Pearman v. Walker, Civ. A. No. 80-550.

• Decision Date: 14 April 1981
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 80-550.
• Citation: 512 F. Supp. 228
• Parties: Debra K. PEARMAN v. Jackie WALKER et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

512 F. Supp. 228

Debra K. PEARMAN v. Jackie WALKER et al.

Civ. A. No. 80-550.

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island.

April 14, 1981.

E. Paul Grimm, Decof & Grimm, Providence, R. I., for plaintiff.

Gerald McG. DeCelles, Providence, R. I., John Deacon, Jr., and Richard M. Borod, Providence, R. I., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

PETTINE, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This Court's jurisdiction stems from 28 U.S.C. §§ 1332 and 1343(3). In her complaint, plaintiff alleges that various individuals, the City of Providence, and the National Railroad Passenger Association, acting under color of state law, violated rights guaranteed to her by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Plaintiff also raises miscellaneous state-law claims. The allegations stem from an incident in which plaintiff claims that defendants unlawfully arrested, harassed, detained, bothered, beat, assaulted, battered and imprisoned her. Defendant City of Providence (City) has now moved, pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, to dismiss plaintiff's action as to it. The City contends, inter alia, that R.I.G.L. § 9-1-25 — which established a two-year statute of limitations for certain actions brought against governmental entities—bars plaintiff's § 1983 action against the City.¹ Plaintiff responds that R.I.G.L. § 9-1-14 — which establishes a three-year limitation period for action for injuries to the person — governs her action. Thus, this Court is confronted with the question whether a § 1983 action against a municipality in Rhode Island is governed by the State's two-year limitation period on actions against municipalities or by the general three-year limitation period on actions for injuries to the person. For the reasons that follow, I conclude that the three-year limitation period set out in § 9-1-14 controls plaintiff's § 1983 action against the City of Providence.

DISCUSSION

R.I.G.L. § 9-1-25 provides as follows:

When a claimant is given the right to sue the state of Rhode Island by a special act of the general assembly, or in cases involving actions or claims in tort against the state or any political subdivision thereof or any city or town, the said action shall be instituted within two (2) years from the effective date of said special act, or within two (2) years of the accrual of any claim of tort. Failure to institute suit within said two (2) year period of time shall constitute a bar to the bringing of said legal action. (emphasis added).

R.I.G.L. § 9-1-14 provides as follows:

Actions for words spoken shall be commenced and sued within one (1) year next after the words spoken, and not after. Actions for injuries to the person shall be commenced and sued within three (3) years next after the cause of action shall accrue, and not after. No action shall be commenced or prosecuted for alienation of affections of a spouse, or any child of the plaintiff and such spouse, nor for the loss of or damages to any rights or privileges based upon the marital relationship between the plaintiff and such spouse more than one (1) year after the cause of action shall have accrued nor, in any event, after the plaintiff and such spouse have lived separate and apart for one (1) year or more. (emphasis added).

Plaintiff initiated the instant action on October 31, 1980 — approximately two and one-half years after the alleged incident. Consequently, if this Court applies the two-year period established in § 9-1-25, plaintiff's action against the City will be time-barred. On the other hand, if the three-year period of § 9-1-14 applies, plaintiff's claim against the City must remain an element of her cause of action. In order to decide which statute applies to plaintiff's action against the City, I must first undertake a review of the relevant legal considerations.

Because 42 U.S.C. § 1983 does not contain its own statute of limitations, courts have uniformly "borrowed" the statute of limitations that would apply to the most analogous state cause of action. Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York v. Tomanio, 446 U.S. 478, 483-84, 100 S.Ct. at 1794-95 (1980); Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U.S. 454, 462, 95 S.Ct. 1716, 1721, 44 L.Ed.2d 295 (1975) (involving action under 42 U.S.C. § 1981); Burns v. Sullivan, 619 F.2d 99, 105 (1st Cir. 1980); Walden, III, Inc. v. State of Rhode Island, 576 F.2d 945, 946 (1st Cir. 1978). As a qualification to the "borrowing" principle, however, courts will not apply a state's statute of limitations or a state's tolling principles if they are "inconsistent with the federal policy underlying the cause of action under consideration." Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, 421 U.S. at 465, 95 S.Ct. at 1722; see Board of Regents v. Tomanio, 446 U.S. at 485, 100 S.Ct. at 1795; Robertson v. Wegmann, 436 U.S. 584, 588, 98 S.Ct. 1991, 1994, 56 L.Ed.2d 554 (1978). Assuming, therefore, that R.I.G.L. § 9-1-25 would apply to an action against a municipality that had been commenced in state court,² the question in this case reduces to whether application of § 9-1-25 to bar plaintiff's § 1983 claim against the City would be inconsistent with the federal policy underlying § 1983.

Analysis of this question must begin with the recognition that in the past § 1983 cases involving a choice of Rhode Island statutes of limitation, this Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit have held that the three-year period set out in § 9-1-14 governs. In Walden, III, Inc. v. State of Rhode Island, 442 F.Supp. 1168 (D.R.I.1977), aff'd, 576 F.2d 945 (1st Cir. 1978), plaintiffs brought a § 1983 action alleging violations of their civil rights in connection with a State Police entry into school premises, the seizure of certain records, the removal of students, and the arrest of school officials. Defendants contended that the action was barred by the three-year limitation established in § 9-1-14. Plaintiffs responded that Rhode Island's six-year "catch-all" provision, § 9-1-13, applied to their action. The District Court, relying on an expansive state court interpretation of the "injuries to the person" language in § 9-1-14,³ held that the three-year provision applied to, and barred, plaintiffs' § 1983 action. 442 F.Supp. at 1172-73. The First Circuit, in affirming, held that the alleged injuries under § 1983 were "properly construed as personal injuries under Rhode Island law." 576 F.2d at 947. In Walden, III, however, the courts did not decide the question whether § 9-1-25 and its two-year period applied to the governmental entities that were sued.⁴ Accordingly, the City's motion to dismiss in the instant action confronts the Court with a question of first impression.

As I stated above, the question in this case really reduces to whether application of the two-year period of § 9-1-25 to bar plaintiff's § 1983 action against the City would be inconsistent with the federal policies underlying § 1983. In order to answer this question, I must first determine why courts look to the "most analogous" state cause of action in determining which state statute of limitations to apply in a § 1983 action. In general, the answer is that the policies served by a state limitations period applicable, for example, to actions for injuries to the person, will also be served by applying the same period in a § 1983 action that involves comparable injuries.⁵ This willingness to borrow state provisions if federal policies are consistent with state policies alleviates the burden on the federal legislature to "cover every issue that may arise in the context of a federal civil rights action." Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U.S. 693, 703, 93 S.Ct. 1785, 1792, 36 L.Ed.2d 596 (1973); see 42 U.S.C. § 1988.

In considering the policies that usually support state limitations statutes, the Supreme Court has stated:

they have long been respected as fundamental to a well-ordered judicial system. Making out the substantive elements of a claim for relief involves a process of pleading, discovery, and trial. The process of discovery and trial which result in the finding of ultimate facts for or against the plaintiff by the judge or jury is obviously more reliable if the witness or testimony in question is relatively fresh. Thus, in the judgment of most legislatures and courts, there comes a point at which the delay of a plaintiff in assessing a claim is sufficiently likely either to impair the accuracy of the fact-finding process or to upset settled expectations that a substantive claim will be barred without respect to whether it is meritorious. Board of Regents v. Tomanio, 446 U.S. 478, 487, 100 S.Ct. 1790, 1796 (1980).

Accordingly, the Supreme Court has noted that "in borrowing a state period of limitation for application to a federal cause of action, a federal court is relying on the State's wisdom in setting a limit ... on the prosecution of a closely analogous claim." Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U.S. at 464, 95 S.Ct. at 1722. Cf. Wilkenson v. Harrington, 104 R.I. 224, 234-37, 243 A.2d 745 (1968) (court discusses policy underpinnings of statutes of limitation).

This deference to the wisdom of states in setting limitations periods for certain kinds of actions explains, then, why courts make reference to analogous "causes of action" when they borrow state statutes of limitation in § 1983 actions. Only a statute of limitations that governs analogous state actions will serve purposes consistent with those underlying the § 1983 cause of action. The Rhode Island statute advanced by the City in this action, however, does not apply to a "cause of action". Instead, it applies to a particular class of defendants who, regardless of the underlying "cause of action", must be sued within two years of its accrual. This kind of a statute of limitations arguably serves a set of purposes completely separate from the...