Small v. Inhabitants of City of Belfast

• Decision Date: 02 October 1985
• Docket Number: No. Civ. 80-1125-B.,Civ. 80-1125-B.
• Parties: Jong Hee SMALL, Personal Representative of the Estate of Delbert Small, Plaintiff, v. The INHABITANTS OF the CITY OF BELFAST and James Murphy, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maine

617 F. Supp. 1567

Jong Hee SMALL, Personal Representative of the Estate of Delbert Small, Plaintiff, v. The INHABITANTS OF the CITY OF BELFAST and James Murphy, Defendants.

No. Civ. 80-1125-B.

United States District Court, D. Maine.

October 2, 1985.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Harold L. Lichten, Stephen P. Sunenblick, Portland, Me., for plaintiff.

Francis C. Marsano, Belfast, Me., Peter J. DeTroy III, James D. Poliquin, Portland, Me., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER ACCEPTING MAGISTRATE'S RECOMMENDED DECISION

CYR, Chief Judge.

I. BACKGROUND

On August 25, 1980, plaintiff's testate, Delbert Small (Small), filed the original complaint in this section 1983 action alleging that he was discharged from his position as security guard at the Waldo County General Hospital as a result of a communication from defendant James Murphy, City Manager of Belfast, Maine, informing the hospital that Small had been found in possession of a stolen snowplow and that Small's appointment as a special police officer would be revoked. The court's Memorandum Opinion and Order of September 23, 1982, see Small v. Inhabitants of Belfast, 547 F.Supp. 761 (D.Me.1982), details the allegations of the original complaint.

In its order of September 23, 1982, the court dismissed the original complaint on the basis that it was not filed within two years of the accrual of the cause of action. The court concluded that the section 1983 claim, though phrased in "due process" terms, essentially was predicated on the alleged defamatory communication by the city manager, which resulted in Small's discharge by the hospital, a private employer, and injured Small's reputation in the community. Accordingly, the court held that the most analogous state law cause of action would be defamation and that the statute of limitations to be "borrowed" would be Me.Rev.Stat.Ann. tit. 14, § 753 (1964), the two-year limitations period applicable to most intentional torts affecting personal interests, including slander and libel. The court rejected plaintiff's argument that the residuary six-year limitations period of Me. Rev.Stat.Ann. tit. 14, § 752 (1964) applies to the claim by reason of its characterization as a denial of due process.

On October 7, 1982 plaintiff moved to amend the complaint. On February 2, 1983 the court granted the motion to amend in order to permit plaintiff to assert a constitutional claim for deprivation of a property interest without due process of law, consisting of the city manager's alleged revocation of Small's status as a special police officer. The court denied the motion to amend the complaint insofar as it sought to assert a "due process" claim for injury to Small's reputation, resulting from the alleged defamatory statements of the city manager.

An amended complaint was filed on February 9, 1983, alleging that Small had a property interest in his position as special police officer for the City of Belfast and that his status as a special police officer was revoked without due process. It is alleged that the denial of due process resulted in the loss of Small's position at the Waldo County Hospital, impeded him in the search for other employment and damaged his reputation. Plaintiff also asserts pendent state statutory and constitutional claims.

On April 15, 1983, defendants moved to dismiss and, alternatively, for summary judgment, asserting that the amended complaint failed to state any claim not barred by the applicable statute of limitations. Defendants also assert that the pleadings, affidavits and depositions establish the absence of any genuine issue of material fact, thus entitling defendants to judgment as a matter of law. Following a hearing, the United States Magistrate issued a recommended decision on January 17, 1984, granting the motions to dismiss, as well as summary judgment for the defendants, on the basis that the two-year limitations period of the Maine Tort Claims Act, Me.Rev. Stat.Ann. tit. 14, § 8110 (1977), barred plaintiff's section 1983 claim. The Magistrate rejected defendants' contention that the 30-day limitations period of Me.R.Civ.P. 80B should be borrowed for application to a section 1983 claim. Defendants' other contentions, relating to the borrowing of the limitations period applicable to defamation claims, Me.Rev.Stat.Ann. tit. 14, § 753, and the period applicable to claims under the Maine Human Rights Act, Me.Rev.Stat. Ann. tit. 5, § 4613(2)(C) (Supp.1984-85), were not reached by the Magistrate. Nor did the Magistrate consider defendants' arguments (1) that there remains no genuine issue as to the fact that Small's special police officer status was never revoked by defendants, and (2) that Small had no constitutionally cognizable property interest in his status as a special police officer because the appointment gave rise to no employment relationship between Small and the city, but merely authorized Small to exercise certain police powers in the course of his private employment with the hospital. Plaintiff objected to the Magistrate's recommended decision on January 25, 1984, arguing that the residuary six-year limitations period of section 752, rather than the two-year limitations period of the Maine Tort Claims Act, applies to the section 1983 claim alleged in the amended complaint.

Subsequent to the Magistrate's recommended decision, the Supreme Court, in Burnett v. Grattan, ___ U.S. ___, 104 S.Ct. 2924, 82 L.Ed.2d 36 (U.S.1984), issued a decision which buttressed the Magistrate's conclusion that the 30-day limitations period of Me.R.Civ.P. 80B would not be appropriate for application to plaintiff's section 1983 due process claim. Dictum in Burnett casts doubt on the propriety of applying Maine's two-year tort limitations period to this section 1983 claim as recommended by the Magistrate. ___ U.S. at ___ n. 18, 104 S.Ct. at 2932 n. 18.

In another significant development following the Magistrate's recommended decision, the Supreme Court, on October 2, 1984 granted certiorari, ___ U.S. ___, 105 S.Ct. 79, 83 L.Ed.2d 28, to review a decision by the Tenth Circuit, Garcia v. Wilson, 731 F.2d 640 (10th Cir.1984), which examined the divergent approaches among the courts of appeals and chose to apply a single state limitations period to all section 1983 claims.

On April 17, 1985 the Supreme Court issued its decision in Wilson v. Garcia, ___ U.S. ___, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (U.S.1985), and the parties briefed the issue of the impact of Wilson on the case at bar.

II. STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

A. Wilson v. Garcia

The Magistrate's recommendation that the Maine Tort Claims Act two-year limitations period should govern the present action, although supported by some authority at the time of his decision,¹ is contrary to the direction provided in the recent Supreme Court decisions in Wilson v. Garcia, ___ U.S. ___, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (U.S.1985), and Burnett v. Grattan, ___ U.S. ___, 104 S.Ct. 2924, 82 L.Ed.2d 36 (1984). Burnett and Wilson make it clear that the two-year limitations period of the Maine Tort Claims Act does not apply to plaintiff's section 1983 claim.

In Burnett, the Court noted with approval the following statement from Pauk v. Board of Trustees, 654 F.2d 856 (2d Cir. 1984), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 1000, 102 S.Ct. 1631, 71 L.Ed.2d 866 (1982).

"It would be anomalous for a federal court to apply a state policy restricting remedies against public officials to a federal statute that is designed to augment remedies against those officials, especially a federal statute that affords remedies for the protection of constitutional rights. 654 F.2d at 862."

___ U.S. at ___ n. 18, 104 S.Ct. at 2932 n. 18.

In Wilson, the Court rejected the view of the New Mexico Supreme Court, De Vargas v. New Mexico, 97 N.M. 563, 642 P.2d 166 (1982), that the New Mexico Tort Claims Act supplied the appropriate limitations period for section 1983 actions, concluding instead that "Congress would not have characterized § 1983 as providing a cause of action analogous to state remedies for wrongs committed by public officials." ___ U.S. at ___, 105 S.Ct. at 1949.

Wilson also rejects the "settled practice" of most federal courts of appeals and state courts, which have looked to the facts underlying the particular section 1983 claim for an appropriate state law analog. See Wilson v. Garcia, ___ U.S. at ___, 105 S.Ct. at 1950-52. (O'Connor, J., dissenting).² Wilson holds that all section 1983 actions are to be characterized, for limitations purposes, as "tort actions for the recovery of damages for personal injuries," ___ U.S. at ___, 105 S.Ct. at 1949, and are to be governed by the state's "one most appropriate statute of limitations for all § 1983 claims." Id. Though in part fashioned with a view to simplifying the task of identifying the appropriate statute of limitations for section 1983 actions, id. at ___, 105 S.Ct. at 1947, Wilson remains difficult to apply in jurisdictions, such as Maine, which have more than one limitations period for tort actions for the recovery of damages for personal injuries.

Section 753 of Me.Rev.Stat.Ann. tit. 14 (1964) prescribes a two-year limitations period for "actions for assault and battery, and for false imprisonment, slander, libel and malpractice of physicians and all others engaged in the healing art...." The six-year residuary limitations period of Me. Rev.Stat.Ann. tit. 14, § 752 (1964), while not mentioning "personal injury" claims, applies by default to all other such claims, except for those instituted against certain professionals.³

Following the issuance of its en banc decision in Garcia v. Wilson, 731 F.2d 640, but prior to the Supreme Court's affirmance, the Tenth Circuit had occasion to apply its own holding that "every section 1983 claim is in essence an action for injury to personal rights," 731 F.2d at 651, for purposes of selecting the appropriate state limitations period. In McKay v. Hammock, 730 F.2d 1369 (10th Cir.1984), ...