Wright v. St. John's Hospital

• Decision Date: 22 June 1976
• Docket Number: No. 75-C-479-C.,75-C-479-C.
• Citation: 414 F. Supp. 1202
• Parties: Helen WRIGHT, Plaintiff, v. ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Oklahoma

414 F. Supp. 1202

Helen WRIGHT, Plaintiff, v. ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, Defendant.

No. 75-C-479-C.

United States District Court, N. D. Oklahoma.

June 22, 1976.

Waldo E. Jones, II, Tulsa, Okl., for plaintiff.

Mary T. Matthies, Tulsa, Okl., for defendant.

ORDER

COOK, District Judge.

The Complaint filed in this action by plaintiff, Helen Wright, alleges that she was discriminatorily discharged by defendant solely for the reason that plaintiff is black. Plaintiff brings this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., 42 U.S.C. § 1981, and the Fourteenth Amendment. Plaintiff alleges jurisdiction of this Court is invoked pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343 and 2201.

The Court has before it for consideration a Motion to Dismiss and Motion to Strike filed by the defendant, St. John's Hospital. In support of its Motion to Dismiss, defendant alleges that the statute of limitations has run on the 42 U.S.C. § 1981 claim. The Complaint alleges that plaintiff was discharged by defendant "sometime in October, 1972." Defendant states the date of discharge was October 30, 1972. There being no claim of "continuing" discrimination, the statute of limitations began to run from the date of her discharge. Phillips v. Columbia Gas of West Virginia, Inc., 347 F.Supp. 533 (S.D.W.Va.1972), aff'd, 474 F.2d 1342 (4th Cir. 1973).

Title 42 U.S.C. § 1981 does not provide a limitation for the cause of action created thereby. The federal courts, therefore, must look to the most nearly analogous state statute of limitation which will determine the time within which a cause of action may be commenced. Ripp v. Dobbs Houses, Inc., 366 F.Supp. 205 (N.D.Ala. 1973). The application of state limitation statutes for federally-created causes of action under the Reconstruction Civil Rights Acts, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981-1985, is well settled. O'Sullivan v. Felix, 233 U.S. 318, 34 S.Ct. 596, 58 L.Ed. 980 (1914). As stated in Beard v. Stephens, 372 F.2d 685 (5th Cir. 1967):

"Congress has created many federal rights without prescribing a period of enforcement. In such cases the federal courts borrow the limitations period prescribed by the state where the court sits. The applicable period of limitations is that which the state itself would enforce had an action seeking similar relief been brought in the court of that state."

It is necessary, therefore, to look to the limitation periods provided in the statutes of the State of Oklahoma. Title 12 O.S. § 95 provides:

Limitation of other actions

"Civil actions other than for the recovery of real property can only be brought within the following periods, after the cause of action shall have accrued, and not afterwards:

First. Within five (5) years: An action upon any contract, agreement or promise in writing.

Second. Within three (3) years: An action upon a contract express or implied not in writing; an action upon a liability created by statute other than a forfeiture or penalty; and an action on a foreign judgment.

Third. Within two (2) years: An action for trespass upon real property; an action for taking, detaining or injuring personal property; including actions for the specific recovery of personal property; an action for injury to the rights of another, not arising on contract, and not hereinafter enumerated; an action for relief on the ground of fraud—the cause of action in such case shall not be deemed to have accrued until the discovery of the fraud.

Fourth. Within one (1) year: An action for libel, slander, assault, battery, malicious prosecution, or false imprisonment; an action upon a statute for penalty or forfeiture, except where the statute imposing it prescribes a different limitation.

Fifth. An action upon the official bond or undertaking of an executor, administrator, guardian, sheriff, or any other officer, or upon the bond or undertaking given in attachment, injunction, arrest or in any case whatever required by the statute, can only be brought within five (5) years after the cause of action shall have accrued.

Sixth. An action for relief, not hereinbefore provided for, can only be brought within five (5) years after the cause of action shall have accrued."

Defendant contends that 12 O.S. § 95 (Third) contains the appropriate statute of limitations to be applied in the case at bar "for injury to the rights of another, not arising on contract, and not hereinafter enumerated." If the Court were to determine that § 95 (Third) regarding a tort cause of action is applicable, the § 1981 cause of action would be barred, the action having been filed more than two years after the date of discharge. Plaintiff on the other hand contends that "the better view of which limitation governs is 12 O.S. § 95 (Second) in that this is an action either `upon a contract express or implied not in writing' or `an action upon a liability created by statute.'"

Neither the state courts of Oklahoma nor the federal courts applying Oklahoma law have had occasion to rule on this particular issue. In Crosswhite v. Brown, 424 F.2d 495 (10th Cir. 1970) and Seibert v. McCracken, 387 F.Supp. 275 (E.D.Okl.1974) the courts determined that the two-year tort statute of limitation was applicable in civil rights actions based upon § 1983. These cases, however, dealt with prisoners' rights which in no respect involved a contractual relationship and these cases are therefore not applicable to the case at bar. It is necessary therefore for the Court to look at the decisions of other jurisdictions which have considered the applicable statute of limitation to be applied in § 1981 actions. These decisions should not, however, be mechanically applied since each state has its own statutes regarding limitation of actions and each case may present a different factual situation.

Plaintiff cites Boudreaux v. Baton Rouge Marine Contracting Company, 437 F.2d 1011 (5th Cir. 1971) wherein the court states in footnote 16:

"Because appellees in the District Court argued that any § 1981 claim would be barred by the one-year statute of limitations applicable to tort claims . . . we herein state our view for the guidance of the court on remand that the applicable statute of limitations is rather the ten-year provision governing contract claims. . . . It is, after all, the right to `make and enforce contracts' which is protected by § 1981"

Defendant contends that in Buckner v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., 339 F.Supp. 1108 (D.C., 1972), aff'd, 476 F.2d 1287 (5th Cir. 1973) the above language in Boudreaux was impliedly overruled. In Buckner the action was brought by seven black employees against their employer and union contesting the validity of tests determining qualification for the company's apprenticeship program. No allegation was made of discriminatory discharge. The court noted the dictum in Boudreaux but felt the Fifth Circuit holding in Sewell v. Grand Lodge of Intern'l Ass'n of Machinists, 445 F.2d 545 (5th Cir. 1971) should take precedence over Boudreaux. The court in Buckner thereafter concluded that:

"The plaintiffs' claims here for pre-1962 practices are not really for a breach of a promise, whether written or oral, but for a breach of a duty imposed by statute and Constitution. Indeed, plaintiffs through arbitration long since concluded pressed their claims arising under the contract—while we do not hold that the arbitration precluded other action, it is because the court action is based on the statutory duty independently of what the parties may or may not have agreed upon."

Plaintiff cites the above language in support of her contention that the Court could apply the three-year statute of limitation provided in Oklahoma for "an action upon a liability created by statute."

In Sewell v. Grand Lodge of Intern'l Ass'n of Machinists, supra, relied upon by the court in Buckner, a union representative brought an action against the union alleging that he was wrongfully discharged from his office by the president of the union. The action was not based upon § 1981, or any allegation of a civil rights violation, but rather on the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. This Act does not contain a statute of limitation and the federal courts, as in Civil Rights actions, must rely on the limitation periods prescribed by the state in which the litigation arose. The Union insisted that plaintiff's action was ex delicto, an action for injury to personal rights guaranteed by law and subject to the one year statute of limitation for tort actions. Plaintiff contended that his action was ex contractu. The court first noted that in examining these contentions it must rely on plaintiff's complaint. The court thereafter noted that the complaint made no mention of a contract; that plaintiff merely alleged membership in the Union and employment by it in various capacities from time to time over a period of fifteen years. The court held that plaintiff's alleged grievance was the claimed denial of rights protected by federal law and therefore his claim was essentially in the nature of a tort for the alleged violation of rights claimed under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. The court in Dantagnan v. I.L.A. Local 1418, AFL-CIO, 496 F.2d 400 (5th Cir. 1974) dealing with the same Act, stated that the holding in Sewell rested on the conclusion that as a matter of state law the state courts would have classified Sewell's course of action as ex delicto or tortious, "not . . . on a conclusion that as a matter of federal law all actions based on violations of the LMRDA are essentially tortious in nature." Similarly in the case at bar it would be erroneous for the Court to hold that all actions based on § 1981 are essentially of a contractual or tortious nature. Rather, the factual allegations of each case must be examined to determine how the state courts would classify the particular allegations made.

In the case at bar the Court is not, for example, dealing with an allegation that because of discriminatory practices an individual...