Ross v. Blake, 578 U.S. ___ (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that "special circumstances" cannot excuse an inmate's failure to exhaust administrative remedies before filing a lawsuit under the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995,[1] but clarified that inmates are required to exhaust only administrative remedies that are genuinely available.

[3][4] In 2007, Shaidon Blake, an inmate in a Maryland prison, was assaulted by guards James Madigan and Michael Ross while being moved from his regular cell to the segregation unit.

[5] Ross presented an affirmative defense: Blake had sued without first exhausting the prison's Administrative Remedy Procedure (ARP) process, and thus was barred from court under the PLRA.

[8] And here, the court held that Blake was entitled to the "special circumstances" exception because he thought the IIU investigation precluded him from pursuing remedies through the regular ARP process.

[9] Judge G. Steven Agee dissented, holding that judge-made exceptions to the PLRA's Congressionally-mandated exhaustion requirement were impermissible.

[12] In this case, it explained, both Supreme Court precedent and the broader history of the PLRA supported the conclusion that Congress intended the exhaustion requirement to be mandatory.