Background
Delroy Spence filed a complaint under Section nineteen eighty-three of Title forty-two of the United States Code in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The district court dismissed the complaint, finding that Spence had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. Spence appealed the dismissal pro se.
The court’s reasoning
The court confined its review to the issues raised in Spence’s informal brief. Because the brief did not challenge the basis for the district court’s disposition, the court determined that Spence had forfeited appellate review of the order. The court noted that under Fourth Circuit rules, the informal brief is the controlling document for preserving issues for review.
The informal brief is an important document; under Fourth Circuit rules, our review is limited to issues preserved in that brief.
Jackson v. Lightsey, 775 F.3d 170, 177 (4th Cir. 2014)
What it means going forward
This decision reinforces the strict requirement that appellants must explicitly challenge the district court’s reasoning in their informal briefs to avoid forfeiture of appellate review in the Fourth Circuit.