Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ared-3_05-cv-00282/USCOURTS-ared-3_05-cv-00282-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Other Civil Rights

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1

 Order filed 11/1/2006, docket entry 28. 

2

 The Honorable Jimm Larry Hendren reached the opposite legal conclusion in Walker v.

Powell, W.D. Ark. Case # 5:05-cv-05203 JLH. 

3

 Ark. Code Ann. § 16-56-105; Morton v. City of Little Rock, 934 F.2d 180 (8th Cir.

1991)(applying § 16-56-105 in § 1983 action); see also Wycoff v. Menke, 773 F.2d 983, 984 (8th

Cir. 1985)(“all section 1983 claims that accrue after Wilson [are to] be governed by the state’s

personal injury statute of limitations”).

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF ARKANSAS

JONESBORO DIVISION

JAMES L. ALLEN PLAINTIFF

VS. CASE NO. 3:05-CV-00282 GTE

CHRIS HALL, et al. DEFENDANTS

ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION

Defendants have filed a Motion for Reconsideration therein requesting that the Court

reconsider its previous Order rejecting Defendants’ assertion that the Plaintiff’s official capacity

§ 1983 claims are governed by a two year statute of limitations, and therefore time-barred.1 

Because this Court’s ruling conflicts with prior rulings by a fellow district judge in Arkansas’

Western District,2

 the Court has carefully reconsidered its prior legal conclusion. The Court

stands by its prior decision and leaves it to a higher court to resolve the conflict.

 DISCUSSION

Section 1983 actions in Arkansas are normally governed by Arkansas’ three year statute

of limitations for personal injury actions.3

 Arkansas also has a statute that calls for the

application of a two-year statute of limitations for actions “against sheriffs and coroners upon any

liability incurred . . . in their official capacity.” Ark. Code Ann. § 16-56-109(a). The issue

Case 3:05-cv-00282-GTE Document 49 Filed 02/28/07 Page 1 of 6
4

 Defendants concede that a three year statute of limitations applies to the individual

capacity claims. There is also pending a separate motion for reconsideration urging the Court to

reconsider its prior decision to permit the individual capacity claims to “relate back” to the

original Complaint, which asserted only official capacity claims, but which was later amended to

add individual capacity claims. That issue will be addressed in a separate Order. 

5

 Wilson, 471 U.S. at 266. Prior to Wilson, courts faced with civil rights claims under §

1983 struggled to determine which particular state limitations period to apply. Much confusion

and uncertainty resulted. Consequently, litigants often could not determine whether their federal

civil rights claim was time-barred without a court ruling. Owens v. Okure, 488 U.S. 235, 240

(1989).

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before the Court is whether a limitation period of two years or three years applies to Plaintiff’s

 official capacity § 1983 claims against the County Defendants.4

 

The question before the Court is one of federal law rather than state law. Where

Congress has provided a civil rights remedy without a limitations period, the gap is to be filled by

borrowing a state law limitations provision, but only where the borrowed state law “is not

inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States.” 42 U.S.C. § 1988. As the

Supreme Court instructed in Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 269 (1985):

The importation of the policies and purposes of the States on

matters of civil rights is not the primary office of the borrowing

provision in § 1988; rather that statute is designed to assure that

neutral rules of decision will be available to enforce the civil rights

action, among them § 1983. Congress surely did not intend to

assign to state courts and legislatures a conclusive role in the

formative function of defining and characterizing the essential

elements of a federal cause of action. 

This Court concluded in its prior Order that applying Arkansas’ two-year statute of

limitations to Plaintiff’s official capacity claims in this case would be contrary to the decision in

Wilson. In Wilson, the Supreme Court sought to end the “conflict, confusion and uncertainty”

about which state law limitations period to borrow and apply in § 1983 actions.5 Stressing the

need for uniformity within each State, the Court held that courts must borrow and apply “the one

Case 3:05-cv-00282-GTE Document 49 Filed 02/28/07 Page 2 of 6
6

 Wilson, supra, at 275.

7

 Id., at 251. 

8

 Id., at 247-48. 

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most appropriate statute of limitations.”6

Several years later, the Supreme Court considered the issue again. In Owens v Okure,

488 U.S. 235 (1989), the Court refused to apply New York law a specifying a one year

limitations period for assault, battery, false imprisonment, and five other intentional torts to the

plaintiff’s § 1983 claim against police officers alleging unlawful arrest and excessive force. 

Instead, the Court applied New York’s three year residual statute of limitations for personal

injury claims, reaffirming Wilson’s promise of “an end to the confusion over which statute of

limitations to apply to § 1983 actions.”7

 As the Court further noted, “the very idea of a residual

statute suggests that each State would have no more than one.”8 

Defendants contend that the Supreme Court’s decision in Wilson is not controlling on the

limitations issue now before the Court. In fact, Defendants assert that “Wilson and its progeny

are not adverse, directly or indirectly,” to the issue of whether a two or three year statute of

limitations applies. Defendants argue that Wilson does not foreclose the possibility of applying

two different “general” and “residual” statutes of limitation. Defendants thus contend that

Arkansas has two residual statutes, two years for sheriffs and coroners sued in their official

capacities and three years for all other defendants. 

The Court rejects this argument. First, there is nothing general or residual about Ark.

Code Ann. § 16-56-105(a). The provision carves out special protection for a select class of state

actors – sheriffs and coroners. In the § 1983 context, a three year statue of limitations would

apply to all state actors except sheriffs and coroners acting in their official capacity, to whom a

Case 3:05-cv-00282-GTE Document 49 Filed 02/28/07 Page 3 of 6
9

 Id.

10 Occidental Life Ins. Co. v. EEOC, 432 U.S. 355, 367 (1977). 

11 Id.

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two year statute of limitations would apply. Is there any justification for treating coroners and

sheriffs more favorably than all other state actors? Should the length of time a plaintiff harmed

by a law enforcement official has to file suit be different depending on whether the official is

employed as a sheriff or a police officer? The questions are rhetorical, and to be answered by the

state legislature, but asking them proves the point – the two year statutory provision in question

is not a general or residual statute. Accordingly, its application is foreclosed by Wilson’s

directive to apply “the one most appropriate statute of limitations.”9

 

Additionally and alternatively, the Court concludes that the application of the two year

limitations provision to this subset of § 1983 claims would be contrary to the federal principles

underlying § 1983. Even prior to Wilson, the Supreme Court had rejected a mechanical and

automatic borrowed application of state statutes of limitation to federal statutes. “State

legislatures do not devise their limitations periods with national interests in mind, and it is the

duty of the federal courts to assure that the importation of state law will not frustrate or interfere

with the implementation of national policies.”10 Accordingly, a state limitation period will not be

borrowed if its “application would be inconsistent with the underlying policies of the federal

statute.”11 

Application of the Arkansas statute would require the application of different limitations

periods in the same lawsuit for the same violation of federal or constitutional law. A plaintiff

whose federal civil rights were violated by a sheriff might be permitted to recover damages

against the sheriff in his individual capacity, while having no right to prospective injunctive relief

Case 3:05-cv-00282-GTE Document 49 Filed 02/28/07 Page 4 of 6
12 Wilson, 471 U.S. at 274-75.

13 Sullivan, 867 F.Supp. at 993. 

14 Arnold, supra, 26 F.3d at 987.

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against the sheriff in his official capacity. In every § 1983 case against a sheriff or a coroner in

both capacities, two limitations periods would have to be considered. The application of

multiple limitation periods to one § 1983 cause of action undermines the federal principles

underlying such actions. Indeed, the Wilson Court deemed it highly unlikely that Congress

“would have sanctioned [an] interpretation of its statute” that permitted multiple periods of

limitations to apply to the same case.12

Other courts have reached similar conclusions. In Sullivan v. Bailiff, 867 F.Supp. 992,

995 (D. Wy. 1994), a district court in Wyoming refused to apply a state statute establishing a two

year limitations period for “[a]ll actions upon a liability created by a federal statute . . . for which

no period of limitations is provided in such statute” to a plaintiff’s § 1983 claim. Instead, the

court applied Wyoming’s four year statute of limitations period for personal injury claims, noting

that the United States Supreme Court had “definitively ruled on the issue” in Wilson.

13 

In Arnold v. Duchesne County, 26 F.3d 982 (10th Cir. 1994), the Tenth Circuit refused to

apply a Utah statute enacted to apply specifically to § 1983 actions and placing a two year statute

of limitations upon such claims. Relying heavily on Wilson, the Tenth Circuit held that Utah, by

enacting a statute of limitations applicable to § 1983 actions alone, had “usurped the role of

federal law in characterizing the essence of such actions” as claims for personal injury and had

also “eliminated the assurance that neutral rules of decision” would apply to § 1983 claims in

Utah.14 The court found the two year provision inapplicable, noting that “neither Congress nor

the Supreme Court has authorized states to create limitations periods specifically and exclusively

Case 3:05-cv-00282-GTE Document 49 Filed 02/28/07 Page 5 of 6
15 Id., at 989.

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applicable to section 1983 actions.”15

CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated herein, the Court is compelled to conclude that the statute of

limitations period for all § 1983 claims against sheriffs and coroners – whether sued in their

official or individual capacities – is controlled by Arkansas’ statute of limitations for personal

injury actions. Ark. Code Ann. § 16-56-105. That period is three years. 

Accordingly,

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED THAT Defendant’s Motion for Reconsideration of the

Court’s prior denial of Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss (Docket No. 36) be, and it is hereby,

DENIED. 

IT IS SO ORDERED THIS 28t h day of February, 2007.

 /s/Garnett Thomas Eisele 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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