Walker v. Epps

• Citation: 550 F.3d 407
• Decision Date: 24 November 2008
• Docket Number: No. 08-60652.,08-60652.
• Parties: Alan Dale WALKER; Paul Everett Woodward; Gerald James Holland, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Christopher B. EPPS, Commissioner, Mississippi Department of Corrections; Lawrence Kelly, Superintendent of the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

550 F.3d 407

Alan Dale WALKER; Paul Everett Woodward; Gerald James Holland, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Christopher B. EPPS, Commissioner, Mississippi Department of Corrections; Lawrence Kelly, Superintendent of the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 08-60652.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

November 24, 2008.

James William Craig (argued), Phelps Dunbar, Jackson, MS, David Paul Voisin,

Jackson, MS, James Michael Priest, Jr., Gill Ladner & Priest, PLLC, Jackson, MS, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Marvin L. White, Jr., Jason Lewis Davis (argued), Shawn Stephen Shurden, Jackson, MS, for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi.

Before JOLLY, BARKSDALE and HAYNES, Circuit Judges.

E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge:

The plaintiffs are inmates who have been sentenced to death. At this point they are not challenging that the State can take their lives; they are challenging the method of execution. They contend that Mississippi's lethal injection protocol is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. The district court found that the applicable statute of limitations barred the plaintiffs' § 1983 action and granted summary judgment to the defendants. We reject the plaintiffs' argument that the equitable doctrine of laches applies. Because the statute of limitations applies, and because the statute was not tolled in this case, we affirm.

I.

Because this appeal comes to us in a circuitous route, we offer a few background facts.

On October 18, 2007, Alan Dale Walker, Paul Everett Woodward, and Gerald James Holland (collectively, the "plaintiffs") filed this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action in federal district court against the Mississippi Department of Corrections and the Mississippi State Penitentiary, challenging the constitutionality of Mississippi's lethal injection protocol and seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the State from executing them during the pendency of their action. At that time, Earl Wesley Berry and Dale Leo Bishop, two death-row inmates who have since been executed, were also plaintiffs. Berry's execution date, however, had been set for October 30. The plaintiffs sought additional injunctive relief in the form of an emergency temporary restraining order to prevent the State from executing Berry before the action could be litigated.

The State responded on October 19 with a motion to dismiss Berry from the action. At a hearing on that motion, the State argued that the complaint was dilatory as to Berry because he had waited until just days before his scheduled execution to challenge the State's lethal injection protocol. The State acknowledged, however, that the other plaintiffs' executions were not imminent and told the district court that those plaintiffs were "taking a timely step in those" — a position from which the State apparently has retreated. The district court dismissed Berry from the action, and this court affirmed. Berry v. Epps, 506 F.3d 402 (5th Cir.2007). The Supreme Court of the United States, after initially staying Berry's execution, denied his petition for certiorari on April 21, 2008. Berry v. Epps, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 2048, 170 L.Ed.2d 796 (2008).

In the meantime, no progress was made in the remaining plaintiffs' case. The State failed to file either an answer or responsive pleading and the plaintiffs moved for default judgment, which was entered on May 5. The State moved to set aside the default on May 6 and filed an answer on May 8. The plaintiffs opposed setting aside the default and, in a cross-motion, asked that the district court condition relief from default on the State's agreement, inter alia, not to assert time-based defenses. On May 16, the district court set aside the default judgment but denied the plaintiffs' cross-motion. Walker v. Epps, No. 4:07-CV-176, 2008 WL 2095696, at *2 (N.D.Miss. May 16, 2008).

The State moved for summary judgment on May 28 on the sole ground that the applicable statute of limitations barred the plaintiffs' § 1983 action. In their response, the plaintiffs argued that, because they did not seek damages but instead only sought prospective injunctive relief, the equitable doctrine of laches — not a statute of limitations — applied to their action. In the alternative, the plaintiffs argued that even if a statute of limitations applied, it would not bar their action because (1) the statute should be tolled because they did not know that they could bring this action, and thus the action did not accrue, before the Supreme Court issued its opinions in Hill v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 573, 126 S.Ct. 2096, 165 L.Ed.2d 44 (2006), and Baze v. Rees, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 1520, 170 L.Ed.2d 420 (2008); (2) the State's fraudulent concealment of its lethal injection protocol tolled the limitations period; (3) the existing protocol constitutes a continuing tort for which the limitations period is reset for each wrongful act; and (4) the State is equitably estopped from asserting a statute of limitations defense.

The district court rejected the plaintiffs' arguments. Walker v. Epps, ___ F.Supp.2d ___, No. 4:07-CV-176, 2008 WL 2788074, at *8-13 (N.D.Miss. July 15, 2008). First, the district court concluded that Mississippi's general statute of limitations, which requires that an action be filed within three years of its accrual, applied to the plaintiffs' § 1983 action notwithstanding the fact that they sought only prospective injunctive relief. The district court next concluded that each plaintiff's cause of action accrued on the later of two dates: the date direct review of his individual case was complete or the date on which Mississippi's lethal injection statute became effective, August 15, 1998. Because each of the plaintiffs' actions accrued between 1998 and 1999, the three-year limitations period for each expired between 2001 and 2002. Finding that the plaintiffs had failed to file within their respective limitations periods, and rejecting the plaintiffs' arguments that their § 1983 action should survive nonetheless, the district court granted summary judgment for the State on July 15. The plaintiffs promptly appealed.

II.

We review a grant of summary judgment de novo. See, e.g., Hathaway v. Bazany, 507 F.3d 312, 319 (5th Cir.2007). The plaintiffs sought, under § 1983, to enjoin the State from executing them by a method of lethal injection that they allege unnecessarily risks pain and suffering, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. In Hill v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 573, 126 S.Ct. 2096, 165 L.Ed.2d 44 (2006), the Supreme Court of the United States held that an inmate may properly challenge a state's method of execution under § 1983. We must decide here the appropriate means of testing the timeliness of such § 1983 method-of-execution actions, which purport to seek equitable, not legal, relief. We will address two questions that this circuit has not had prior occasion to address: whether a statute of limitations, as opposed to the equitable doctrine of laches, applies to § 1983 method-of-execution claims and, if a statute of limitations applies, at what point the cause of action accrues. We review such questions of law de novo. See Newby v. Enron, 542 F.3d 463, 468 (5th Cir.2008); Clymore v. United States, 217 F.3d 370, 373 (5th Cir.2000); In re Hinsley, 201 F.3d 638, 644 (5th Cir. 2000).

A.

We begin our analysis by reference to Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985). There the Supreme Court held that § 1983 actions are best characterized as personal injury actions and, as such, should be subject to state statutes of limitations for general personal injury actions. Id. at 279. Wilson recognized that applying various limitations periods to separate § 1983 actions had been problematic. The court explained that "practical considerations" supported a "simple, broad characterization of all § 1983 claims":

The experience of the courts that have predicated their choice of the correct statute of limitations on an analysis of the particular facts of each claim demonstrates that their approach inevitably breeds uncertainty and time-consuming litigation that is foreign to the central purposes of § 1983.

Id. at 272, 105 S.Ct. 1938.

To avoid such "useless litigation on collateral matters," the Supreme Court directed courts of each state to select:

the one most appropriate statute of limitations for all § 1983 claims. The federal interests in uniformity, certainty, and the minimization of unnecessary litigation all support the conclusion that Congress favored this simple approach.

Id. at 275, 105 S.Ct. 1938.

The question for us is whether the broad and inclusive language of Wilson directs that we apply a statute of limitations to the plaintiffs' arguably unusual § 1983 case. The plaintiffs contend that their § 1983 action is not a typical tort action, but instead a suit in equity; consequently it is not subject to the statute of limitations that would otherwise apply in the usual § 1983 case. They distinguish their action by pointing out that unlike typical § 1983 cases, they seek no monetary damages. Because they seek only prospective injunctive relief, they argue that this court should revert to the traditional manner of judging the timeliness of equitable claims — that is, the doctrine of equitable laches.

In support of their argument, the plaintiffs direct our attention to Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U.S. 392, 66 S.Ct. 582, 90 L.Ed. 743 (1946), in which the Supreme Court held that in suits seeking solely equitable relief, statutes of limitations do not apply. Id. at 396, 66 S.Ct. 582. In Holmberg, creditors sought to hold shareholders of a debtor bank liable under federal law for the bank's debts. The Supreme Court concluded the suit was one in equity and "[t]raditionally and for good reasons, statutes of limitation are not controlling measures of equitable relief." Id. at 396, 66 S.Ct. 582. The...