In 2016, inmate James E. Moore, Jr., also known as Kevin Thompson, sued five corrections officers at Fishkill Correctional Facility under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging excessive force and failure to provide medical care during a seizure. All five officers asserted the affirmative defense that Thompson had failed to exhaust administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). In 2020, the state withdrew representation for Officer Troy Booth, who then failed to appear for a deposition or pre-motion conference. As a sanction for this non-participation, the district court struck Booth's answer. While the court later dismissed the claims against the four other officers for failure to exhaust, it granted a default judgment against Booth and awarded him $50,000 in damages. Booth appealed, arguing that the default judgment was legally inconsistent with the dismissal of the claims against his co-defendants.
The Second Circuit, writing for the panel, held that the district court abused its discretion by entering a default judgment against Booth that was inconsistent with the judgment on the merits entered against the other defendants. The court relied on the longstanding principle established in Frow v. De La Vega, which prohibits a default judgment that creates an 'incongruity' with a judgment on the merits. The court explained that when a plaintiff fails to state a valid claim for relief against answering defendants, the plaintiff is estopped from obtaining a judgment against a defaulting defendant who is similarly situated. The court addressed the argument that the Frow principle only applies to joint liability, clarifying that the majority of federal circuits, including the Second, extend the rule to situations where defendants have 'closely related defenses.' The court specifically addressed whether this principle applies to the PLRA exhaustion defense, which is an affirmative defense that can be waived. The court concluded that because the PLRA mandates exhaustion as a threshold bar to any action, and the district court had already found that Thompson failed to exhaust remedies for the litigating defendants, the pleadings did not state a valid claim for relief against Booth either. The court reasoned that it would be 'unreasonable' and 'unfair' to allow the plaintiff to prevail against Booth on a legal theory that the court had already rejected for the other officers.
The default judgment against Officer Booth is vacated, and the case is remanded to the district court with instructions to enter a judgment dismissing the claims against Booth. This decision reinforces the requirement for district courts to ensure consistency in judgments across co-defendants, particularly when the dismissal is based on a threshold legal bar like PLRA exhaustion that applies equally to all parties. It clarifies that the Frow principle applies to affirmative defenses, preventing plaintiffs from circumventing a dismissal against one defendant by pursuing a default judgment against another.
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