Fields v. Board of Higher Educ. of City of New York

• Decision Date: 16 June 1983
• Citation: 94 A.D.2d 202,463 N.Y.S.2d 785
• Parties: , 12 Ed. Law Rep. 116 Jules M. FIELDS, Plaintiff-Respondent v. The BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION OF the CITY OF NEW YORK, City of New York, Martin K. May, and Arthur Hirschfield, Defendants-Appellants, and "Jane Doe", "John Doe" and "James Jones", their names being fictitious and unknown to plaintiff at the present time, Defendants. Thomas PITT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The CITY OF NEW YORK, Richard Nagle, James Mugan, Neil Cronin, William Lyons and "John Doe" and "Richard Roe", being fictitious names, the true names of these police officers of the City of New York, being unknown, Defendants-Respondents.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

Page 785

463 N.Y.S.2d 785

94 A.D.2d 202, 12 Ed. Law Rep. 116

Jules M. FIELDS, Plaintiff-Respondent v. The BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION OF the CITY OF NEW YORK, City

of New York, Martin K. May, and Arthur

Hirschfield, Defendants-Appellants,

and

"Jane Doe", "John Doe" and "James Jones", their names being

fictitious and unknown to plaintiff at the present

time, Defendants.

Thomas PITT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The CITY OF NEW YORK, Richard Nagle, James Mugan, Neil

Cronin, William Lyons and "John Doe" and "Richard Roe",

being fictitious names, the true names of these police

officers of the City of New York, being unknown,

Defendants-Respondents.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division First Department.

June 16, 1983.

Edward F.X. Hart, New York City, of counsel (Ronald E. Sternberg, New York City, with him on the brief; Frederick A.O. Schwarz, Jr., New York City, attorney), for defendants-appellants in Appeal 15635.

Cheryl R. Eisberg, New York City, of counsel (Pamela Anagnos Liapakis, New York City, with her on the brief; Lipsig Sullivan & Liapakis, P.C., New York City, attorneys), for plaintiff-respondent in Appeal 15635.

David M. Goldberg, New York City, of counsel (Robert H. Silk, New York City, with him on the brief; Silk & Bunks, P.C., New York City, attorneys), for plaintiff-appellant in Appeal 15636.

John J. Kearns, New York City, for defendant-respondent Mugan in Appeal 15636.

Before MURPHY, P.J., and ROSS, ASCH, BLOOM, MILONAS and ALEXANDER, JJ.

ALEXANDER, Justice.

Inasmuch as these factually dissimilar appeals present a common issue of law as to the appropriate statute of limitations to be applied in a state action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, we decide them together and hold that the appropriate statute of limitations is found in Civil Practice Law and Rules § 214 [subd. 2].

Jules M. Fields was employed as an Assistant Professor at Bronx Community College from September, 1970 until his retirement in May, 1976, at age 65. In this action, commenced on March 4, 1977, Fields alleges that beginning in 1973, he was harassed, emotionally intimidated, discriminated and conspired against by his superiors at Bronx Community College and was improperly denied a promotion. He charges that these acts were carried out under the guise of internal administrative procedures at the college and therefore that he was denied equal protection and due process of law under "color of State law". He was initially denied promotion in May, 1975, and that denial was ultimately confirmed in November, 1975 after administrative grievance procedures had been exhausted.

Defendants initially served a verified answer in September of 1977 that contained no affirmative defenses. In May of 1981, they moved to amend their answer to assert a defense of statute of limitations and to dismiss the complaint on the ground that it was time barred pursuant to § 50-i of the General Municipal Law.

Special Term, relying on Taylor v. Mayone, 626 F.2d 247 (2nd Cir.1980), denied that branch of the motion based on the 15 month period of limitations contained in § 50-i of the General Municipal Law. Dismissal was granted as to the second and fifth causes of action but denied as to the first and third, which set forth claims for damages resulting from the alleged deprivation of plaintiff's civil rights through harassment, emotional intimidation and denial of a right to promotion, as well as the conspiracy to discriminate and achieve these results. Special Term also left standing plaintiff's fourth cause of action which seeks to recover punitive damages, finding that it was but incidental to the other claims. Defendants appeal that order.

Thomas Pitt alleges that he was set upon by the defendant James Mugan and approximately five other police officers in the early morning hours of June 2, 1979, in a tavern in Washington Heights in Manhattan. He charges that these officers kicked in the locked tavern door, yelled that "everyone was under arrest" and proceeded to knock him to the floor, repeatedly beating him with their riot sticks. Mugan is charged with having smashed the butt end of his revolver into Pitt's head. When another patron in the tavern threatened to report what he had witnessed if the officers carried out their threat to lock up Pitt, the officers left without making any arrest and Pitt was left bleeding from an open wound in his head.

Pitt commenced this action in August of 1980, a year and two months after the accident, charging the police officers and Mugan, whom he believed to be a police officer, with having conspired to violate his civil rights under "color of law" in that they attacked, assaulted and battered him and caused him to be attacked, assaulted and battered, all in violation of his civil rights.

Mugan, who is actually a retired police officer, moved for summary judgment in November of 1980, contending that Pitt's cause of action against him was barred by the one year statute of limitations under CPLR 215(3), which applies to causes of action for assault and battery. Holding that "plaintiff's causes of action sound in assault and battery", and thus that the one year statute of limitations of CPLR 215(3) was "the State's statute of limitation most analogous to the plaintiff's constitutional claim, Special Term granted the motion to dismiss the complaint, and the plaintiff has appealed.

We affirm the denial of the motion to dismiss Field's complaint and reverse the dismissal of Pitt's complaint.

Congress has not provided a federal statute of limitations for actions brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and federal courts are therefore enjoined in such actions to "... apply the most appropriate State statute of limitations". Pauk v. Board of Trustees of City University of New York, 654 F.2d 856, 861 citing Board of Regents v. Tomanio 446 U.S. 478, 100 S.Ct. 1790, 64 L.Ed.2d 440 Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, 421 U.S. 454, 95 S.Ct. 1716, 44 L.Ed.2d 295 [1975].

The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has consistently held that the appropriate statute of limitations for § 1983 actions brought in the federal courts in New York, is CPLR § 214(2), which specifies a three year limitations period for actions to recover upon a liability created or imposed by statute. (See e.g., Pauk v. Board of Trustees of City University of New York, supra Singleton v. The City of New York, 632 F.2d 185 cert. den. 450 U.S. 920, 101 S.Ct. 1368, 67 L.Ed.2d 347; Quinn v. Syracuse Model Neighborhood Corp., 613 F.2d 438 Meyer v. Frank, 550 F.2d 726 cert. den. 434 U.S. 830, 98 S.Ct. 112, 54 L.Ed.2d 90 [1977].)

In Pauk, the Second Circuit considered and rejected the applicability of § 50-i of the General Municipal Law in a circumstance strikingly similar to that presented by Fields. There the claim was that the First Amendment rights of the plaintiff were infringed by the defendants' denial of tenure to him, because of his union activities. Observing that there was an "inexact fit of any of New York's statutes of limitations to § 1983 actions", the Pauk court (p. 861) noted the fact that the application of the one year and ninety day period of limitations under Section 50-i of the General Municipal Law had been specifically rejected in Taylor v. Mayone, supra, and in Quinn v. Syracuse Model Neighborhood Corp., supra. The court observed further, that while those cases involved a choice between the application of Section 50-i and Section 214(2) of the CPLR, the rejection of the shorter limitation period "seems to have been tacitly influenced by concern that a relatively short limitations period would not be consistent with the broad remedial purposes of § 1983". (Pauk, supra at 862).

Commenting further on the imperfect fit of a New York statute of limitations to a § 1983 cause of action, the Pauk court observed that § 50-i applies to personal injury suits and suits to recover for damage to real or personal property caused by the negligence or wrongful acts of a City or its employees and that those "... terms fit precisely actions seeking redress for injuries of the sort that results from common-law torts. A § 1983 suit, remedying what is sometimes called a constitutional tort, affords redress for 'a deprivation ... significantly different from and more serious than ... a State tort', (Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 Harlan, J. concurring)." (at p. 862).

The Pauk court deemed the brevity of the period prescribed by Section 50-i to be incompatible with the purposes of Section 1983. "A Federal court, searching for an analogous State limitations period for a § 1983 suit, should not select any period shorter than the two years Congress has specified as a time within which notice must be given of claims against the United States for unlawful actions by Federal law enforcement officers (cits. omitted.) That expression of Federal policy should establish a floor for the limitations period of § 1983 suits, so many of which concern similar conduct by State law enforcement officers." (Pauk, supra, at 862) (See e.g., Regan v. Sullivan, 557 F.2d 300 Bivens v. Six Unknown Agents, etc. 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 [1971]).

The dissent would follow the reasoning of Special Term in Pitt and characterize Fields' claim as in the "nature of personal injuries," as Special Term in Pitt similarly equated Pitt's claim to a commonlaw action for assault and battery.

Whether or not such characterization and equation could withstand critical analysis, it is manifest, that "some § 1983 claims have counterparts in actions at common-law, the constitutional tort remedied by § 1983 is 'significantly different from 'state torts (cits. omitted) ... A § 1983 claim founded on the Constitution, even if not within the category of claims to which § 214(2) precisely applies as a matter of state law, is sufficiently analogous to such claims to make the limitations period of § 214(2) appropriate as a matter of federal law''. (Pauk, supra, at 866....