Barkley v. Woodbury Cnty., Iowa, No. C 10-4106-MWB
| Court | United States District Courts. 8th Circuit. Northern District of Iowa |
| Writing for the Court | MARK W. BENNETT |
| Parties | MELINDA BARKLEY, VICKIE DAWDY, BEN CURRY, JENNIFER CURRY, and SHANIN SIMON, Plaintiffs, v. WOODBURY COUNTY, IOWA, GLENN J. PARRETT, individually and as Sheriff of Woodbury County, and ROBERT E. ASPLEAF, individually and as Assistant Chief/Deputy Sheriff of Woodbury County, Defendants. |
| Docket Number | No. C 10-4106-MWB |
| Decision Date | 23 May 2012 |
MELINDA BARKLEY, VICKIE DAWDY,
BEN CURRY, JENNIFER CURRY, and SHANIN SIMON, Plaintiffs,
v.
WOODBURY COUNTY, IOWA, GLENN J. PARRETT, individually
and as Sheriff of Woodbury County, and ROBERT E. ASPLEAF, individually
and as Assistant Chief/Deputy Sheriff of Woodbury County, Defendants.
No. C 10-4106-MWB
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF IOWA WESTERN DIVISION
Dated: May 23, 2012
I. INTRODUCTION...........................................................................3
A. Factual Background...............................................................4
B. Procedural Background...........................................................6
C. The Denial Of Class Certification In The Predecessor Case.............10
D. Arguments Of The Parties......................................................13
II. LEGAL ANALYSIS......................................................................15
A. Applicable Standards.............................................................15
1. Rule 12(b)(6) and the statute of limitations.........................15
2. The applicable statute of limitations ..................................16
3. The tolling rule for members of a prior putative class............17
a. The general rule..................................................17
b. Individual claims vs. class claims.............................18
c. The tolling period ................................................25
d. The controlling reasons for the prior denial................34
Page 2
B. Application Of The Standards.................................................. 39
1. Prerequisites to application of tolling rules ......................... 39
2. The tolling period ........................................................ 41
3. Alternative conclusions.................................................. 42
III. CONCLUSION ............................................................................ 44
Persons arrested on serious misdemeanor charges assert individual and class claims that they were unconstitutionally strip-searched pursuant to an across-the-board jail policy without individualized determinations of probable cause or reasonable suspicion. The question on the defendants' motion to dismiss now before me, however, is not the merits of the plaintiffs' claims, but whether their claims are barred by the applicable statute of limitations and my denial of class certification in a predecessor case involving nearly identical claims of a nearly identical putative class.1 Thus, the motion to dismiss requires me to probe the workings of the so-called "American Pipe rule"2 to determine whether the statute of limitations was tolled on the individual and class claims of putative class members in this case during the pendency of the request to certify the putative class action in the predecessor case.
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"When ruling on a defendant's motion to dismiss, a judge must accept as true all of the factual allegations contained in the complaint." Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (citing Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555-56 (2007)). Thus, the factual background to a motion to dismiss must necessarily be drawn from the plaintiffs' factual allegations. However, while the defendants' motion to dismiss was pending in this case, the plaintiffs were allowed to amend their Complaint in a manner that they represented had no effect upon the issues raised in the motion to dismiss. I agree that the latest amendment to the plaintiffs' Complaint does not have any impact on the issues raised in the motion to dismiss. Indeed, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss and supporting brief in response to the latest amendment of the complaint that are essentially identical to their prior motion to dismiss and supporting brief. Moreover, the latest amendment dropped one of the original named plaintiffs and added three others.3 For practical reasons, then, the factual background presented here is not drawn from the plaintiffs' December 3, 2010, Amended Class Action Complaint And Jury Demand (Amended Complaint) (docket no. 4), which was the operative pleading at the time that the defendants filed their motion to dismiss, but from the plaintiffs' May 10, 2012, Second Amended Class Action Complaint And Jury Demand (Second Amended Complaint) (docket no. 27).
Page 4
Plaintiffs Melinda Barkley, Vickie Dawdy, Ben Curry, Jennifer Curry (then known as Jennifer McGrain), and Shanin Simon (the Barkley Plaintiffs) allege that they were each citizens of Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa, and that each was arrested for a serious misdemeanor between February 1, 2006, and October 15, 2007, then booked into the Woodbury County Jail. Specifically, Barkley alleges that, on September 25, 2006, she was arrested on a serious misdemeanor charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated (OWI), first offense, in violation of Iowa Code § 321J.2; Dawdy alleges that, on July 18, 2007, she was arrested on a serious misdemeanor shoplifting charge; Ben Curry alleges that, on July 19, 2007, he was arrested on a serious misdemeanor OWI charge; Jennifer Curry alleges that, on July 10, 2007, she was arrested on a serious misdemeanor OWI charge; and Simon alleges that, on November 12, 2006, she was arrested on a serious misdemeanor OWI charge. Each plaintiff, with the exception of Simon, alleges that, upon being booked into the Woodbury County Jail after her or his arrest, an officer of the same sex as the plaintiff placed the plaintiff in an adjacent room, instructed the plaintiff to remove her or his clothes, including undergarments, for a strip search, and then told the plaintiff to turn around and spread the plaintiff's butt checks, so that the jailer could conduct a visual inspection of the plaintiff's body cavities (anal or anal and vaginal, as the case may be). Barkley and Jennifer Curry allege that the door to the room in which their searches were conducted was not completely shut, and Jennifer Curry alleges that male officers actually watched her strip search. Barkley, Dawdy, and the Currys allege that the door to the room had a window that allowed anyone who wanted to observe the strip search to do so. Simon alleges that she was too intoxicated to comply with instructions and was not able to remain entirely conscious, so that she was forcibly strip searched by both male and female jailers. The Barkley Plaintiffs allege that no weapons or
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contraband were found during their searches. Each alleges that she or he was searched without probable cause to believe that such a search was necessary.
The Barkley Plaintiffs allege that, from at least 1980 until October 15, 2007, Woodbury County, through the Woodbury County Jail, maintained an unwritten blanket policy, regulation, official decision, custom, or usage to conduct strip searches, including visual body cavity inspection, of pretrial detainees. They allege that this policy provided that any person arrested on a charge of a serious misdemeanor and booked into the Woodbury County Jail, including anyone who was not admitted to the general jail population, was strip searched without any individualized, reasonable suspicion, based on articulable facts, that the person to be strip-searched was concealing contraband, drugs, or weapons, and without regard to the scope of the particular intrusion, the manner in which the strip search was conducted, the justification for initiating the strip search, and the place in which the strip search was conducted. They allege that the unwritten policy failed to weigh the need for the strip searches of serious misdemeanor arrestees against the invasion of personal rights that the searches entailed, and violated their right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, all in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. They also allege that the strip searches, including visual body cavity inspections, conducted pursuant to the unwritten policy were demeaning, dehumanizing, undignified, humiliating, terrifying, unpleasant, embarrassing, repulsive, and signified degradation and submission, thereby...
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