Walker v. Jastremski, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT
| Decision Date | 01 August 2001 |
| Docket Number | DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES,PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT,Docket No. 97-2721 |
| Citation | 274 F.3d 652 |
| Parties | (2nd Cir. 2001) JEFFREY A. WALKER,, v. DAVID JASTREMSKI, ET AL., |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Appeal from the dismissal of an action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging a conspiracy to fabricate and distort evidence used in a criminal prosecution. Vacated and remanded.
Jeffrey A. Walker, pro se, White Deer, Pa, for plaintiff-appellant.
Jerome A. Lacobelle, Jr., Deputy Corporation Counsel, City of West Haven, CT (Michael P. Farrell, Corporation Counsel, City of West Haven, on the brief) for defendants-appellees David Jastremski and Charles Buerer; Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General, and Jane B. Emons, Assistant Attorney General, State of Connecticut, of counsel, for defendant-appellee Frank Halloran).
Before: Cardamone, Calabresi, and Straub, Circuit Judges.
Jeffrey A. Walker, pro se and in forma pauperis, appeals from the dismissal of his action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against David Jastremski, Charles Buerer, Frank Halloran, and Tjandra Tedja. Walker alleges that the defendants conspired to fabricate and distort the evidence that was used to bring a state criminal prosecution against him. The United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Nevas, J.) granted summary judgment for the defendants, ruling that Walker's complaint was barred by the applicable statute of limitations. In a previous opinion, we affirmed the court's rejection of Walker's claim for equitable tolling due to fraudulent concealment. Walker v. Jastremski, 159 F.3d 117 (2d Cir. 1998). Based upon an argument Walker first presented on appeal -- whether the principles of Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266 (1988), should apply to the circumstances of his case -- we, however, vacated the order to close the case. Because deciding the case in light of Walker's Houston argument implicated facts that were not available in the record, we remanded the case to the district court for additional findings. Given these findings, we conclude that Walker's case properly presents a Houston issue and we remand the case to the district court for consideration of that question.
Familiarity with the facts of the case as set forth in Walker, 159 F.3d at 118, is assumed. While incarcerated in a federal prison, Walker filed a state court motion for the production of his arrest warrant and other information regarding state criminal charges, which had been dismissed on April 16, 1991 for lack of sufficient evidence. In due course, Walker received the documents. Based upon his review of these documents and the information contained in them, he allegedly discovered a violation of his civil rights. He subsequently filed this § 1983 action in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut.
On August 1, 1997, a federal magistrate recommended that summary judgment be entered against Walker on the grounds that the statute of limitations had run. The district court adopted the magistrate's recommendation and dismissed Walker's suit.
On Walker's appeal, we found that "the district court's decision was correct when considered in light of the arguments advanced at that stage of the litigation." Id. at 118. But in his appeal, Walker also argued for the first time that the principles of Houston should apply to toll the statute of limitations during the lag between the time when a pro se prisoner delivers to prison officials a request for court documents needed to prepare a complaint and the time when the prisoner receives those documents. Because certain key facts were unavailable in the record before us, we were unable to determine whether the Houston question arose in Walker's case. That is, we could not tell whether applying Houston would make Walker's suit timely. We, therefore, remanded the case to the district court to make factual findings with respect to the dates when Walker requested his file from the state court and when he filed his § 1983 complaint.
On remand, the district court found: (1) that Walker delivered his motion for the production of records to prison officials on February 8, 1994; (2) that the motion reached the Milford Superior Court sometime in late April 1994; (3) that the court clerk mailed the documents to Walker on May 5, 1994; and (4) that Walker received copies of the requested information, including the arrest warrant, on May 9, 1994. We assume these findings are correct. We find, however, that the district court erred in concluding that Walker filed his federal complaint on June 18, 1994. According to the evidence adduced by that court, Walker delivered his complaint to prison officials on June 8, 1994. Under the well- settled application of Houston to the filing of federal complaints, see Dory v. Ryan, 999 F.2d 679, 682 (2d Cir. 1993), Walker's § 1983 action must be treated as filed on June 8, 1994.
On the basis of these dates, we conclude that if Houston applies to the time lapse between Walker's request for collateral documents and his receipt of these papers, his § 1983 action would be timely. Applying Houston would have the effect of placing Walker, a pro se prisoner, in the same position as a non-incarcerated or counseled litigant who is able personally to travel to the courthouse, or to send a legal representative to do so, and hence to receive the requested documents forthwith. In this respect, we note that the parties have discussed the potential tolling period as the time between when Walker delivered the motion to the prison officials (February 8, 1994) and when he received the document (May 9, 1994). Included in this period, however, is the time during which the state court clerk processed Walker's request (sometime in "late April" 1994 until May 5, 1994)....
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