of an unnamed and unnumbered administrative remedy request. This request stems from an alleged act of negligence on the part of the nurse on duty at Dixon Correctional Institute. The defendants, Dixon Correctional Institute, Warden James LeBlanc, Leslie Perkins as Medical Coordinator, and the nurse Linda Hodgin (collectively referred to hereinafter as "DCI"), filed exceptions of prematurity and vagueness. A hearing was held on the exceptions on March 29, 2001 at Dixon Correctional Institute. The testimony of Connie Bowser, CARP screening officer at Dixon, was admitted as well as a copy of Creppel's alleged request for administrative remedies, marked as DCI Exhibit No. 1. After the hearing, the Commissioner recommended that the exception of prematurity be granted because Creppel had not exhausted all administrative remedies available to him before filing his suit for judicial review. On April 17, 2001 the district court adopted the Commissioner's report in its entirety, thus dismissing the case without prejudice. Creppel now appeals to this court.
Both state and federal statutory law and jurisprudence require the exhaustion of administrative remedies before suit for judicial review may be filed. This court has ruled that no state court shall entertain an offender's grievance or complaint, which falls under the purview of the administrative remedy procedure, unless and until the offender has exhausted the remedies available to him as provided under the Corrections Administrative Remedy Procedure (CARP), La. R.S. 15:1171, et seq. See King v. State, Department of Public Safety and Corrections, 98-2910 (La. App. 1st Cir. 2/18/00), 754 So.2d 1119; Marler v. Petty, 94-1851 (La. 4/10/95), 653 So.2d 1167; Blackwell v. Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, 96-0954 (La. App. 1st Cir. 2/14/97), 690 So.2d 137, writ denied, 97-1158 (La. 9/5/97), 700 So.2d 507. It is undisputed that Creppel has not exhausted his remedies under CARP.
Creppel argues that he initiated a claim under CARP, but states that it has been ignored by DCI. A copy of an alleged request for administrative remedies (which is a duplicate of the copy attached to Creppel's petition) was introduced into evidence by DCI as Defendant's Exhibit No. 1. Mrs. Connie Bowser, the ARP screening officer at DCI, testified that the alleged request had never been filed:
MR. CASTAING: You have no record of ever having received that particular one here at Dixon as part of the ARP system?
MS. BOWSER: Right.
Creppel introduced no evidence, nor made any argument, that DCI had in fact ignored his complaint. All of the evidence points to the probability that the CARP petition, if ever actually mailed, simply was never received by the CARP office. Under CARP procedure, Creppel's complaint was properly dismissed without prejudice.
However, the jurisdiction and forum of the matter is governed by the nature of the complaint. If in fact Creppel intends to bri ng an action in tort, the CARP proceeding is not the proper vehicle or venue to bring such action. Recently, in Pope v. State, 99-2559, p. 13 (La. 6/29/01), 792 So.2d 713, the Louisiana Supreme Court declared the provisions of La. R.S. 15:1171-1179, pertaining to CARP proceedings, to be unconstitutional to the extent that the statutes applied to an inmate's tort claims. In so finding, the supreme court state
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