Jones v. Centurion

District Court, M.D. Tennessee·Decided March 25, 2025·No. 1:22-cv-00024·Unknown

Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE COLUMBIA DIVISION

LESLIE JONES, ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) NO. 1:22-cv-00024 v. ) ) JUDGE RICHARDSON CENTURION, ET AL., ) ) Defendants. )

ORDER

Pending before the Court1 is a report and recommendation (Doc. No. 88, “R&R”) of the Magistrate Judge, which recommends that the Court grant Defendants’2 motions to dismiss (Doc.

1 Herein, “the Court” refers to the District Judge who was assigned to this case at the time in question, as opposed to the Magistrate Judge who authored the R&R. The Court notes that the undersigned has been the assigned District Judge only since October 21, 2024, when the prior assigned District Judge recused himself.

2 The Court finds it necessary to provide some regrettably tortuous background history, which the Court endeavors to provide with an appropriate balance of accuracy, thoroughness, and conciseness. The Court’s initial screening order dismissed some of the defendants (including what Plaintiff called “Centurion,” which Plaintiff identified essentially as the private company that has contracted to provide medical services at Plaintiff’s place of incarceration, Turney Center Industrial Complex (TCIX)) named by Plaintiff in his complaint. After that, there has been one entity defendant, namely Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC), as well as two separate “groups” of individual defendants in this case. One group is associated with TDOC and comprises Jeremy Cotham, Jason Clendenion, and Frank Strada (“First Group”). Notably, Strada was not named by Plaintiff as a defendant, but he is identified as a movant in the below- described First Motion; the Court can only assume that the filers of the First Motion took the odd step of adding him as an appropriate individual to represent TDOC with respect to Plaintiff’s requested injunctive relief because purportedly he was the TDOC official that should have been sued in his individual capacity in connection with Plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief as regards TDOC. The Court will forgo explaining why this is odd and instead will simply note that this tack appears to have been done in good faith and is not at all prejudicial to the defendants or material to the outcome of the Motions. The other group consists of Mark Fowler, Cortez Tucker, and Kevin Rea (“Second Group”). Notably, the Motions address only Plaintiff’s claims for injunctive relief, and each of the above-named individuals (except for Strada, who as discussed above was not sued at all but appears to be a TDOC official with duties relevant to Plaintiff’s claims for injunctive relief) has been sued in his official capacity, meaning that Plaintiff’s claims for injunctive relief are at least ostensibly appropriately considered as brought against these individuals. Nos. 59 and 62, collectively, “Motions”) with regard to Plaintiff’s claims for injunctive relief and deny Defendants’ motions as to all other claims,3 and that the Court provide Plaintiff an opportunity to move for leave to amend his complaint. No objections to the R&R have been filed and, as discussed below, the time for filing objections has expired.

Absent any objection to the statement of facts (regarding the procedural history and underlying circumstances of this case) set forth by the Magistrate Judge in the R&R, the Court adopts that factual background in its entirety, and includes it here for reference: Jones suffers from neuropathy, and his condition worsens when he walks up and down stairs and hills. (Doc. No. 1.) Jones’s complaint alleges that, because TCIX is located on steep hilly terrain, he frequently has to climb and descend stairs and hills to access housing, medical care, and recreation. (Id.) Jones states that this has caused him to experience serious medical problems and that he has repeatedly

The First Group filed a motion to dismiss (Doc. No. 59, “First Motion”). The Second Group filed what purported to be a motion to dismiss (Doc. No. 62, “Second Motion”) that merely adopted the First Motion to the extent that it was applicable to the Second Group. Thereafter, understandably believing that the Court might require the Second Group to obtain leave of court to join the First Motion in light of a comment of the Magistrate Judge (Doc. No. 67 at 1 n.1), the Second Group filed a motion (Doc. No. 68) for leave to join the First Motion or, alternatively, for leave to file instead a proposed separate motion of their own with a proposed supporting memorandum (Doc. Nos. 68-1, 68-2) in case the Court did not allow them to simply join in the First Motion. The Court later entered an order granting the Second Group’s request to join in the First Motion (Doc. No. 84, “Order Granting Joinder”), and the R&R therefore did not address the alternative proposed separate motion (Doc. No. 68-1), which effectively was rendered a nullity by the Order Granting Joinder. Therefore, although there are two outstanding motions to dismiss in this case (the First Motion and the Second Motion), the First Motion is the one that contains the substantive arguments on behalf of both the First Group and the Second Group. The Court herein will refer to both defendant groups (the First Group and the Second Group) collectively, as “Defendants.”

3 The Court notes that the R&R recommends in part that “the defendants’ motions to dismiss be granted with regard to [Plaintiff]’s injunctive relief claims and denied as to all other claims.” (Doc. No. 88 at 2). However, upon review, the Court observes that the First Motion (and thus also the Second Motion) was limited to Plaintiff’s claims for injunctive relief. Therefore, the Court need not deny either of the Motions as to “all other claims,” because the Motions did not seek dismissal of those claims (i.e., those seeking monetary damages). In other words, the Motions do not need to be denied in any respect in order to make the point that “all other claims” besides Plaintiff’s claims for injunctive relief survive the granting of the Motions. Therefore, although the Court ultimately adopts the R&R in its entirety, it notes that to say that “the defendants’ motions to dismiss [are] granted with regard to [Plaintiff]’s injunctive relief claims and denied as to all other claims” is really to say simply that the Motions are granted, period. asked the defendants to transfer him to another facility built on flat land, but the defendants have either refused or failed to act on his transfer requests. (Id.)

Jones initiated this action on June 29, 2022, by filing a complaint against TCIX, Cotham, Clendenion, Fowler, Tucker, Rea, TCIX Classification Coordinator Todd Staples, and Centurion, the private company that contracts with TDOC to provide medical services at TCIX. (Id.) Jones’s complaint asserts § 1983 claims alleging violations of his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights and claims under Title II of the ADA. (Id.) Jones seeks monetary relief for the defendants’ alleged constitutional and statutory violations and injunctive relief in the form of an order transferring him to DeBerry Special Needs Facility (DSNF). (Doc. No. 2.)

The Court granted Jones’s application to proceed in forma pauperis and reviewed his complaint under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2) and 1915A. (Doc. Nos. 9, 10.) The Court found that Jones had stated colorable Eighth Amendment claims against Clendenion, Cotham, Fowler, Rea, Staples, and Tucker in their individual capacities and colorable ADA claims against Clendenion and Cotham in their official capacities, which are claims against TDOC. (Doc. Nos. 9, 10.) The Court dismissed all other claims and defendants in Jones’s complaint for failure to state claims on which relief may be granted. (Doc. Nos.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Jones v. Centurion, (M.D. Tenn. 2025).

Jones v. Centurion (Jones v. Centurion) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Thomas v. Arn
474 U.S. 140 (Supreme Court, 1986)
Ashraf v. Adventist Health Sys./Sunbelt, Inc.
322 F. Supp. 3d 879 (W.D. Tennessee, 2018)