Moses v. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation et al

Filing 15

ORDER ADOPTING REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Signed by Judge Sheryl H. Lipman on 8/24/15. (Lipman, Sheryl)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
WESTERN DIVISION
PAMELA J. MOSES,
Plaintiff,
v.
TENNESSEE BUREAU OF
INVESTIGATION, ATTORNEY
GENERAL, DISTRICT ATTORNEY,
STATE OF TENNESSEE,
Defendants.

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No. 14-cv-2946-SHL-dkv

ORDER ADOPTING REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

Before the Court is the magistrate judge’s Report and Recommendation (“Report”), filed
March 16, 2015. (ECF No. 9.) In the Report, Chief Magistrate Judge Vescovo recommended
that Pamela Moses’s (“Ms. Moses”) pro se Complaint (ECF No. 1) be dismissed sua sponte for
lack of jurisdiction, under the abstention doctrine and for failure to state a claim upon which
relief can be granted. Ms. Moses filed a motion for an extension of time to amend her petition
and to file objections to the Report on March 30, 2015. (ECF No. 10.) On the same day, she
filed a Motion to Strike Errors in Report and Recommendation and Motion to Disqualify
Magistrate from Case. (ECF No. 11.) If the Court did not grant Ms. Moses additional time, she
asked that her latter motion serve as formal notice of her objections to the Report. (Id. at 4.)
The Court construed ECF No. 11 as two separate motions, one objecting to the Report
and one a motion for Chief Magistrate Judge Vescovo to recuse herself from the case. The Court
referred the latter motion to the magistrate judge, who denied it on June 26, 2015. (ECF No. 14.)

The Court now turns to what remains from ECF No. 11, which the Court construes as
Ms. Moses’s objections to the Report. Having reviewed the Report and Ms. Moses’s objections
to it, the Court hereby ADOPTS it in its entirety.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
A magistrate judge may submit to a judge of the court proposed findings of fact and
recommendations for the disposition of any pretrial matter pending before the court. 28 U.S.C. §
636(b)(1)(A). “A judge of the court shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the
report or specified proposed findings or recommendations to which objection is made.” 28
U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C); Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140, 149 (1985). After reviewing the evidence,
the court may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations
made by the magistrate judge. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C). The judge may also receive further
evidence or recommit the matter to the magistrate judge with instructions. Id. After conducting
a de novo review, a district court is not required to articulate all of the reasons it rejects a party’s
objections. Tuggle v. Seabold, 806 F.2d 87, 92 (6th Cir. 1986).
ANALYSIS
In her Report, the magistrate judge recommended that Ms. Moses’s Complaint be
dismissed for several reasons, the most fundamental of which being that this Court lacks subjectmatter jurisdiction over her claims. First, the magistrate judge determined that, while Ms. Moses
did not assert in her Complaint that the Court had jurisdiction over this matter based on the
diversity of the parties under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, such an attempt would be untenable, as the
parties are not completely diverse; Ms. Moses asserts she is a Tennessee resident and the
Defendants in this matter are two Tennessee officials, the State of Tennessee and a Tennessee
agency. Next, the magistrate judge determined that, while Ms. Moses’s Complaint did explicitly

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allege that this Court has federal-question jurisdiction over this matter under 28 U.S.C. § 1331,
the claim itself did not support that assertion.
Chief Magistrate Judge Vescovo determined that, even if the Court had subject-matter
jurisdiction over this matter based on Ms. Moses’s claim that her federal rights were violated, it
would be proper to abstain from exercising jurisdiction over Ms. Moses’s claim based on the
abstention doctrine set forth in Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971). As a third alternative to
dismissing Ms. Moses’s claims, the magistrate judge determined that Ms. Moses’s complaint
fails as a matter of law, as she failed to plausibly state a claim for relief against any of the
Defendants.
Ms. Moses’s objections to the Report do not argue that the magistrate judge somehow
erred in determining that this Court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over this matter. Instead,
Ms. Moses appears to have objected – unpersuasively – to the magistrate judge’s alternative
reasons for dismissing her case. The Court need not address those objections in detail, however,
as Ms. Moses did not object to the magistrate judge’s determination that this Court lacks subjectmatter jurisdiction in this matter and, even if she had, her objections could not have overcome
the magistrate judge’s sound reasoning. As a result, the Report is adopted in its entirety and Ms.
Moses’s claims against all Defendants are hereby DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.
IT IS SO ORDERED, this 24th day of August, 2015.
s/ Sheryl H. Lipman
SHERYL H. LIPMAN
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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