Vaughan v. Grijalva

• Citation: 927 F.2d 476
• Decision Date: 01 March 1991
• Docket Number: Nos. 89-16170,89-16171,s. 89-16170
• Parties: Tracy Ray VAUGHAN, et al., Plaintiffs, and Paul Eppinger; Ray Fell Chatman; Frank Kozelou; John Malone; Raymond L. Clevidence; Gary W. Bernard; Felipe Trevino; Stephen A. Boyes; Charles W. Shepherd, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Alfred GRIJALVA, Warden, Arizona State Prison; James D. Ricketts, Director, Arizona Department of Corrections, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)

Page 476

927 F.2d 476

Tracy Ray VAUGHAN, et al., Plaintiffs and Paul Eppinger; Ray Fell Chatman; Frank Kozelou; John Malone; Raymond L. Clevidence; Gary W. Bernard Felipe Trevino; Stephen A. Boyes Charles W. Shepherd Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Alfred GRIJALVA, Warden, Arizona State Prison; James D. Ricketts, Director, Arizona Department of Corrections, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Nos. 89-16170, 89-16171.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted July 17, 1990.

Decided March 1, 1991.

Mary E. Berkheiser, Meyer, Hendricks, Victor, Osborn & Maledon, Phoenix, Ariz., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Thomas Prose, Asst. Atty. Gen., Phoenix, Ariz., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona.

Before CHOY, WIGGINS and LEAVY, Circuit Judges.

LEAVY, Circuit Judge:

Nine Arizona state prisoners appeal from the district court's dismissal of their 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 complaints for failure to state a claim against Arizona prison officials.

The district court dismissed the complaints under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) on the ground that the applicable statute of limitation period had run. We reverse and remand.

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

Appellants Paul Eppinger, Ray Fell Chatman, Frank Kozelou, John Malone, Raymond L. Clevidence, Gary Bernard, Felipe Trevino, Stephen A. Boyes, and Charles W. Shepard ("Appellants") were inmates in the Arizona State Prison at Florence in March 1984. Appellants variously allege that on March 15 and March 22, 1984, they were subjected to forced digital rectal cavity examinations by prison guards and officials. Specifically, appellants allege that they were removed from their cells and strip-searched by prison guards in full riot gear; taken in handcuffs to a hallway in the cellblock where somewhere between twenty-five to thirty prison guards and officials were congregated; informed by prison officials that they were to undergo a body cavity search and that if they refused to submit, that they would be forced to do so; and then, after objecting to the searches, pushed face down onto a table, undressed from their waist to their knees, and forcibly subjected to a digital rectal cavity probe in full view of the congregated guards as well as other inmates. Appellants also maintain that several guards made lewd and obscene comments during these examinations, and that at least one guard videotaped the episodes.

Appellants individually filed pro se complaints alleging violation of their civil rights and seeking damages and injunctive relief. ¹ The complaints were consolidated with those of several other inmates at the Arizona State Prison in Florence alleging identical section 1983 violations. The defendant prison officials and employees moved to dismiss the complaints of the nine appellants based on Arizona's two-year statute of limitation. The district court granted the motion, ruling that the statute of limitation barred recovery. Appellants timely appeal.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review a dismissal for failure to state a claim de novo. Woodrum v. Woodward County, 866 F.2d 1121, 1124 (9th Cir.1989). In such a case, we must presume all factual allegations of the complaint to be true and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. Usher v. City of Los Angeles, 828 F.2d 556, 561 (9th Cir.1987). When a motion to dismiss is based on the running of a statute of limitation period, dismissal can be granted "only if the assertions of the complaint, read with the required liberality, would not permit the plaintiff to prove that the statute was tolled." Jablon v. Dean Witter & Co., 614 F.2d 677, 682 (9th Cir.1980).

DISCUSSION

Congress did not establish a specific statute of limitation governing section 1983 actions, a void commonplace in federal statutory law. Board of Regents v. Tomanio, 446 U.S. 478, 483, 100 S.Ct. 1790, 1794, 64 L.Ed.2d 440 (1980). When such a void is present, federal courts have "borrowed" the state law of limitations governing analogous causes of action. Id. The appropriate state statute of limitation for section 1983 actions is that for personal injury cases. Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 276, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 1947, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985). The closely related questions of tolling and application also are governed by state law. Id. at 268, 105 S.Ct. at 1942.

The limitation period for personal injuries in Arizona is two years. Ariz.Rev.Stat. Sec. 12-542 (1990). ² The tolling of the running of this limitation period is provided for under certain conditions. At the time appellants' claims arose in March 1984, imprisonment was a statutory disability that automatically tolled the two-year limitation period until the prisoner's release. Id. Sec. 12-502. This section was amended by the Arizona Legislature effective August 3, 1984, changing the status of imprisonment from an automatic disability to a conditional one. Amended section 12-502 provides in pertinent part:

If a person entitled to bring an action ... is at the time the cause of action accrues imprisoned, the period of such disability shall exist only until such time as the person imprisoned discovers the right to bring the action or with the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered the right to bring the action, whichever occurs first, and such person shall have the same time after the disability ceases to exist which is allowed to others.

Id. Sec. 12-502(B) (emphasis added). Hence, a prisoner's claim was automatically tolled until August 3, 1984 under the terms of the repealed statute; afterwards, "a prisoner had the same time others would have to bring a claim, from that date, or at a later date if that was when the prisoner first reasonably discovered his or her right to bring the action." Zuck v. State, 159 Ariz. 37, 764 P.2d 772, 775 (App.1988). ³

The district court dismissed appellants' complaints for failure to state a claim on the ground that Arizona's two-year limitation period for personal injuries had run. A statute of limitation defense may be raised by a motion to dismiss if the running of the limitation period is apparent on the face of the complaint. Jablon, 614 F.2d at 682. The district court found this to be the case, reasoning that since appellants' complaints were filed more than two years after the incidents giving rise to their causes of action, as well as more than two years after the effective date of the amended statute, the statute of limitation barred recovery on their claims. Although recognizing that none of the complaints contained outright declarations of when appellants learned of their rights to bring the actions, the district court found that appellants must have been "instantaneously aware" of the alleged constitutional violations because they were committed in their presence. As such, the district court ruled that the limitation period had not been tolled.

As a preliminary matter, we reverse the dismissal of appellant Paul Eppinger's complaint. The district court dismissed Eppinger's claim upon relying on defendants' erroneous assertion that Eppinger had filed his complaint on September 15, 1986, more than two years after the effective date of the amended statute. In fact, this was the date that Eppinger's amended complaint was filed. Eppinger's original complaint was filed on August 1, 1986. Because this date is less than two years from before the effective date of the amended statute, Eppinger's complaint was timely. ⁴

As to the eight other complaints, appellants contend that the district court misconstrued amended section 12-502(B). Appellants argue that the district court mistakenly relied upon a finding of when their causes of action accrued rather than a determination of when they knew or reasonably should have known of their rights to bring their actions. Appellants maintain that the amended statute requires a factual finding of when they knew or reasonably should have known of their rights to bring their actions.

We agree. The district court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon reasoning that because the wrongful acts complained of were committed in appellants' presence, "[appellants] must have been instantaneously aware of the alleged constitutional violations." This finding erroneously looks to the discovery or accrual of appellants' causes of action rather than when they knew or reasonably should have known of their rights to bring the actions. The two issues are different. The question of when appellants knew or reasonably should have known of their rights to bring these actions is governed by state law. Wilson, 471 U.S. at 268, 105 S.Ct. at 1942. In contrast, the point at which appellants' causes of action accrued is governed by federal law. Gibson v. United States, 781 F.2d 1334, 1340 (9th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1054, 107 S.Ct. 928, 93 L.Ed.2d 979 (1987). Under federal law, a cause of action generally accrues when a party knows or has reason to know of the injury which is the basis of the action. Alexopulos v. San Francisco Unified School Dist., 817 F.2d 551, 555 (9th Cir.1987); Cline v. Brusett, 661 F.2d 108, 110 (9th Cir.1981). As such, appellants' causes of action clearly did accrue on the date of their injuries. This determination, however, speaks nothing to the question of when the appellants knew or reasonably should have known of their rights to bring these actions. Knowledge of the right to bring an action could conceivably arise at the same time as accrual of the action, but just as well could arise one month later, one year later, or more. Hence, we cannot agree with the district court's analysis that appellants necessarily knew or reasonably should have known of their rights to bring these actions at the time of injury simply because the alleged wrongful acts were committed in their presence.

Because our review is de novo, however, dismissal of appellants' claims on the statute of limitation ground may...