A pro se prisoner filed a 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 action challenging the conditions of his incarceration, including an allegation that his Eighth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable exposure to secondhand smoke were violated at one facility when he was housed in a smoking unit.. .The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma dismissed the lawsuit for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed, ruling that Patel had failed to submit a written Administrative Remedy Request within 20 days of the date on which the basis for the Request occurred, as required by 28 C.F.R. sec. 542,14(a). The court ruled that Patel’s “own decision to rely on informal methods to resolve his concerns is not sufficient to extend the deadline for filing a formal Request.”
415 F. 3d 1105, 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 14654 (U.S.C.A. 10th Cir. 2005),
