Whitley v. New York State Office of Mental Health et al

Filing 39

DECISION AND ORDER accepting and adopting # 37 Magistrate Judge Dancks' Report and Recommendation in its entirety. Defendants' # 21 motion for summary judgment is granted, and the Plaintiff's complaint is dismissed. Signed by Chief Judge Glenn T. Suddaby on 8/29/16. (lmw)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
__________________________________________
VIDAL WHITLEY,
Plaintiff,
9:15-CV-0377
(GTS/TWD)

v.
S. TOURTELOT, Medication Subscriber;
JILL CARVER, Psychiatrist; and
MS. GRAZANEI,
Defendants.
__________________________________________
APPEARANCES:

OF COUNSEL:

LAW OFFICES OF RAFAEL MUNIZ, P.C.
Counsel for Plaintiff
65 Broadway, Suite 714
New York, New York 10006

RAFAEL E. MUNIZ, ESQ.

HON. ERIC T. SCHNEIDERMAN
Attorney General for the State of New York
Counsel for Defendants
615 Erie Boulevard West, Suite 102
Syracuse, New York 13204

TIMOTHY MULVEY, ESQ.
Assistant Attorney General

GLENN T. SUDDABY, Chief United States District Judge
DECISION and ORDER
Currently before the Court, in this prisoner civil rights action filed by Vidal Whitley
(“Plaintiff”) against the three above-captioned employees of the New York State Department of
Corrections and Community Supervision (“Defendants”), are Defendants’ motion for summary
judgment, and United States Magistrate Judge Thérèse Wiley Dancks’ Report-Recommendation
recommending that Defendants’ motion be granted and that Plaintiff’s Complaint be dismissed
in its entirety. (Dkt. Nos. 37, 21.) None of the parties have filed objections to the ReportRecommendation and the deadline in which to do so has expired. (See generally Docket Sheet.)

After carefully reviewing the relevant papers herein, including Magistrate Judge Dancks’
thorough Report-Recommendation, the Court can find no clear-error in the ReportRecommendation: Magistrate Judge Dancks employed the proper standards, accurately recited
the facts, and reasonably applied the law to those facts.1 As a result, the ReportRecommendation is accepted and adopted in its entirety for the reasons set forth therein,
Defendants’ motion is granted, and Plaintiff’s Complaint is dismissed.
ACCORDINGLY, it is
ORDERED that Magistrate Judge Dancks’ Report-Recommendation (Dkt. No. 37) is
ACCEPTED and ADOPTED in its entirety; and it is further
ORDERED that Defendants’ motion for summary judgment (Dkt. No. 21) is
GRANTED; and it is further
ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Complaint (Dkt. No. 1) is DISMISSED in its entirety; and it
is further
ORDERED that the Clerk of the Court shall enter Judgment for Defendants and close
this action.
Dated: August 29, 2016
Syracuse, New York
____________________________________
HON. GLENN T. SUDDABY
Chief United States District Judge

1

When no objection is made to a report-recommendation, the Court subjects that
report-recommendation to only a clear error review. Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b), Advisory Committee
Notes: 1983 Addition. When performing such a “clear error” review, “the court need only
satisfy itself that there is no clear error on the face of the record in order to accept the
recommendation.” Id.; see also Batista v. Walker, 94-CV-2826, 1995 WL 453299, at *1
(S.D.N.Y. July 31, 1995) (Sotomayor, J.) (“I am permitted to adopt those sections of [a
magistrate judge’s] report to which no specific objection is made, so long as those sections are
not facially erroneous.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
2