Hurst v. Hederman
| Decision Date | 23 May 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. 77 C 4741.,77 C 4741. |
| Citation | 451 F. Supp. 1354 |
| Parties | Joseph R. HURST, Plaintiff, v. Raymond HEDERMAN, C. Domanski, H. Mahoney and J. Coleman, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Joseph R. Hurst, pro se.
William R. Quinlan, Corp. Counsel, Nicholas F. Trovato, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Chicago, Ill., for defendants.
This is an action brought by a prisoner in state custody alleging a violation of his civil rights, 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In March of 1967, plaintiff was arrested and charged with the murder of a Chicago police officer. During the arrest, plaintiff charges he was beaten and rendered unconscious by defendants, four other Chicago police officers. Plaintiff was subsequently found guilty of murder and his conviction was affirmed. 42 Ill.2d 217, 247 N.E.2d 614 (1969). He has been in continuous custody since his arrest. Before the court at this time is defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint as untimely and barred by the statute of limitations.
Ordinarily, claims under the Civil Rights Act are subject to the five year statute of limitations of Chpt. 83, § 16, Ill.Rev.Stat. (1969). Beard v. Robinson, 563 F.2d 331 (7th Cir., 1977). However, the present case involves an extraordinary set of circumstances which require a determination of whether the statute of limitations has been tolled as a result of Hurst's incarceration.
Chpt. 83, § 22, Ill.Rev.Stat. (1976) provides in relevant part:
If a person entitled to bring an action . . . is at the time the cause of action accrued . . . imprisoned on a criminal charge, he or she may bring the action within two years after the disability is removed.
Section 22 reflects an attitude, found in many state legislative schemes, that justice would not be served by barring an individual from vindicating his rights when he cannot by his own actions comply with the statute's time limit for bringing his suit. Gordon & Tennenbaum, Conclusive Presumption Analysis: The Principle of Individual Opportunity, 71 Nw.L.Rev., 579, 604 (1976). Plaintiff has been in custody since his arrest in 1967 and consequently since the alleged misconduct by defendants. This, according to plaintiff, is "imprisonment" within the meaning of § 22 and serves to toll the 5 year statute of limitations. Defendants seek to avoid this result by arguing that the tolling provision does not apply because the disability of imprisonment did not exist when the cause of action accrued but rather the disability only took place after Hurst was convicted and sentenced. In other words, defendants argue that plaintiff's confinement during the period between when the cause of action accrued and sentencing does not constitute "imprisonment on a criminal charge".
No case by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has directly addressed this issue from this perspective. It is therefore a case of first...
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Smith v. LaFollette
...incarceration is the touchstone for determining disability by incarceration." Bianchi, 909 F.2d at 1318; see also Hurst v. Hederman, 451 F.Supp. 1354, 1355 (N.D.Ill.1987). However, plaintiff was not incarcerated continuously from the time he was charged. This case differs from Knox v. Cook ......
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Winston v. Sanders
...(N.D.Ill.1982); Hampton v. Hanrahan, 522 F.Supp. 140 (N.D.Ill.1981); Hermes v. Hein, 479 F.Supp. 820 (N.D.Ill.1979); Hurst v. Hederman, 451 F.Supp. 1354, 1355 (N.D.Ill.1978); Canada v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 446 F.Supp. 1048 (N.D.Ill.1978); Lawson v. Metropolitan Sanitary District of ......
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Evans v. Hebert
...of their arrest." Id. at 907. In doing so, it adopted the rule set forth in two federal district court decisions, Hurst v. Hederman, 451 F.Supp. 1354, 1355 (N.D.Ill.1978), and Nance v. Lane, 663 F.Supp. 33, 35 (N.D.Ill.1987): "Where a plaintiff is imprisoned from the date of his arrest (at ......
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Pardy v. United States, Civ. No. 82-3069.
...from pursuing his claim when he cannot by his own actions comply with the statute's time limit for bringing his suit. Hurst v. Hederman, 451 F.Supp. 1354 (N.D. Ill.1978) citing Gordon & Tennebaum, Conclusive Presumption Analysis: The Principle of Individual Opportunity, 71 N.W.L. Rev. 579, ......