Woods v. Ill. Dep't of Children & Family Servs.

• Decision Date: 27 July 2012
• Docket Number: No. 11 C 8456.,11 C 8456.
• Citation: 880 F.Supp.2d 918
• Parties: Harlis WOODS, Plaintiff, v. ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

880 F.Supp.2d 918

Harlis WOODS, Plaintiff,

v.ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES, et al., Defendants.

No. 11 C 8456.

United States District Court,

N.D. Illinois,

Eastern Division.

July 27, 2012.

Beata Guzik Brewster, Steven A. Levy, Goldberg Kohn Ltd., Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff.

Barbara Lynn Greenspan, Attorney General's Office, James W. Ford, Meghan A. Gonnissen, Stephen A. Kolodziej, Ford & Britton, P.C., Chicago, IL, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

RUBEN CASTILLO, District Judge.

Harlis Woods brings this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (“Section 1983”) against the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (“IDCFS”), the director of IDCFS in August of 1991, IDCFS Caseworker Margaret Cartwright, Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois, Inc. (“LCFS”), the director of LCFS in August of 1991, Lutherbrook Children's Center (“Lutherbrook”), the director of Lutherbrook in August of 1991, an unknown number of Lutherbrook employees, and the manager of Stream Cottage of Lutherbrook in August of 1991, collectively “Defendants.” (R. 1, Compl.) Presently before the Court is Woods' motion to reconsider the Court's previous order dismissing Woods' complaint as time-barred. (R. 21, Pl.'s Mot.) For the reasons stated below, Woods' motion is denied.

FACTS

Woods was born on August 23, 1983. (R. 1, Compl., Ex. 3.) ¹ In March of 1991, IDCFS removed Woods from the home of his biological parents. (R. 1, Compl.¶ 16.) After an evaluation at Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center, IDCFS placed Woods at Lutherbrook, a residential treatment center, in August 1991. ( Id. ¶ 17.) At that time, LCFS was responsible for carrying out the functions and operations of Lutherbrook. ( Id. ¶ 9.) According to Woods, prior to his placement at Lutherbrook, LCFS had received numerous reports of sexually inappropriate behavior between residents at Lutherbrook due to a lack of staff supervision. ( Id. ¶ 18.) Despite these reports, Defendants placed Woods at Lutherbrook. ( Id. ¶ 19.)

In October 1991, when Woods was eight years old, “it was discovered” that he had been sexually abused on several occasions by a thirteen-year old. ( Id. ¶ 21.) A court ordered Woods removed from Lutherbrook and placed in a hospital for evaluation of sexual abuse that same month. (R. 1, Compl., Ex. 7.) During the next several years, Woods was moved through various placements, but he never received counseling for the abuse he suffered at Lutherbrook (R. 1, Compl.¶ 23.)

In 2004, at the age 21, Woods discovered that the abuse at Lutherbrook had injured him psychologically. ( Id. ¶ 24.) This psychological harm manifested in sexual violence, and Woods is presently serving a sentence for aggravated criminal sexual assault. ( Id.)

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Woods filed a pro se complaint on November 21, 2011. (R. 1, Compl.) In his complaint, Woods brings one claim pursuant to Section 1983 alleging that Defendants violated his rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments by failing to protect him from sexual abuse while in state custody. ( Id. ¶¶ 25–35.) On November 30, 2011, the Court dismissed Woods' complaint without prejudice for failure to state a timely federal cause of action against Defendants, and appointed counsel to represent Woods and file an amended complaint or motion for reconsideration. (R. 6, Min. Entry; R. 10, Min. Entry; R. 15, Min. Entry.)

On March 23, 2012, Woods filed a motion to reconsider the November 30, 2011 dismissal order. (R. 21, Pl.'s Mot.) Woods argues that his suit is timely because the appropriate statute of limitations in this case is the twenty-year statute of limitations set forth in the Illinois Childhood Sexual Abuse Act (“CSAA”), 735 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/13–202.2. ( Id. ¶ 2.) On April 26, 2012, IDCFS filed a response in opposition to Woods' motion. (R. 35, IDCFS' Resp.) That same day, LCFS filed a motion to dismiss Woods' complaint with prejudice, which the Court treats as a response to Woods' motion to reconsider. (R. 31, LCFS' Mot.; R. 38, Min. Entry.) Defendants argue that Woods' case is time-barred because Illinois' two-year personal injury statute of limitations, 735 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/13–202, is the applicable statute of limitations in this case. (R. 32, LCFS' Mem. at 2; R. 35, IDCFS' Resp. at 3.) ²

LEGAL STANDARD

Whether to grant a motion for reconsideration is a matter squarely within the Court's discretion. Caisse Nationale de Credit Agricole v. CBI Indus., Inc., 90 F.3d 1264, 1270 (7th Cir.1996) (citation omitted). Typically, the Court will not reconsider a prior order unless the movant presents newly discovered evidence, establishes a manifest error of law or fact, or demonstrates that the Court has “patently misunderstood” its position. Bank of Waunakee v. Rochester Cheese Sales, Inc., 906 F.2d 1185, 1191 (7th Cir.1990). In a prior order, however, the Court indicated that it would revisit the decision dismissing Wood's complaint as time-barred. (R. 15, Min. Entry.)

Woods' motion requests that the Court reconsider its order dismissing his complaint as untimely. A motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) “challenges the sufficiency of the complaint to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.” Hallinan v. Fraternal Order of Police of Chi. Lodge No. 7, 570 F.3d 811, 820 (7th Cir.2009). In ruling on a motion to dismiss, the Court construes the complaint “in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, accept[ing] well-pleaded facts as true, and draw[ing] all inferences in her favor.” Reger Dev. LLC v. Nat'l City Bank, 592 F.3d 759, 763 (7th Cir.2010). To survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the complaint must overcome “two easy-to-clear hurdles”: (1) “the complaint must describe the claim in sufficient detail to give the defendant fair notice of what the claim is and the grounds on which it rests”; and (2) “its allegations must plausibly suggest that the plaintiff has a right to relief, raising that possibility above a ‘speculative level[.]’ ” Tamayo v. Blagojevich, 526 F.3d 1074, 1084 (7th Cir.2008).

A plaintiff's failure to timely file a complaint under the governing statute of limitations is an affirmative defense; as such, it need not be anticipated by the complaint in order to survive a motion to dismiss. Indep. Trust Corp. v. Stewart Inf. Servs. Corp., 665 F.3d 930, 935 (7th Cir.2012). However, when a complaint sets forth “everything necessary to satisfy the affirmative defense” and plainly reveals that an action is untimely, dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) is appropriate. Id. (citing Brooks v. Ross, 578 F.3d 574, 579 (7th Cir.2009)); Jay E. Hayden Found. v. First Neighbor Bank, N.A., 610 F.3d 382, 383 (7th Cir.2010) (citations omitted) (“[I]f it is plain from the complaint that the [statute of limitations] defense is indeed a bar to the suit dismissal is proper without further pleading.”).

ANALYSIS

Whether Woods' claim is time-barred turns on which statute of limitations—the Illinois CSAA statute of limitations or Illinois' general personal injury statute of limitations—applies to this Section 1983 action. Woods alleges that he “discovered” the injury caused by the sexual abuse he suffered as a child at some point in 2004. (R. 1, Compl.¶ 24.) Based on this timeline, the parties agree that Woods' claim accrued and the relevant statute of limitations started running that same year. (R. 22, Pl.'s Mem. at 5); see Hileman v. Maze, 367 F.3d 694, 696 (7th Cir.2004) (noting that a Section 1983 claim accrues on the date when the plaintiff “knows or should know” that her rights have been violated). Accordingly, because Woods filed his complaint in 2011, if the two-year personal injury statute of limitations applies to his claim, it is time-barred. If, on the other hand, the twenty-year CSAA statute of limitations applies, his claim is timely.

Congress failed to specify a statute of limitations for civil rights claims under Section 1983. Ray v. Maher, 662 F.3d 770, 772 (7th Cir.2011). Instead, in 42 U.S.C. § 1988 (“Section 1988”), Congress directed courts to look to state law. Id. Specifically, courts look to the limitations period for personal injury actions in the state in which the cause of action arose. Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 387, 127 S.Ct. 1091, 166 L.Ed.2d 973 (2007) (citations omitted); Ray, 662 F.3d at 772–73. Under the relevant personal injury statute of limitations in Illinois, this period is two years. 735 Ill. Comp. Stat. § 5/13–202; Ray, 662 F.3d at 773. Woods does not dispute that this two-year statute of limitation “applies to the vast majority of Section 1983 claims.” (R. 39, Pl.'s Reply at 1.) Nevertheless, he argues that the application of the two-year limitations period to claims premised on childhood sexual abuse claims “would be inconsistent with federal interests” and that the Court should instead apply the twenty-year statute of limitations under the CSAA. ( Id.)

Addressing Woods' argument, and understanding why it ultimately fails, requires a brief discussion of the Supreme Court's evolving treatment of the issue of how to determine the applicable statute of limitations in Section 1983 actions. In Burnett v. Grattan, the plaintiff brought an employment discrimination suit under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, 1985, and 1986. 468 U.S. 42, 44, 104 S.Ct. 2924, 82 L.Ed.2d 36 (1984). In addressing what statute of limitations applied to the plaintiff's claims, the Supreme Court noted that Section 1988 instructs courts to follow a three-step process to borrow an appropriate rule of decision that is not otherwise provided for in the Reconstruction Civil Rights Acts:

First, courts are to look to the laws of the United States “so far as such laws are suitable to carry [the civil and criminal rights statutes] into effect.” If no suitable federal rule exists, courts undertake the second step by considering application of state “common law, as modified and changed by the constitution and statutes” of the forum state. A third step...