Can my appeal be cancelled?
An appeal may be cancelled by the Appeals Coordinator if the time limits were exceeded and you could have submitted the appeal within the time limits. An appeal may also be cancelled for other reasons, such as if the issue is not within the CDCR’s jurisdiction, if the appeal is a duplicate, if you re-submit a rejected appeal without correcting the defect or explaining why the Prison Law Office Administrative Appeals Letter (October 2015) page 6 correction was not made, or if you refuse to be interviewed or cooperate with the reviewer.[645] If an appeal is cancelled, you should get a notice that tells you why.[646] If you think the cancellation was made in error, and you can provide more information showing that your appeal should not have been cancelled or that there are exceptional reasons why the appeal should be processed; you should send the appeal back to the Appeals Coordinator (or the CDCR third level Appeals Chief if the cancellation was at that level) and ask him or her to exercise discretion to process the appeal.[647] You also can file a new appeal challenging improper application of the cancellation rules; if the appeal was cancelled at the third level, you should send your new appeal directly to the third level Appeals Chief.[648] Again, it is important to follow up on improperly cancelled appeals if you want to preserve your right to bring a legal action about the original problem.