Carter v. Corrections Corporation of America et al

Filing 100

ORDER ADOPTING REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Accordingly, (1) the R & R (Docket No. 84) is hereby ACCEPTED and APPROVED; (2) Plaintiff's Objections (Docket No. 90) are OVERRULED; and (3) and Plaintiff's Motion for Temporary Restraining Orde r and/or Preliminary Injunction (Docket No. 7 ) is hereby DENIED. It is SO ORDERED. Signed by Chief Judge Kevin H. Sharp on 5/5/2016. (xc:Pro se party by regular and certified mail.)(DOCKET TEXT SUMMARY ONLY-ATTORNEYS MUST OPEN THE PDF AND READ THE ORDER.)(eh)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
COLUMBIA DIVISION
AUSTIN CARTER,
Plaintiff,
v.
CORRECTIONS CORP. OF
AMERICA, et al.,
Defendants.

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No. 1:15-0090
Judge Sharp

ORDER
The Magistrate Judge has issued a Report and Recommendation (“R & R”) (Docket No. 84)
recommending that Plaintiff’s Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and/or Preliminary
Injunction (Docket No. 7) be denied. Plaintiff has filed Objections (Docket No. 90) to the R & R.
Plaintiff’s objections are conclusory and suffer the same infirmities identified by the
Magistrate Judge in denying Plaintiff’s request for extraordinary relief. Specifically,
Plaintiff has not provided sufficient facts to establish that he faced a sufficiently
serious risk of harm or that Defendants deliberately disregarded such a risk related
to his failure to protect claims. He has simply recited general statements concerning
alleged acts of violence by unnamed individuals on unspecified dates.
Additionally, the irreparable harm necessary to sustain injunctive relief must be
actual and imminent, not speculative or unsubstantiated. . . . Plaintiff avers that he
is threatened with irreparable harm, but his alleged harms are speculative and
unsubstantiated.
Finally, it is clearly in the public interest in having the administration of state prisons
left to state prison administrators.
In the case at bar, Plaintiff apparently disagrees with his medical care providers and
believes that he can be treated appropriately only at DSNF [DeBarry Special Needs
Facility]. He has not and cannot show a deliberate indifference on the part of prison
officials to a substantial risk of harm. Thus, he cannot show a strong likelihood of
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success on the merits.
(Docket No. 84 at 2-3).
The Court agrees with those observations. Plaintiff’s objections add nothing which would
support the issuance of a restraining order or injunction, let alone one that would grant his request
that he be moved to another facility. See Griffin v. Berghuis, 563 F. App’x 411, 417-18 (6th Cir.
2014) (internal citations omitted) (“Because ‘prison administrators . . . , and not the courts, are to
make the difficult judgments concerning institutional operations,’ . . . courts afford prison officials
‘wide-ranging deference in the . . . execution of policies and practices that in their judgment are
needed to preserve internal order and discipline and to maintain institutional security.’”); Ledger
v. Walters, 2000 WL 1434687, at *2 (6th Cir. Sept. 19, 2000) (upholding denial of request for
preliminary injunctive relief and noting there was little likelihood of success on the merits since
“prisoners generally have no inherent constitutional right to be confined in a particular institution”
and noting that prison officials are entitled to deference “in deciding the most appropriate placement
for inmates in their custody”).
Accordingly, (1) the R & R (Docket No. 84) is hereby ACCEPTED and APPROVED; (2)
Plaintiff’s Objections (Docket No. 90) are OVERRULED; and (3) and Plaintiff’s Motion for
Temporary Restraining Order and/or Preliminary Injunction (Docket No. 7) is hereby DENIED.
It is SO ORDERED.

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KEVIN H. SHARP
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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