Robinson v. Doe
| Citation | 272 F.3d 921 |
| Decision Date | 26 November 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-1004,00-1004 |
| Parties | (7th Cir. 2001) Ronald Robinson, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John Doe, et al., Defendants-Appellees |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit) |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. No. 99 C 1073--Joe B. McDade, Chief Judge.
Before Posner, Manion, and Rovner, Circuit Judges.
The plaintiff sued several police officers under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983, charging that they had used excessive force in arresting him; he was later convicted of a drug offense, partly because of evidence (crack cocaine plus cash) seized in a search that accompanied the arrest. The district court dismissed the suit as barred by the two-year statute of limitations applicable to such claims. The plaintiff had mailed his complaint to the district court within the two-year period but it had been returned to him without being filed, pursuant to Rule 16.3(A)(8) of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, because it was unaccompanied by a filing fee or, in lieu of the fee, a motion to proceed in forma pauperis, that is, without paying the fee.
The statute of limitations in a suit based on federal law, as this one is, stops running when the complaint is filed, e.g., Henderson v. United States, 517 U.S. 654, 657 n. 2 (1996); Williams- Guice v. Chicago Board of Education, 45 F.3d 161, 162 (7th Cir. 1995); Gilardi v. Schroeder, 833 F.2d 1226, 1233 (7th Cir. 1987); Martin v. Demma, 831 F.2d 69, 71 (5th Cir. 1987), though it may resume running later. Williams-Guice v. Chicago Board of Education, supra, 45 F.3d at 164-65; Elmore v. Henderson, 227 F.3d 1009, 1011 (7th Cir. 2000). The complaint is "filed" for purposes of this rule when the court clerk receives the complaint, not when it is formally filed in compliance with all applicable rules involving filing fees and the like, Martin v. Demma, supra, 831 F.2d at 71; for a "clerk shall not refuse to accept for filing any paper presented for that purpose solely because it is not presented in proper form as required by these rules or any local rules." Fed. R. Civ. P. 5(e) (emphasis added). And so the Central District's Rule 16.3(A)(8) could not compress the time within which the plaintiff, once he filed his complaint-- albeit not in proper form, because unaccompanied by the fee or in lieu thereof by a motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis--could sue. E.g., Gilardi v. Schroeder, supra, 833 F.2d at 1233; Ordonez v. Johnson, 254 F.3d 814 (9th Cir. 2001) (per curiam); McDowell v. Delaware State Police, 88 F.3d 188, 190- 91 (3d Cir. 1996). The Committee Note to Fed. R. Civ. P. 5(e) disapproves of the practice of returning complaints that don't comply with local rules, but in any event that practice cannot defeat a right, which in this case is a right to arrest the running of the statute of limitations by filing a complaint in the district court, that is conferred by the national rules. Fed. R. Civ. P. 83; GCIU Employer Retirement Fund v. Chicago Tribune Co., 8 F.3d 1195, 1201 (7th Cir. 1993); Brown v. Crawford County, 960 F.2d 1002, 1008 (11th Cir. 1992); Carver v. Bunch, 946 F.2d 451, 453 (6th Cir. 1991).
All this would be of little moment in this case if the plaintiff's case were so lacking in merit that it could not survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. And it might seem that since he was convicted on the basis of evidence obtained as an incident to the arrest that he is challenging, his suit is indeed barred at the threshold, by Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994). Not so. He isn't challenging the arrest, or the seizure of evidence pursuant to it, but the (alleged) use of excessive force by the police in effecting the arrest. It might appear that because the defendants deny having used excessive force, the plaintiff could not prevail in this suit without proving them to be liars; and that would undermine the testimony on the basis of which the arrest itself and the search incident to it were held lawful in Robinson's criminal trial. Not necessarily. Police might well use excessive force in effecting a perfectly lawful arrest. And so a claim of excessive force in making an arrest does not require overturning the plaintiff's conviction even though the conviction was based in part on a determination that the arrest itself was lawful. Nelson v. Jashurek, 109 F.3d 142, 145-46 (3d Cir. 1997); see also Washington v. Summerville, 127 F.3d 552, 556 (7th Cir. 1997); Ove v. Gwinn, 264 F.3d 817, 823 (9th Cir. 2001); Willingham v. Loughnan, 261 F.3d 1178, 1183 (11th Cir. 2001); Jackson v. Suffolk County Homicide Bureau, 135 F.3d 254, 257 (2d Cir. 1998); cf. Heck v. Humphrey, supra, 512 U.S. at 487 n. 7; Gonzalez v. Entress, ...
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...the Heck analysis. The question in this case is what a California resisting arrest conviction establishes. The citation to Robinson v. Doe, 272 F.3d 921 (7th Cir.2001), and other federal cases arising from other states, where the criminal law is different, sheds no light on the matter. In I......
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...running on a plaintiff's claims once he files his complaint or joins an existing lawsuit. 29 U.S.C. § 256(a) ; see Robinson v. Doe , 272 F.3d 921, 922 (7th Cir. 2001) ("The statute of limitations in a suit based on federal law ... stops running when the complaint is filed."). In FLSA collec......
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...that "[t]he statute of limitations in a suit based on federal law ... stops running when the complaint is filed," Robinson v. Doe , 272 F.3d 921, 922 (7th Cir. 2001), that does not appear to be the rule in a FLSA case where the plaintiff asserts claims "individually and on behalf of others ......
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