Battle v. Ledford

• Decision Date: 08 January 2019
• Docket Number: No. 17-6287,17-6287
• Citation: 912 F.3d 708
• Parties: William D. BATTLE, III, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. J. LEDFORD, Correctional Officer; R. Edwards, Correctional Officer; Gregory Holloway, Warden of Wallens Ridge State Prison; George Hinkle, Regional Administrator for Virginia Department of Corrections, Defendants - Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

912 F.3d 708

William D. BATTLE, III, Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.J. LEDFORD, Correctional Officer; R. Edwards, Correctional Officer; Gregory Holloway, Warden of Wallens Ridge State Prison; George Hinkle, Regional Administrator for Virginia Department of Corrections, Defendants - Appellees.

No. 17-6287

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: September 25, 2018

Decided: January 8, 2019

ARGUED: Sarah Crandall, Elizabeth Joynes, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF LAW, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Michelle Shane Kallen, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF VIRGINIA, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Joseph Charlet, Third Year Law Student, Megan Keenan, Third Year Law Student, Evan Ward, Third Year Law Student, Appellate Litigation Clinic, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF LAW, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Mark R. Herring, Attorney General, Trevor S. Cox, Acting Solicitor General, Laura H. Cahill, Assistant Attorney General, Matthew R. McGuire, Deputy Solicitor General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF VIRGINIA, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees.

Before MOTZ, DUNCAN, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.

Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Judge Motz wrote the opinion, in which Judge Duncan and Judge Thacker joined.

DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge:

The Prison Litigation Reform Act requires a prisoner to exhaust administrative remedies before filing suit. When a prisoner filed this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 after exhausting those remedies, the district court held the statute of limitations barred his suit. For the reasons that follow, we vacate and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

William D. Battle, III, entered Wallens Ridge State Prison in Roanoke, Virginia, on December 6, 2013. After Battle completed the inmate intake process, corrections officers J. Ledford and R. Edwards (collectively, "the officers") escorted him to his assigned housing unit. A physical altercation between Battle and the officers occurred along the way.

The officers subsequently filed a disciplinary report against Battle. They charged that Battle, who was restrained in handcuffs and leg irons

during the transfer, used his body to push one of the officers into a food cart. According to the officers, they subdued Battle by "plac[ing]" him on the ground. Battle disputed this account before a prison hearing administrator. He denied shoving any officer and instead claimed that a pain in his ankle caused him to trip. He stated that the officers responded with unnecessary violence: pulling his hair and slamming his head into the concrete floor, causing "bruising, lacerations, [and] swelling of the face." Battle requested that the hearing administrator examine video footage of the incident to corroborate his account.

The hearing administrator declined to do so; instead, he simply credited the officers’ version of the incident. After unsuccessfully appealing this decision to the prison’s chief warden, Battle submitted a second appeal to the regional corrections administrator. On February 27, 2014, the regional administrator rejected Battle’s claim and issued a form confirming that Battle had reached the "last level of appeal for this grievance." A total of 83 days had passed since the altercation.

On January 11, 2016 — two years and 36 days after the altercation — Battle completed a postage request for a pro se § 1983 complaint alleging the officers used excessive force against him, in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.¹ The parties accept that this postage request establishes the filing date.

The officers moved for summary judgment, arguing that Battle filed outside Virginia’s two-year statute of limitations applicable to § 1983 claims filed within the jurisdiction. See Va. Code Ann. § 8.01-243(A) (setting limitations for personal injury actions). Battle countered that his complaint was timely because 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) of the Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA") required him to exhaust available administrative remedies before bringing a § 1983 claim. He argued that the 83 days during which he participated in the required exhaustion should be tolled under two Virginia statutes and federal law, thus extending his filing deadline to February 27, 2016.²

The first state statute on which Battle relied, Va. Code § 8.01-229(K), suspends the statute of limitations for personal injury actions during criminal proceedings. The second, Va. Code § 8.01-195.3(7), governs actions brought under the Virginia Tort Claims Act ("VTCA") and tolls the time for filing a claim notice during the pendency of a prison grievance process. Additionally, Battle relied on federal equitable tolling law.

The district court considered only Battle’s argument as to Va. Code § 8.01-229(K). It held that statute could not be used to toll Battle’s limitations period because a "prison disciplinary proceeding is not a criminal prosecution." Battle v. Ledford , No. 7:16CV00020, 2017 WL 432822, at *3 n.5 (W.D. Va. Jan. 30, 2017) (citing Wolff v. McDonnell , 418 U.S. 539, 556, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974) ). The court then granted the officers’ motion for summary judgment, concluding that Battle filed his complaint 36 days too late.

On appeal, Battle concedes that the district court properly rejected his claim under Va. Code Ann. § 8.01-229(K). He maintains, however, that the court overlooked his claims of state statutory tolling under the VTCA and federal equitable tolling, and so erred in deeming his complaint time-barred.

We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo. Henry v. Purnell , 652 F.3d 524, 531 (4th Cir. 2011) (en banc). Summary judgment is appropriate only when "there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).

II.

Congress did not provide fixed timing rules in § 1983 or its companion provision, § 1988.³ Instead, Congress specified that gaps in § 1983"should be filled by state law, as long as that law is not inconsistent with federal law." Hardin v. Straub , 490 U.S. 536, 538, 109 S.Ct. 1998, 104 L.Ed.2d 582 (1989).

The Supreme Court has directed that we apply a state’s "statute of limitations governing general personal injury actions" when considering § 1983 claims. Owens v. Okure , 488 U.S. 235, 251, 109 S.Ct. 573, 102 L.Ed.2d 594 (1989). A state’s limitations and tolling rules are to be followed unless doing so "defeat[s] either § 1983 ’s chief goals of compensation and deterrence or its subsidiary goals of uniformity and federalism." Hardin , 490 U.S. at 539, 109 S.Ct. 1998 (footnote omitted). If Virginia law allows tolling of Battle’s limitations period, that ends the inquiry. See id. at 543, 109 S.Ct. 1998 (establishing that states may grant extensions to prisoners consistent with § 1983 ). If not, Battle’s claim may survive only if federal equitable principles apply to his case.

A.

Virginia lacks a generally applicable statute that pauses limitations to accommodate administrative exhaustion requirements. See Va. Code Ann. § 8.01-229 (enumerating eleven unrelated exceptions suspending tolling limitations periods).⁴ Battle thus asks us to borrow a tolling provision in the Virginia Tort Claims Act. He does so on the theory that he could have brought suit under that law for the same actions against the same parties.

To bring suit under the VTCA, a person must provide a notice of claim to the state "within one year after the cause of action accrues" as a precursor to litigation. Va. Code Ann. § 8.01-195.7. The claimant must file a complaint in court "within 18 months of the filing of the notice of claim, or within two years after the cause of action accrues." Id . If the claimant is a state prisoner, the VTCA provides that the "time for filing the notice of tort claim shall be tolled during the pendency of the grievance procedure." Va. Code Ann. § 8.01-195.3(7).

The VTCA does not save Battle’s claims for two reasons. First, the VTCA operates on a tighter schedule than § 1983. It gives a plaintiff only one year to assert his rights, plus exhaustion. The VTCA’s tolling provision would thus afford Battle one year and 83 days to take legal action.

Second, and more fundamentally, the VTCA does not govern suits against state employees like the one Battle brings here. Rather, it provides a limited waiver of sovereign immunity that "applies to one type of litigation, tort actions against the Commonwealth."

Ogunde v. Virginia , 271 Va. 639, 628 S.E.2d 370, 373 (2006). But § 1983 does the reverse: it applies only to state officials, not states themselves. See Will v. Mich. Dep’t of State Police , 491 U.S. 58, 66, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989). Because Battle could not have substituted a VTCA claim for a § 1983 action, the VTCA’s tolling provision cannot be integrated into the federal scheme.

B.

When state statutory tolling rules provide no relief to a prisoner seeking to bring a § 1983 claim, some courts have turned to state equitable tolling rules to suspend limitations during the mandated exhaustion period. See Heck v. Humphrey , 997 F.2d 355, 358 (7th Cir. 1993) (applying state equitable tolling to suspend limitations period for § 1983 plaintiff seeking to bring habeas claim), aff’d on other grounds , 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994) ; Rodriguez v. Holmes , 963 F.2d 799, 804–05 (5th Cir. 1992) (same).

Under Virginia law, equitable estoppel provides the only arguable exception to the Commonwealth’s general rule against "recogniz[ing] any non-statutory basis for tolling" limitations. City of Bedford v. James Leffel & Co. , 558 F.2d 216, 217 (4th Cir. 1977) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Casey v. Merck & Co. , 283 Va. 411, 722 S.E.2d 842, 845 (2012) ("A statute of limitations may not be tolled, or an exception applied, in the absence of a clear statutory enactment to such effect." (internal quotation marks omitted) ).

To invoke equitable estoppel under...