Shafer v. Sanchez

The federal district court for the Southern District of Texas denied a motion for preliminary and permanent injunctions by a man incarcerated in a Texas state prison who alleged he was exposed to excessive heat and humidity and infestations of rodents and roaches that constituted unsafe and unhealthy conditions of confinement in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The court said that a 2017 preliminary injunction in a class action alleging an Eighth Amendment violation regarding extreme heat exposure at another Texas prison did not establish that the plaintiff in this case had a substantial likelihood of success on his claim of deliberate indifference to excessive heat. Regarding whether the plaintiff established irreparable injury, the court found that the plaintiff’s citation of testimony from the other case about facility conditions and the effects of climate change did not dispute the finding that temperature conditions at the plaintiff’s facility did not create a current threat to his health.