White v. Padgett
Decision Date | 03 April 1973 |
Docket Number | No. 72-1597.,72-1597. |
Citation | 475 F.2d 79 |
Parties | Earl WHITE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Dr. Glen E. PADGETT et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Edwin A. Green, II, Tallahassee, Fla., for plaintiff-appellant.
W. Robert Olive, Jr., Dept. of Legal Affairs, Tallahassee, Fla., Ben F. Barnes, Thomas C. Wilkinson, Marianna, Fla., J. Ben Watkins, Steve M. Watkins, Tallahassee, Fla., for defendants-appellees.
Before RIVES, THORNBERRY and GOLDBERG, Circuit Judges.
Predicating jurisdiction on 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3),1 plaintiff White brought this action for deprivation of his civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.2 Defendants claimed that the complaint failed to state any specific acts which would make them liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, quoted in the preceding note, and for that reason moved to dismiss the complaint.3 The district court granted defendants' motion without prejudice to the filing of an amended complaint. Plaintiff then filed an amended complaint more specifically, albeit succinctly, stating his claim as follows:
(Emphasis added.)4 Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint as amended, again insisting that it failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted,5 but this time claiming (1) that the plaintiff's action was barred by the statute of limitations, and (2) that the defendants acted in a quasi-judicial capacity and hence are immune from liability for damages. The district court granted the defendants' motion and dismissed the amended complaint, this time with prejudice. In its order the district court stated that:
This appeal ensued.
Two issues are briefed and argued by the parties, viz.: (1) whether plaintiff's claim is barred by a statute of limitations, and (2) whether the defendants are immune from liability for damages. We hold with the defendants on limitations and do not reach the question of immunity vel non.6
As the district judge observed, "* * * the bar of the statute of limitations is an affirmative defense * * *." R. 94. See Rule 8(c), F.R. Civ.P. However, the complaint is subject to dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), F.R.Civ.P., for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted when the affirmative defense clearly appears on the face of the complaint.7
The present action was commenced by the filing of the original complaint on June 23, 1971 (R. 4). The complaint affirmatively alleged the date of August 21, 1965, as the time at which plaintiff was adjudged incompetent and confined to Escambia General Hospital. The time intervening between the two dates last mentioned is five years, ten months and two days. Apparently in an effort to justify such a long delay, the plaintiff averred in his amended complaint that no guardian was appointed for the plaintiff and he "* * * therefore could not bring a civil action against any person or persons until after the year 1970 at which time his competency was judicially restored; that the Statute of Limitations did not start running until after 1970." For reasons presently to be stated we conclude that, in taking that position, the plaintiff misapprehended the controlling principles of law.
Neither the plaintiff nor the defendants dispute the law as stated in plaintiff's brief at page 25:
The parties are also in agreement, and necessarily so, that the applicable Florida statute is not one providing limitations for the recovery of real property, but is either subsection (4), as claimed by the plaintiff, or subsection (5)(a), as claimed by the defendants, of Florida Statutes Annotated § 95.11. In pertinent part that statutes provides:
Section 95.11 contains no provision suspending or tolling the limitation period because of disability arising from insanity or from any other cause. In Florida the only limitation statute suspended or tolled by insanity or other disability is that applicable to the recovery of real property. The pertinent part of that statute is quoted in the margin.8 That difference in the Florida limitation statutes resulted in a holding by the Supreme Court of Florida, that a plaintiff's disability by reason of insanity existing when his right of action for slander of title accrued could not toll the running of the statute of limitations, the court reasoning as follows:
Carey v. Beyer, Fla.1954, 75 So.2d 217, 218.
The strictness with which limitation statutes are construed in Florida is illustrated by a recent case, Gasparro v. Horner, Fla.Dist.Ct.App., 4th Dist., 1971, 245 So.2d 901, in which, over a vigorous dissent, a Florida court held that the cause of action of a minor, who had been orphaned in an accident occurring more than four years prior to commencement of the action but who had been adopted approximately 21 months after the accident, accrued on the date of the accident rather than the date of the minor's adoption, and the action was barred by the four-year statute of limitations. On rehearing the majority said:
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...6. 12 A limitations defense may be asserted by motion if the timeliness issue is apparent from the face of the complaint. White v. Padgett, 475 F.2d 79 (5th Cir.1973), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 861, 94 S.Ct. 78, 38 L.Ed.2d 112 (1973); Barnhart v. Western Maryland R. Co., 41 F.Supp. 898, 904-05......
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