United States Court of Appeals

 For the Eighth Circuit 

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No. 13-2593

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Marvin Allan DeVries

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

David Driesen; Patrick J. Hoye; Steven L. Ponsetto; State of Iowa

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants - Appellees

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 Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Northern District of Iowa - Sioux City

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 Submitted: April 17, 2014

 Filed: September 10, 2014

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 Before LOKEN and MURPHY, Circuit Judges, and PERRY, District Judge. *

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PERRY, District Judge.

The Honorable Catherine D. Perry, Chief Judge, United States District Court

*

for the Eastern District of Missouri, sitting by designation.
Marvin DeVries brought this § 1983 suit two years and four months after the claim

arose. The district court dismissed the case as barred by Iowa’s two-year statute of 1

limitations governing personal injury claims. DeVries appealed, arguing that his time

for filing suit was tolled during the pendency of an administrative claim he had filed

under the Iowa Tort Claims Act. Section 1983 claims are governed by the state’s

statute of limitationsfor personal injury claims and may be subject to any tolling rules

that Iowa courts have applied to thatstatute. The tolling provision DeVriesrelies on,

however, comes from the Tort Claims Act, not from the personal injury statute, and

so it has no application here. We affirm the district court’s dismissal of the action as

time barred. 

I.

DeVries brought thissuit against two Iowa State Patrol officers and other state

officials after an incident related to a traffic stop. His suit included a number of state

tort claims in addition to a claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1983. The incident occurred on

September 29, 2010, but DeVries did not file his Complaint in the district court until

February 14, 2013. Devries also pursued an unsuccessful administrative claim under

the Iowa Tort Claims Act (ITCA) before filing his federal complaint. The district 2

court rejected DeVries’ argument that a tolling provision contained in the ITCA

applied to this case, and held that the §1983 claim must be dismissed because it was

brought after the expiration of the Iowa two-year limitations period that applies to

personal injury claims. Because it was dismissing the only federal claim, the district

court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the related state claims. 

The HONORABLE MARK W. BENNETT, United States District Judge for

1

the Northern District of Iowa.

In his brief, DeVries alleges that the administrative claim was filed on 2

September 25, 2012, and denied on November 5, 2012. There is nothing in the record

to corroborate either those dates or the substance of the claim.

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II.

We review the district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss de novo. Farm

Credit Servs. of Am. v. Am. State Bank, 339 F.3d 764, 767 (8th Cir. 2003). The facts

alleged in the complaint are accepted astrue and construed in the light most favorable

to the plaintiff. Kottschade v. City of Rochester, 319 F.3d 1038, 1040 (8th Cir. 2003).

III.

In Wilson v.Garcia, the Supreme Court held that the state statute of limitations

for personal injury torts wasthe appropriate period of limitationsfor all § 1983 cases.

471 U.S. 261, 276 (1985), superseded by statute on other grounds by 28 U.S.C. §

1658(a) as recognized in Jones v. R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., 541 U.S. 369, 377–81

(2004). By establishing this uniform rule, the Supreme Court ended the requirement

that courts apply the most analogous state statute of limitations based on the facts

underlying the specific § 1983 claim. See id. at 273. Justice O’Connor, in dissent,

argued that this “blunt instrument” approach could create incongruous limitation

periods wherein a state court claim might remain viable far beyond the analogous §

1983 claim. Id. at 286 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). 

DeVries does not dispute that the state personal injury statute of limitations

applies, but he argues that the tolling provisions of the ITCA should be applied to that

limitations period, because his § 1983 action is a “claim” within the meaning of the

ITCA. 

Iowa’s personal injury limitations period provides: “Actions may be brought

within the times herein limited, respectively, after their causes accrue, and not

afterwards, except when otherwise specially declared: . . . Those founded on injuries

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to the person or reputation, whether based on contract or tort, or for a statutory

penalty, within two years.” Iowa Code §§ 614.1; 614.1(2) (2013). Like most states,

Iowa law provides tolling for certain reasons, such as claims by a minor or disabled

person, see § 614.8, or death of a defendant, see § 614.2. These general tolling

periods, however, make no mention of administrative claims. 

The ITCA is a separate statutory scheme providing a limited waiver of

sovereign immunity. See generally Iowa Code Ch. 669. It allows an injured party to

bring certain claims against the State ofIowa orits employees who were acting within

the scope of employment. The ITCA has its own statute of limitations separate from

the period applicable to general personal injury torts. See § 669.13(3) (“This section

isthe only statute of limitations applicable to claims as defined in [the ITCA].”). The

ITCA requires a tort claimant to file an administrative claim before filing suit, and it

extends the time to sue to accommodate those administrative procedures. 

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DeVries argues that the tolling provisions of the ITCA should be read into the

personal injury limitations period because his § 1983 action is a “claim” within the

meaning of the ITCA. But that would be true in many § 1983 cases, because many

such cases involve claims that could be brought as tort claims against the state under

similar laws. Cf. Wilson, 471 U.S. at 272–273 (“Almost every § 1983 claim can be

favorably analogized to more than one of the ancient common-law forms of action .

. . .”). Wilson itself was a civil rights case not unlike this one – the plaintiff alleged

[A] claim or suit otherwise permitted under this chapter shall be forever 3

barred, unless within two years after the claim accrued, the claim is made in writing

and filed with the director of the department of management under this chapter. The

time to begin a suit under this chapter shall be extended for a period of six months

from the date of mailing of notice to the claimant by the attorney general as to the

final disposition of the claim or from the date of withdrawal of the claim under

section 669.5, if the time to begin suit would otherwise expire before the end of the

period. § 669.13(1).

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excessive force during an arrest. The Court noted that Mr. Wilson’s claimcould have

been analogized to a claim under the “special New Mexico statute authorizing

recovery against the State for the torts of its agents.” Id. at 273. In determining that

only the personal injury limitations period would apply, Wilson also recognized that

limitations periods would be affected by tolling provisions: “In virtually all statutes

of limitations the chronological length of the limitation period is interrelated with

provisions regarding tolling, revival, and questions of application.” Id. at 269 n.17

(quoting Johnson v. Ry. Express Agency, Inc., 421 U.S. 454, 464 (1975)). Yet

nothing in Wilson suggests that a court should look to the tolling provisions in the

state’s tort claims act when applying the personal injury statute of limitations period. 

Wilson controls the outcome of this case. It does not matter whether a § 1983

suit could qualify as a claim under the ITCA; § 1983 creates a “uniquely federal

remedy,” Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U.S. 225, 239 (1972), and one “supplementary to

any remedy any state might have.” McNeese v. Bd. of Ed., 373 U.S. 668, 672 (1963). 

Iowa law sets the limitations period at two years, and the district court correctly

determined that DeVries filed his complaint outside that window. DeVries concedes

that the state of Iowa could not force him to exhaust administrative remedies before

bringing his § 1983 claim and that his doing so was voluntary as to that claim. Thus,

DeVries could have filed his federal claim while his state administrative proceedings

were pending. See Lown v. Brimeyer, 956 F.2d 780, 781 (8th Cir. 1992). To his

detriment, DeVries chose to pursue the state administrative remedies and deferred

filing his § 1983 claim until after the statute of limitations had run.

IV.

For the above reasons, the judgment of the district court is affirmed.

 

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