Cabrales v. County of Los Angeles

• Decision Date: 17 October 1986
• Docket Number: No. CV84-8084-MRP(Px).,CV84-8084-MRP(Px).
• Citation: 644 F. Supp. 1352
• Court: U.S. District Court — Central District of California
• Parties: Josefina CABRALES, individually and as Administratrix of the Estate of her deceased son, Sergio Alvarez, Ephraim Alvarez, Jr., Angelina Alvarez Irizarry, and Francisco Alvarez, all the natural siblings of their deceased brother, Sergio Alvarez, and Michael L. Harper, Plaintiffs, v. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES; E. Bryant, S. Garren, R. Lowery, C. McCullough, J. Merrifield, J. Rivera, Deputy Wilson, J. Young, Deputy Baytos, Deputy Collins, D. Stothers, Deputy Odenthal, R. Tardiff, Deputy Vandurro, K. Mannis, R. Simmons, J. Barrett, S. Reed, Deputy Miller, Samuel Sanders, Dan Burt, Daniel Keck, Joseph Barrett, Ronald Black, and Sherman Block, Defendants.

644 F. Supp. 1352

Josefina CABRALES, individually and as Administratrix of the Estate of her deceased son, Sergio Alvarez, Ephraim Alvarez, Jr., Angelina Alvarez Irizarry, and Francisco Alvarez, all the natural siblings of their deceased brother, Sergio Alvarez, and Michael L. Harper, Plaintiffs, v. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES; E. Bryant, S. Garren, R. Lowery, C. McCullough, J. Merrifield, J. Rivera, Deputy Wilson, J. Young, Deputy Baytos, Deputy Collins, D. Stothers, Deputy Odenthal, R. Tardiff, Deputy Vandurro, K. Mannis, R. Simmons, J. Barrett, S. Reed, Deputy Miller, Samuel Sanders, Dan Burt, Daniel Keck, Joseph Barrett, Ronald Black, and Sherman Block, Defendants.

No. CV84-8084-MRP(Px).

United States District Court, C.D. California.

September 3, 1986.

On Motions to Dismiss and for Summary Judgment October 17, 1986.

Stephen Yagman and Marion R. Yagman, Yagman & Yagman, Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiff.

De Witt W. Clinton, County Counsel by Kevin C. Brazile, Sr. Associate County Counsel, Los Angeles, Cal., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT VARGAS' MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION

PFAELZER, District Judge.

Defendant Dr. M. James Vargas' motion for reconsideration came on for hearing before the Honorable Mariana R. Pfaelzer on August 11, 1986. The Court, having considered the papers filed and the oral arguments made, grants the motion and orders that defendant Vargas be dismissed from this action.

I. BACKGROUND

On January 3, 1984 Sergio Alvarez ("Alvarez") committed suicide while incarcerated in the Los Angeles County Jail ("Jail"). Plaintiffs, heirs and survivors of Alvarez, filed this action on October 18, 1984 seeking compensatory and punitive damages for alleged violations of Alvarez's civil rights. In their original complaint, plaintiffs named only the City and County of Los Angeles as defendants. Subsequently, plaintiffs amended their complaint several times, dropping the City of Los Angeles and adding individual deputy sheriffs as defendants.

On April 18, 1986 plaintiffs filed their fifth amended complaint naming Dr. M. James Vargas ("Vargas"), a Jail psychiatrist, as a defendant. Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, plaintiffs allege that Vargas violated Alvarez's eighth amendment rights by acting with deliberate indifference towards Alvarez's medical needs. Although plaintiffs had referred to unknown deputy sheriffs in their prior complaints, no mention had been made of a Jail psychiatrist as a possible defendant. Indeed, in the third and fourth amended complaints plaintiffs state, "All defendants are California peace officers except any governmental entity defendant."

Vargas moved to dismiss the complaint, contending in part that the statute of limitations barred plaintiffs' claims against him. The Court denied the motion on June 9, 1986. Subsequently, Vargas filed this motion for reconsideration on the statute of limitations issue.

II. DISCUSSION

The claims in this action accrued on January 3, 1984, the date of Alvarez's suicide. At that time, the statute of limitations governing § 1983 actions in California was three years. Indeed, for more than twenty years the Ninth Circuit had held that the three-year statute of limitations for actions "upon a liability created by a statute" set forth in California Code of Civil Procedure § 338(1) governed all § 1983 claims brought in California. See Smith v. Cremins, 308 F.2d 187 (9th Cir.1962).

On April 17, 1985 the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985). In Wilson, the Supreme Court held that all § 1983 claims are to be governed by state statutes of limitations for personal injury actions. In California, Wilson mandates that the appropriate statute of limitations for § 1983 claims is the one year statute provided in California Code of Civil Procedure § 340.

The Ninth Circuit has addressed the question of whether Wilson should be granted retroactive application on two occasions. In Rivera v. Green, 775 F.2d 1381 (9th Cir.1985) the Ninth Circuit applied Wilson retroactively to a § 1983 action brought in Arizona where such retroactive application served to lengthen the statute of limitations period. However, in Gibson v. United States, 781 F.2d 1334 (9th Cir. 1985), the Ninth Circuit refused to apply Wilson retroactively to shorten the statute of limitations governing a § 1983 action filed in California. In both Rivera and Gibson, the Ninth Circuit addressed the issue of retroactive application with respect to actions that were filed prior to Wilson. Here, however, plaintiffs did not file their claims against Vargas until April 18, 1986, more than a year after the Wilson decision.¹

This case raises the open question of how Wilson should apply to claims that accrued prior to, but were filed after the date Wilson was decided.² To resolve this issue, the Court must apply the three-part test set forth by the Supreme Court in Chevron Oil v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 92 S.Ct. 349, 30 L.Ed.2d 296 (1971) for determining whether to apply a new rule of law retroactively. These three factors are: (1) whether the decision establishes a new principle of law; (2) whether retroactive application will further or retard the purposes of the rule in question; and (3) whether retroactive application will produce substantial inequitable results. Chevron, supra, at 106-07, 92 S.Ct. at 355.

A. THE CHEVRON TEST

In applying the Chevron criteria, the Court is guided by the Ninth Circuit's analysis in Gibson v. United States, supra. As explained in Gibson, the first Chevron factor counsels against retroactive application of the one year statute of limitations because Wilson marked "a clear break from settled circuit authority" which had long established a three-year statute of limitations for § 1983 claims brought in California. Gibson, supra, at 1339. The second factor is neutral here, as in Gibson, because the Ninth Circuit's "clear consistent enunciation of the previous rule served the chief policy goals articulated in Wilson ...." Id.

The third factor — whether retroactive application will produce inequitable results — counsels against retroactive application under the facts of this case. On the date Wilson was decided, plaintiffs' claims were already more than one year old. Therefore, retroactive application of Wilson would serve to immediately extinguish plaintiffs' claims and to deny plaintiffs the opportunity of filing their action.³ Although plaintiffs' claims were more than a year old, they were well within the three-year statute of limitations on the date Wilson was announced. Consequently, it would produce substantial inequitable results to preclude plaintiffs from filing their § 1983 claims by granting Wilson retroactive effect.

Weighing the three Chevron factors together, the Court concludes that Wilson should not be applied retroactively to deny plaintiffs the opportunity to file an action on a claim which had accrued and was still timely under the former statute of limitations on the day Wilson was decided. The inquiry, however, does not end here. The Court must next decide how much time plaintiffs should be permitted to file their claims after the Wilson decision was handed down.

B. TIME PERMITTED AFTER WILSON FOR FILING

In Wilson v. Isemingen, 185 U.S. 55, 22 S.Ct. 573, 46 L.Ed. 804 (1902), the Supreme Court addressed the issue of applying a new statute of limitations to pre-existing claims and stated:

It may be properly conceded that all statutes of limitation must proceed on the idea that the party has full opportunity afforded him to try his right in the courts. A statute could not bar the existing rights of claimants without affording this opportunity; if it should attempt to do so, it would not be a statute of limitations, but an unlawful attempt to extinguish rights arbitrarily, whatever might be the purport of its provisions. It is essential that such statutes allow a reasonable time after they take effect for the commencement of suits upon existing causes of action....

Id. at 62, 22 S.Ct. at 575.

Subsequent decisions have confirmed that when a legislature or a court establishes a new statute of limitations that would bar pre-accrued claims, plaintiffs must be given a reasonable time or grace period in which to file suit upon such claims. See e.g. Texaco, Inc. v. Short, 454 U.S. 516, 527 n. 21, 102 S.Ct. 781, 791 n. 21, 70 L.Ed.2d 738 (1982).

The Ninth Circuit has applied the "reasonable time" approach in labor cases. The effect of the Supreme Court's opinion in United Parcel Service, Inc. v. Mitchell, 451 U.S. 56, 101 S.Ct. 1559, 67 L.Ed.2d 732 (1981) was to change the statute of limitations for Section 301 actions against employers in Washington from three years to three months, and in California from four years to 100 days. In Barina v. Gulf Trading and Transportation Co., 726 F.2d 560 (9th Cir.1984) the Ninth Circuit held that a California plaintiff's cause of action that accrued nine months prior to Mitchell was timely when filed within two months after the Mitchell decision was announced. However, in Scoggins v. Boeing Co., Inc., 742 F.2d 1225 (9th Cir.1984) the Ninth Circuit held that a Washington plaintiff's cause of action that accrued ten months prior to Mitchell was not timely when filed eight months after the Mitchell decision was announced. Even though Scoggins' action was timely under the prior three-year statute, the Ninth Circuit reasoned:

Scoggins knew the correct statute of limitations eight months before he filed his suit. Unlike the plaintiff in Barina, who quickly filed his lawsuit after the Court announced in Mitchell the shorter statute of limitations, Scoggins delayed filing his lawsuit until eight months after the Mitchell decision.

Scoggins, supra, at 1228-9.

In Scoggins, the Ninth Circuit declined to explicitly set a reasonable time for plaintiffs with pre-accrued claims to timely file their actions after Mitchell. Yet the court's...