Thomas v. Novicky
| Decision Date | 08 December 2014 |
| Docket Number | CASE NO. 4:13CV1469 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio |
| Parties | SHAWN M. THOMAS, PLAINTIFF, v. MATTHEW NOVICKY, et al., DEFENDANTS. |
OPINION AND ORDER
Now pending before the Court in this civil rights action, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, is defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint (Doc. No. 9 ["MTD"]). Plaintiff opposes the motion to dismiss (Doc. No. 12 ["Opp."]), defendants have filed a reply (Doc. No. 13 ["Reply"]), and plaintiff has filed an unauthorized sur-reply (Doc. No. 15 ["Sur-Reply"]). Plaintiff has also filed a motion to amend (Doc. No. 8), which stands unopposed. Also unopposed is plaintiff's filing styled "Motion to Object [to] Memorandum Opinion and Order," which the Court construes as a motion for reconsideration (Doc. No. 7).
Pro se plaintiff Shawn Thomas ("plaintiff") alleges that, on December 6, 2008, while he was being held in the Mahoning County Jail as a pre-trial detainee, he was assaulted by numerous jail employees. According to the complaint, on the night in question, plaintiff returned to his cell after receiving a visit from his parents to find that his dinner tray had been removed, his personal photographshad been damaged, and his cell had been "ransacked." (Id. ¶¶ 2-3.) When plaintiff's complaints about the condition of his cell went unanswered by jail staff, plaintiff attempted to create a security breach first by placing a towel over his cell window and later by "popping" the sprinkler system. (Id. ¶¶ 4-11.) Plaintiff alleges that when correction officers came to investigate the source of the flooding in the general vicinity of plaintiff's cell, several officers entered plaintiff's cell and physically assaulted and verbally harassed him, causing physical and emotional injuries. (Id. ¶¶ 12-18 and U.)
This action is the second lawsuit plaintiff has initiated involving the events of December 6, 2008. The first action was filed on December 2, 2010 and was randomly assigned to the undersigned. (Thomas v. Denno, et al., Case No. 4:10CV2723, Doc. No. 1.) Plaintiff named as defendants in this prior action the following: the Mahoning County Jail, Deputy John Denno, Deputy Matthew Novicky, and Deputy Jeff Schoolcraft. On May 11, 2011, the Court issued a memorandum opinion and order dismissing the Mahoning County Jail and Mahoning County—to the extent that it was the proper municipal entity—as defendants. (Id., Doc. No. 7.)
The parties eventually consented to the jurisdiction of the magistrate judge, and, on February 27, 2012, Magistrate Judge Limbert issued a memorandum opinion and order dismissing the action against the remaining defendants without prejudice for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. (Case No. 4:10CV2723, Doc. No. 33.) Plaintiff attempted to re-open the prior action on December 18, 2012, maintaining that he had successfully exhausted his administrative remedies. (Id., Doc. No. 43.) In a memorandum opinion and order, dated February 12, 2013, the magistratejudge denied the motion to re-open, explaining that, if plaintiff had indeed exhausted his administrative remedies, his "option" was to file a new lawsuit. (Id., Doc. No. 46 at 3531 [quoting Gunther v. Ohio Dep't of Corr., 198 F.3d 245, at *1 (6th Cir. Nov. 9, 1999) (table decision)].)
On July 8, 2013, plaintiff filed the present action2 against the Mahoning County Jail, Deputy Novicky, Deputy Denno, Deputy Schoolcraft, and various other county employees.3 Though considerably richer in factual detail, the complaint contains many of the same allegations as the complaint filed in the original action. Appended to the present complaint is an "affidavit," wherein plaintiff attests that he has now "exhausted all of [his] administrative remedies with the Mahoning County Justice Center 'Jail.'" (Compl. at 19.)
On March 28, 2014, the Court dismissed the Mahoning County Jail and Mahoning County, pursuant to the doctrine of res judicata. (Doc. No. 5 at 38-40.) The Court also dismissed all of the individual defendants—with the exception of Deputies Novicky and Schoolcraft and Sergeant Bielecki—because the complaint failed to state a cause of action against them. (Id. at 37.)
In their motion to dismiss, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), the remaining defendants contend all of plaintiff's claims are time-barred. They further insist that verbal harassment cannot form the basis for a constitutional claim, and that they are entitled to statutory immunity for plaintiff's state claims.
In reviewing a complaint in the context of a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), the court must construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and accept all well-pleaded material allegations in the complaint as true. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555-56, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 167 L. Ed. 2d 929 (2007). Although a complaint need not contain "detailed factual allegations," it does require more than "labels and conclusions" or "a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action[.]" Id. at 555. Thus, a complaint survives a motion to dismiss if it "contain[s] sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 173 L. Ed. 2d 868 (2009) (quotation marks and citation omitted). And, "'[a] claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.'" Hensley Mfg. v. ProPride, Inc., 579 F.3d 603, 609 (6th Cir. 2009) (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.)
As a general rule, a court cannot consider matters outside the four corners of the complaint when ruling on a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). Weiner v. Klaisand Co., Inc., 108 F.3d 86, 88-89 (6th Cir. 1997) (citing Hammond v. Baldwin, 866 F.2d 172, 175 (6th Cir. 1989)). If a party presents material outside the pleadings to the court and the court does not exclude the material from consideration, the court must treat the motion as a motion for summary judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 and give all parties a reasonable opportunity to present all pertinent material. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(d).
Defendants insist that plaintiff's clams are time-barred by the applicable statutes of limitations. Because § 1983 does not contain its own statute of limitations, courts must look to state law to determine the relevant limitations period. Roberson v. Tenn., 399 F.3d 792, 794 (6th Cir. 2005) (citation omitted). The Sixth Circuit has held that "the appropriate statute of limitations for 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights actions arising in Ohio is contained in Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2305.10, which requires that actions for bodily injury be filed within two years after their accrual." Browning v. Pendleton, 869 F.2d 989, 992 (6th Cir. 1989) (en banc); see Holson v. Good, No. 13-4134, 2014 WL 4235759, at *2 (6th Cir. Aug. 27, 2014) () (quoting Trzebuckowski v. City of Cleveland, 319 F.3d 853, 856 (6th Cir. 2003)). Also under Ohio law, the statute of limitations period for assault claims is one year, see Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2305.111(B), and the limitations period for intentional infliction of emotional distress is four years. See OhioRev. Code Ann. § 2305.09; Yeager v. Local Union 20, 453 N.E.2d 666, 672 (Ohio 1983), abrogated on other grounds by Welling v. Weinfeld, 866 N.E.2d 1051, 1054 (Ohio 2007).
In response to defendants' statute of limitations argument, plaintiff highlights the fact that he first raised his claims in his 2010 complaint in the prior action and that the claims contained in the present complaint should relate back to the original filing. According to Ohio's savings statute, where a plaintiff's action is dismissed other than on the merits, and the statute of limitations has expired by the time of dismissal, the plaintiff is afforded an extra year in which to re-file. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2305.19(A).
Defendants insist that the savings statute cannot rescue plaintiff's constitutional claims. They argue that when plaintiff's prior action was dismissed without prejudice on February 27, 2012, the statute of limitations on his constitutional and assault claims had expired. Consequently, plaintiff had one year under the savings statute—until February 27, 2013—to refile his complaint. Plaintiff did not file the present case until July 8, 2013, rendering plaintiff's constitutional and assault claims, in defendants' estimation, "simply time-barred." (MTD Reply at 85.)
Although this argument has some logical appeal, it fails to account for the time period during which plaintiff was attempting to exhaust his administrative remedies through the jail's grievance process. The Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA") requires that prisoners present their claims through an administrative grievance process prior to seeking redress in federal court. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). In accordance with the PLRA, prisoners must comply with exhaustion requirements with respect to any claim that arises in the prison setting, regardless of the type of clam asserted, or the reliefsought. See Booth v. Churner, 532 U.S. 731, 741 n.6, 121 S. Ct. 1819, 149 L. Ed. 2d 958 (2001) () "Prisoners are therefore prevented from bringing suit in federal court for the period of time required to exhaust such administrative remedies as are available." Brown v. Morgan, 209 F.3d 595, 596 (6th Cir. 2000) (citing 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a)). "For this reason, the statute of limitations which applie[s] to [...
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