Al-Khafajy v. Bain

Filing 25

ORDER: The Report and Recommendation (Doc. No. 23 ) is APPROVED AND ADOPTED. The Motion to Dismiss (Doc. No. 18 ) is GRANTED and this case is DISMISSED. This is a final order under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Clerk shall close the case. Signed by Chief Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr on 3/19/18. (xc: Pro se party by regular mail.) (DOCKET TEXT SUMMARY ONLY-ATTORNEYS MUST OPEN THE PDF AND READ THE ORDER.)(dt) Modified on 3/19/2018 (dt).

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
NASHVILLE DIVISION
MOHAMMED BASSIM AL-KHAFAJY,
Plaintiff,
v.
CLEVELAND D. BAIN,
Defendant.

)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)

NO. 3:17-cv-00394
CHIEF JUDGE CRENSHAW

ORDER
Pending before the Court is the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation. (Doc.
No. 23.) No objections have been filed. In this prisoner civil rights action, Plaintiff brings Section
1983 claims against the privately-retained lawyer who represented him in a criminal case in which
Plaintiff pled guilty. If proved, Plaintiff’s claims would call his guilty plea in that case, for which
he is currently serving a sentence of incarceration, into question. The Report and Recommendation
recommends granting the Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss (Doc. No. 18) for two reasons. First, the
Magistrate Judge concludes that Plaintiff’s claims run afoul of the “favorable termination” rule as
set forth in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 481 (1994) and clarified in Muhammed v. Close,
540 U.S. 749, 750 (2004), because the claims necessarily implicate the lawfulness of Plaintiff’s
imprisonment and neither his conviction or sentence have been invalidated on direct appeal, by
issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, or by some other appropriate action. Second, the Magistrate
Judge concludes that, even if the favorable-termination bar did not apply here, Plaintiff’s claims
must fail because the privately-retained Defendant was not “acting under color of state law” when
representing Plaintiff, the axiomatic prerequisite for any Section 1983 claim. The Court agrees
with the analysis set forth in the Report and Recommendation.

Accordingly, the Report and Recommendation (Doc. No. 23) is APPROVED AND
ADOPTED. The Motion to Dismiss (Doc. No. 18) is GRANTED and this case is DISMISSED.
This is a final order under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Clerk shall close the case.
IT IS SO ORDERED.

____________________________________
WAVERLY D. CRENSHAW, JR.
CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

2