Case: Grubbs v. Bradley

On August 11, 1980, several inmates filed pro se complaints in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Tennessee Attorney General. The cases were consolidated despite abstention issues and in light of the 6th Circuit's decision Hanna v. Toner. Attorneys were appointed to represent plaintiffs, including Legal Services of Middle Tennessee, Legal Services of South Central Tennessee, National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, Rural Legal Services of Tennessee, and Legal Aid in Nashville. The plaintiff prisoners alleged that the conditions of confinement and practices in Tennessee's adult penal institutions amounted to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment, applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as the state's constitution. The amended complaint also resulted in certification of the plaintiffs as a class of all present and future adult male inmates committed to the Tennessee Department of Correction.

The complaint challenged living conditions in Tennessee's prisons, ranging from overcrowding and sanitation to medical care and violence. Such "wanton infliction of unnecessary pain and suffering," the plaintiffs alleged, amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

In August of 1982, the district court (Judge Leland Clure Morton) found that the conditions within Tennessee's adult penal institutions were unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment and ordered the defendants to establish remedies and submit them to the court. Grubbs v. Bradley, 552 F.Supp. 1052 (M.D.Tenn. 1982). The court found specific facilities--but not all in the system--were inadequate to accommodate a growing prison population, and mandated that the prisons cease double celling in those units. While the court noted significant concern with prison conditions, including serious fire hazards and sanitation issues, it found them constitutionally adequate. Other sanitation issues, such as drinking water sanitation and absence of bedding cleaning procedure, were not found to rise to the level of unconstitutionality. However, the court did find that the constitution did require a level of hygiene in food preparation and kitchen sanitation that the prisons did not meet. The defendants would be required to implement a procedure to ensure basic sanitation practices. Issues of violence were found "endemic" to the system and warranting attention, but also "inevitable" and not unconstitutional. Similarly, it found the healthcare provided to inmates to be constitutionally adequate.

The court mandated that the defendants design a plan to address the constitutionally inadequate conditions and appoint a special master to evaluate the defendants' plan. Other remedial orders were issued by the court in this case, such as enjoining defendants from keeping prisoners in confinement without physical exercise for longer than one week. The defendants appointed Patrick D. McManus. In 1987, the court ordered the plans to be completed by 1992.

In a separate litigation concerning inmate populations at Tennessee penal institutions governed by the Grubbs population orders, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals (Judges Merritt, Nelson, and Lievely), remanded the case to the judge presiding over the Grubbs decree to oversee proceedings in that case consistent with the Grubbs order. Roberts v. Tennessee Department of Correction, 887 F.2d 1281. The Sixth Circuit noted that the Grubbs court should have jurisdiction of all matters pertaining to population limits and other matters of the Grubbs decree, and transferred the case to that judge.

On May 14, 1993, the matter came before the court regarding terminating the class action. The court (Judge Thomas A. Higgins) determined that conditions within Tennessee prisons had improved sufficiently to warrant the almost complete termination of court supervision, vacating and dissolving the injunction. Grubbs v. Bradley, 821 F.Supp. 496 (M.D.Tenn. 1993). The court retained jurisdiction in one area to ensure the defendants created a health care quality-assurance program. The court also awarded the plaintiffs' side attorney's fees and costs. The plaintiffs had moved to hold the defendants in contempt for violation of the injunction and the court denied without prejudice in 1999. The PACER docket indicates that defendants complied with this order and the docket ends on October 13, 2000 after several years of compliance review.