Opinion
1:23-CV-00232-RAL
12-11-2023
CHARLES SWINT, Plaintiff v. L.J. OLIVER, EARL JONES, PATRICIA THOMPSON, STEVEN SOLOWODA, LT. FLOYD, DR. RUSH, UM. SEMORE, ECF NO. 41 Defendants
SUSAN PARADISE BAXTER UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION ON PLAINTIFF'S SECOND MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION ECF NO. 41
RICHARD A. LANZILLO CHIEF UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
I. RECOMMENDATION
It is respectfully recommended that Plaintiff Charles Swint's second motion for preliminary injunction (ECF No. 41) be denied.
II. REPORT
A. Procedural History and Allegations of Pending Motion
Plaintiff Charles Swint, an individual incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Albion (“SCI-Albion”), commenced this pro se civil rights action against six SCI-Albion employees (“Corrections Defendants”) and Dr. Rush, a physician who provided medical services at SCI-Albion. Swint's Amended Complaint (ECF No. 28) is the operative pleading before the Court and alleges that despite Swint's reports that other inmates have threated to harm him and have extorted money from him, the Corrections Defendants forced him to return to general population and sent him to the Restricted Housing Unit (“RHU”) on several occasions for disobeying orders to return to his cell. ECF No. 28, ¶¶ 4-6. Swint claims that this conduct constituted deliberate indifference to his safety in violation of his rights under the United States Constitution. Id at ¶ 7. He previously filed a motion for preliminary injunction based on similar allegations, which motion the Court denied after an evidentiary hearing. See ECF Nos. 17 (Report and Recommendation), 26 (Order adopting R&R). His pending motion for preliminary injunction alleges that on September 22, 2023, an inmate again threatened him in an effort to extort money from him and that Swint responded to this threat by arming himself with “a knife and a lock in a sock,” which conduct resulted in Swint being placed in the RHU for sixty days. ECF No. 41, ¶ 2. His pending motion further avers that Swint is scheduled to be released from the RHU to general population on December 20,2023, and that he is “going to kill Capt. Floyd and Patricia Thompson immediately my first chance” and “is killing someone in Administration soon as the[y] release me” because “someone has to feel the anxiety and panic I feel every day.” Id. at ¶ 12. He seeks an injunction mandating that prison officials transfer him to another correctional institution. Id. (“Please remove me from this Institution or someone is gonna Die, that's how scared I am. Capt. Floyd or Thompson is Dead whichever comes first.”).
The Corrections Defendants are L.J. Oliver, Earl Jones, Patricia Thompson, Steven Solowoda, Lt. Floyd, and UM Semore.
On November 27, 2023, Swint voluntarily dismissed all claims against Dr. Rush, and the Clerk has terminated him, as a Defendant. See ECF No. 37.
The Corrections Defendants have moved to dismiss Swint's Amended Complaint for failure to state a claim. See ECF Nos. 32, 33. That motion remains pending before the Court.
The Corrections Defendants have filed a response to Swint's motion in which they argue that it fails to allege facts to support the need for immediate injunctive relief. See ECF No. 44. They point to a lack of specific facts alleged in the motion to support that Swint faces any imminent risk of harm and the availability of the grievance system and other remedies within the prison to address his concerns
B. Standard of Review
A party seeking preliminary injunctive relief has the burden of demonstrating: (1) a reasonable probability of success on the merits; (2) irreparable harm if the injunction is denied; (3) that the issuance of an injunction will not result in greater harm to the non-moving party; and (4) that the public interest would best be served by granting the injunction. Council of Alternative Political Parties v. Hooks, 121 F.3d 876, 879 (3d Cir. 1997); Opticians Ass 'n of America v. Independent Opticians of America, 920 F.2d 187, 191-92 (3d Cir. 1990). '
As the moving party, Swint bears the burden of producing evidence to support the first two factors. See Acierno v. New Castle Cty., 40 F.3d 645, 653 (3d Cir. 1994). He must proffer facts that clearly support a finding that immediate and irreparable injury will result to the movant if preliminary relief is denied. See United States v. Stazola, 893 F.2d 34, 37 n.3 (3d Cir. 1990); Hohe v. Casey, 868 F.2d 69, 72 (3d Cir. 1989); ECRI v. McGraw-Hill, Inc., 809 F.2d 223, 226 (3d Cir. 1987) (it is not enough to merely show irreparable harm: the plaintiff has the burden of showing immediate irreparable injury, which is more than merely serious or substantial harm and which cannot be redressed with money damages). Absent support for either of the first two factors, a court must deny the request for a preliminary injunction. See Acierno, 40 F.3d at 653 (3d Cir. 1994); Adams v. Freedom Forge Corp., 204 F.3d 475, 484 (3d Cir. 2000).
The purpose of the preliminary injunction is to preserve the status quo until the rights of the parties can be fairly and fully litigated and determined by strictly legal proofs and according to the principles of equity. Wetzel v. Edwards, 635 F.2d 283, 286 (4th Cir. 1980). Thus, the grant of injunctive relief is an “extraordinary remedy which should be granted only in limited circumstances.” American Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Winback and Conserve Program, Inc., 42 F.3d 1421 (3d Cir. 1994) (quoting Frank's GMC Truck Center, Inc. v. General Motor Corp., 847 F.2d 100, 102 (3d Cir. 1988)).
Moreover, in the prison context, a request for injunctive relief “must always be viewed with great caution because ‘judicial restraint is especially called for in dealing with the complex and intractable problems of prison administration.'” Goff v. Harper, 60 F.3d 518, 520 (8th Cir. 1995) (quoting Rogers v. Scurr, 676 F.2d 1211, 1214 (8th Cir. 1982)). Preliminary injunctive relief is “not a tool for prisoners to use to regulate ‘in every way, every day, the terms and conditions of plaintiffs confinement simply because they are “in court” ...'”. Stiel v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 2017 WL 2656646, at *4 (D.N.J. June 19, 2017) (quoting Muhammad v. Director of Corrections, 2009 WL 161075, at *1 (E.D. Ca. Jan. 22, 2009)). Where a plaintiff requests an injunction that would require the Court to interfere with the administration of a prison, “appropriate consideration must be given to principles of federalism in determining the availability and scope of equitable relief.” Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362,379 (1976). The federal courts are not overseers of the day-to-day management of prisons. Prison officials require broad discretionary authority as the “operation of a correctional institution is at best an extraordinarily difficult undertaking.” Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 566 (1974). Accordingly, prison administrators should be accorded wide-ranging deference in the adoption and execution of policies and practices that are needed to preserve internal order and to maintain institutional security. Beard v. Banks, 126 S.Ct. 2572, 2578 (2006); Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 527 (1979).
C. Discussion
i. Swint's allegations do not support a likelihood of success on the merits.
As noted above, Swint's request that the Court order prison officials to grant him an emergency transfer (a form of mandatory proactive relief) must be viewed with exacting scrutiny and extreme caution. Burton, 2017 WL 4284345, at *6. Like his prior motion for injunctive relief, his current motion is presumably grounded in the proposition that an emergency transfer is necessary to protect his safety. The record, however, fails to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits of his claims. Swint's allegations of having been subjected to inmate threats and extortion lack the specificity necessary to support a viable § 1983 claim. His current allegations largely mirror those of his prior motion for injunctive relief, which, following a hearing, the Court found to be unsubstantiated, inconsistent, and contradicted by the credible testimony of Captain Floyd. The evidence adduced during prior proceedings demonstrated that prison personnel have investigated and responded to Swint's reports of inmate threats and extortion. His current allegations also fail to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits.
The Court previously noted that possible untreated mental health conditions may be contributing to Swint's sincere but unsubstantiated concerns for his safety. While a mental health evaluation or therapy may benefit Swint, this is not a matter presently before the Court.
ii. Swint's allegations do not support a finding of irreparable harm.
Swint's pending motion largely alleges past incidents of alleged threats and bad acts of other inmates that involve no imminent threat of harm. See Synthes, Inc. v. Gregoris, 228 F.Supp.3d 421, 440 (E.D. Pa. 2017) (“Any irreparable harm must be imminent.”); Burton, 2017 WL 4284345, at *9 (declining to grant preliminary relief in the absence of evidence “that there is an imminent risk of irreparable injury”) (emphasis in original). See Boyd v. Larson, 2017 WL 1904278, at *3 (M.D. Pa. Apr. 21, 2017) (“A preliminary injunction cannot be issued based on past harm.”) (quoting Fischer v. Goord, 981 F.Supp. 140, 168 (W.D.N.Y. 1997)). And Swint's claims of future injury are too speculative to constitute imminent, irreparable harm. Bailey v. Gagnon, 2009 WL 982694, at *2 (W.D. Pa 2009) (citing Dice v. Clinicorp, Inc., 887 F.Supp. 803, 809 (W.D. Pa 1995)) (“to show irreparable harm, “the claims injury cannot merely be possible, speculative, or remote.”); Campbell Soup Co. v. ConAgra, Inc., 977 F.2d 86, 91-92 (3d Cir. 1992) (emphasis added) (The “requisite feared injury or harm must be irreparable, not merely serious or substantial,” and it “must be of a peculiar nature, so that compensation in money cannot atone for it.”).
While a prisoner is not required to have already suffered an injury to invoke Eighth Amendment protections, he must allege conditions that make it “sure or very likely” that the injury will occur in the future, Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 33 (1993). Purely speculative risk of a future injury does not support injunctive or any other relief. In Hunt v. Gearhart, 1990 WL 136558 (E.D. Pa. 1990), the district court dismissed the inmate-plaintiff's complaint as frivolous where his §1983 failure to protect claim was based on his belief that his rights would be violated sometime in the future. Similarly, in Luckey v. Martin, 2012 WL 665694 (D. N.J. 2012), the plaintiff alleged a failure to protect claim because (1) he was improperly housed on a floor where some gang members were housed because he had assisted officials in collecting evidence against that gang and (2) he tore posters of women off the prison walls because he was homosexual, both of which subjected him to the risk of future harm. The court characterized his failure to protect claim as “facially without merit,” explaining, “speculative failure-to-protect claims, asserting a purely ‘theoretical7‘hypothetical' danger set forth a scenario to which prison officials cannot, by definition, be deliberately indifferent.” Luckey at *6. Swint's allegations of potential harm remain vague and speculative and, therefore, insufficient to support a preliminary injunction. While extremely concerning, Swint's death threats against prison officials also do not provide support for his claim of irreparable harm.
The Court's standard of review requires that it trust that prison officials are responding to these threats in accordance with their responsibilities and discretion.
D. Conclusion
Swint has failed to allege facts that support a likelihood of success on the merits or an imminent risk of irreparable harm. Therefore, it is respectfully recommended that Swint's motion for a preliminary injunction (ECF No. 41) be denied.
III. NOTICE
In accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) and Fed.R.Civ.P. 72, the parties may seek review by the district court by filing Objections to the Report and Recommendation within fourteen (14) days of the filing of this Report and Recommendation. Any party opposing the objections shall have fourteen (14) days from the date of service of objections to respond thereto. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b)(2). Failure to file timely objections may waive appellate rights. See Brightwell v. Lehman, 637 F.3d 187, 194 n.7 (3d Cir. 2011); Nara v. Frank, 488 F.3d 187 (3d Cir. 2007).