Smith v. City of Chi., 19-2725

• Decision Date: 28 June 2021
• Docket Number: No. 19-2725,19-2725
• Citation: 3 F.4th 332
• Parties: Keith SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

3 F.4th 332

Keith SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 19-2725

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued November 13, 2020

Decided June 28, 2021

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied August 11, 2021

Joel A. Flaxman, Kenneth N. Flaxman, Attorneys, Law Office of Kenneth N. Flaxman P.C., Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Julian Nunes Henriques, Jr., Attorney, City of Chicago Law Department, Chicago, IL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before Flaum, Rovner, and Brennan, Circuit Judges.

Brennan, Circuit Judge.

"Better late than never" is not a phrase typically heard in a federal courthouse. Even meritorious claims brought outside their statute of limitations must be dismissed. Keith Smith sued the City of Chicago and two of its police officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating the Fourth Amendment, claiming unlawful pretrial detention based on fabricated evidence. Rather than resolve the appeal on the merits, we must decide whether Smith timely filed his complaint, a question which depends on when his claim accrued. Smith argues that happened when he was acquitted at trial. If it did, then his complaint was timely. But our precedent establishes that a Fourth Amendment claim such as Smith's accrues when he is released from detention, and the Supreme Court's recent decision in McDonough v. Smith , ––– U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 2149, 204 L.Ed.2d 506 (2019), has not disturbed that conclusion. Smith was released on bond on March 29, 2014, so if his claim accrued then, under the applicable two-year limitations period his lawsuit, filed on July 18, 2018, was untimely.

Alternatively, Smith contends his claim was timely because his bond conditions constituted an ongoing Fourth Amendment seizure, so he was not released from custody until he was acquitted. Squarely reaching this issue for the first time in this circuit, we hold that requirements to appear in court for a hearing and to request permission before leaving the state—taken together or separately—do not amount to Fourth Amendment seizures. Smith's accrual date remains the date he was released on bond, and because his claim was untimely, we affirm the district court's dismissal of his complaint.

I

In September 2013, Chicago Police Officers Ranita Mitchell and Herman Otero stopped a car in which Keith Smith was a passenger.¹ According to Smith, the two officers fabricated a story that, during this stop, he made a "furtive movement" and that the officers found a bullet in the car. The officers arrested Smith and he was detained for seven months in the Cook County Jail. Smith was released on bond "on or about" March 29, 2014. While on bond, Smith was required to appear in court once per month and to request permission before leaving the State of Illinois. Smith contends his bond conditions diminished his employment prospects and that he experienced financial stress and emotional anxiety over the preparation of his defense. He was acquitted of the charges against him on July 21, 2016.

Smith filed this action against the City and the officers on July 18, 2018. He alleges the officers violated § 1983 by using fabricated evidence to place him in custody in violation of the Fourth Amendment. He brought his claim against the City under Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of N.Y. , 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), and he claims the police department's "code of silence" resulted in his detention.

The district court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss Smith's complaint. The court concluded that Smith's Fourth Amendment claim was time barred because the statute of limitations for his claim was two years and the statute began to run the day Smith was released on bond, March 29, 2014. Because Smith did not file his lawsuit until July 18, 2018, it fell outside the limitations period. The district court also dismissed Smith's claim against the City because he conceded it was intertwined with his allegations against the officers.

Smith moved the district court to reconsider its decision, contending that in Mitchell v. City of Elgin , 912 F.3d 1012 (7th Cir. 2019), this court noted the possibility that bond conditions could constitute a Fourth Amendment "seizure." If they did, Smith argued, the statute of limitations would not have started to run until the bond conditions were lifted upon his acquittal, resulting in a timely claim. But after granting the motion for reconsideration, the district court affirmed its dismissal of Smith's complaint and concluded that his bond conditions were not sufficiently onerous to constitute a seizure. The district court also declined to extend the Supreme Court's holding in McDonough —that claims for fabrication of evidence under the due process clause accrue on the favorable termination of the proceedings—to Smith's claims under the Fourth Amendment.

II

We review de novo the district court's ruling on a motion to dismiss. Warciak v. Subway Rest., Inc. , 949 F.3d 354, 356 (7th Cir. 2020).

Smith presents alternative avenues to avoid the district court's conclusion that his Fourth Amendment claim is time barred. The first asks us to overrule the claim accrual rule of Manuel v. City of Joliet (Manuel II ), 903 F.3d 667, 668 (7th Cir. 2018) based on the Supreme Court's decision in McDonough and hold that the statute of limitations did not begin to run until Smith's acquittal on July 21, 2016. The second claims that the conditions of Smith's bond constituted a seizure such that he was not released from confinement, and therefore that the limitations period did not begin to run until July 21, 2016.

A

Although state law determines the length of the statute of limitations for a § 1983 claim, federal law provides when that limitations period begins. McDonough v. Smith , ––– U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 2149, 2155, 204 L.Ed.2d 506 (2019). In Illinois, the limitations period is two years. See 735 ILCS 5/13-202 ; Manuel II , 903 F.3d at 668. When Smith's claim accrued is dispositive of his case. If his claim accrued when he was released on bond, on March 29, 2014, his claim is time barred because he did not file until more than four years later. But if his claim accrued when he was acquitted on July 21, 2016, he filed (just barely) within the limitations period.

In determining when the limitations period began for Smith's Fourth Amendment claims, we do not write on a clean slate. In Manuel v. City of Joliet (Manuel I ), ––– U.S. ––––, 137 S. Ct. 911, 918–19, 197 L.Ed.2d 312 (2017), the Supreme Court reversed this court and held that a claim "that a form of legal process resulted in pretrial detention unsupported by probable cause" sounds in the Fourth Amendment. The Court left the accrual-date issue for consideration on remand. Id . at 920. In Manuel II , this court held that a Fourth Amendment claim for unlawful pretrial detention accrues when the plaintiff is released from custody. Manuel II , 903 F.3d at 669. This court reasoned that an analogy to malicious prosecution—where claims accrue after a favorable determination of legal proceedings—was inapt because "the Justices deprecated" that analogy. Id . at 670. And because "the wrong is the detention rather than the existence of criminal charges, the period of limitations also should depend on the dates of the detention." Id .

The application of Manuel II to Smith's claims is straight-forward. Assuming for now that Smith's release from custody occurred when he was released on bond, Manuel II suggests that Smith's limitations period began to run on March 29, 2014. This would mean Smith's claim is time-barred because he filed this lawsuit more than four years later, on July 18, 2018.

Smith argues that the legal picture is not so clear, however. He contends that the Supreme Court's recent decision in McDonough implicitly overruled Manuel II , establishing that the accrual date for Smith's claim occurred at the favorable termination of his legal proceedings, not when he was released on bond. In McDonough , the plaintiff brought a § 1983 claim based on the fabrication of evidence used in his prosecution. 139 S. Ct. at 2153. He alleged that a prosecutor used this fabricated evidence to indict him and try him twice, resulting in acquittal. Id . The Second Circuit had construed his fabrication claim as alleging a violation of procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment and held that the claim accrued when the plaintiff's liberty was first restricted. 139 S. Ct. at 2154 ; see also McDonough v. Smith , 898 F.3d 259, 266 (2d Cir. 2018). The Supreme Court reversed. It assumed that the Second Circuit had properly construed the fabrication claim as a due process claim. 139 S. Ct. at 2155. After this determination, the Court concluded that the common law analogue to the plaintiff's claim was malicious prosecution. Id . at 2156. This led the Court to hold that, like a malicious prosecution claim, a due process claim based on fabricated evidence accrues at the favorable termination of the plaintiff's legal proceedings. Id . at 2153.

Smith contends his fabricated evidence claim mirrors the one in McDonough . According to Smith, McDonough established a general rule that all § 1983 claims based on fabrication of evidence accrue at the favorable termination of the proceedings against the plaintiff. For Smith, it follows then that the accrual date for his claims should be when he was acquitted—July 21, 2016.

The "threshold inquiry in a § 1983 suit" is to "identify the specific constitutional right at issue." Manuel I , 137 S. Ct. at 920. In McDonough , the Court "assume[d] without deciding that the Second Circuit's articulations of the right at issue and its contours [were] sound" and the Second Circuit had construed the plaintiff's claim as one under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 139 S. Ct. at 2155. The Court further noted that it "express[ed] no view as to what other constitutional provisions (if any) might provide safeguards...