The majority opinion was by Chief Justice Roberts and the court decided the case unanimously.

The act mandated exhaustion of federal and state administrative remedies before an inmate could file a civil rights action.

The Sixth Circuit along with some other lower courts adopted several procedural rules designed to implement this exhaustion requirement and facilitate early judicial screening.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the conflict in Jones v. Bock, and two other consolidated cases, namely Walton v. Bouchard, and Williams v. Overton, which it unanimously decided that failure to exhaust prison grievance procedures is an affirmative defense, thereby rejecting the Court of Appeals' procedural rules as exceeding the proper limits of the judicial role.

It rejected various exhaustion screening mechanisms adopted by some of the circuits and thus made it less difficult for inmates/plaintiffs to pursue lawsuits involving complaints about their treatment in prison.