CoreCivic Dodges Lawsuit For Negligence Surrounding Inmate Death

CoreCivic was granted a motion to dismiss a case filed by a deceased inmate’s mother who alleged the private prison operator’s actions directly lead to the death of her son.

CoreCivic manages and operates prisons and detention centers across the country. In July 2022, Kimalyn Romona Caraway sued CoreCivic, alleging the company violated her son’s Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by failing to detect the illegal contraband that caused her son, an inmate, to overdose.

The court granted CoreCivic a motion to dismiss the case because Caraway’s claims lacked specificity and factual basis, according to an opinion issued March 5 by the US District Court for the Western District of Tennessee.

Darius Dawson Caraway was moved to Whiteville Correctional Facility, a facility in Tennessee owned and maintained by CoreCivic, in April 2021. A few months later, he was found unresponsive in his cell and pronounced dead due to what an autopsy would reveal as a drug overdose.

Caraway claimed the intentional policy to understaff the facility led to an influx of illegal drugs that resulted in the death of her son. She also claimed that company executives and the warden were aware of illegal contraband entering the premises.

There have been at least two other recent lawsuits involving inmate deaths at CoreCivic facilities due to understaffing issues, Caraway’s complaint said.

The court found that the lack of specificity in Caraway’s allegations—the specific information possessed and how and when the accused learned about it, or information about how and when the facility’s understaffing led to drugs entering the prison—meant that Caraway’s claims were insufficient to state an Eighth Amendment claim, according to the opinion.

“It is not enough for a complaint to contain conclusory allegations of unconstitutional conduct,” Judge S. Thomas Anderson wrote for the court.

Caraway provided “no factual assertions as to which walk through was missed, which head count was missed, who was charged with conducting the walk throughs and head counts, or how any alleged missed walk through or head count contributed to Decedent’s death,” the court said.

According to the opinion, the only factual basis for Caraway’s claim were two audits conducted in 2017 and 2020 that found that the Whiteville Correctional Facility had fewer than approved correctional officer staff and several vacant positions.

“Plaintiff does not allege that this understaffing led to any specific inmate deaths, led to an increase in the introduction of illegal contraband into WCF, or otherwise led to any WCF inmate suffering a constitutional deprivation,” the court wrote.

Blount Law Firm represents Caraway. Pentecost, Glenn & Tilly PLLC represents CoreCivic.

The case is Caraway v. CoreCivic of Tenn., LLC, W.D. Tenn., No. 1:22-cv-1150-STA-jay, 4/5/23.