In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 11-1409

BRIANNA RAY, as Administrator of the

Estate of ROBERT C. RAY, deceased,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

CHAUNCEY C. MAHER, III, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Central District of Illinois.

No. 10 C 3199—Michael M. Mihm, Judge.

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 16, 2011—DECIDED NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Before EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge, and WOOD and

TINDER, Circuit Judges.

TINDER, Circuit Judge. Nearly three years after Robert C.

Ray died in custody at the Sangamon County Jail, the

administrator of Ray’s estate filed an eight-count complaint against the jail’s doctor (Dr. Maher), the county

sheriff, and seventeen correctional officers and nurses

employed by the county. Count I is a combined Wrongful
2 No. 11-1409

Death Act, 740 ILCS 180/2, and Survival Act, 755 ILCS 5/27-

6, negligence claim against Dr. Maher. Counts II-VIII

allege violations of Ray’s Fourteenth Amendment right

to basic medical services under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and

name all defendants. The district court dismissed counts

II-VIII as time-barred by the two-year Illinois statute

of limitations for personal injury actions and declined

to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining

state-law claim. The plaintiff argues that the district

court should have tolled the limitations period for the

§ 1983 claims because the sole beneficiary of Ray’s

estate was a minor when Ray’s cause of action arose.

(She does not challenge the district court’s discretionary

declination to retain supplemental jurisdiction over

the state law claim in Count I. She only asks for it to be

reinstated if the § 1983 claims are.) As the district court

recognized, her argument is meritless. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

Ray was arrested for contempt of court on September 25,

2007. Before being placed in the Sangamon County Jail,

Ray was treated for alcohol withdrawal at St. John’s

Hospital. He was ill again soon after being jailed, but,

according to the complaint, his repeated requests for

medication were denied. He was assigned “high risk”

status and scheduled to be observed every fifteen minutes. When Dr. Maher examined Ray at approximately 1:30 p.m. on the 28th, he noted that Ray

was diaphoretic and disoriented and seemed to be hallucinating. Dr. Maher prescribed Haldol and Libruim.
No. 11-1409 3

The drugs were eventually administered, but Ray was

not taken to a hospital. By 11 p.m. on the 28th, a correctional officer saw that Ray was sweating, mumbling

incoherently, and not responding to his name. Ray was

totally unresponsive by 11:45 p.m. and EMTs declared

him dead just before midnight.

Gina Miller, Ray’s ex-wife, was named administrator

of Ray’s estate on August 4, 2010. She filed this action

in the Central District of Illinois on August 6, 2010. The

defendants filed a motion to dismiss, which pointed out

that the § 1983 claims were not filed within the applicable two-year limitations period. The district court

granted the motion, indicating that the age of a beneficiary is irrelevant to the limitations analysis for a

claim brought by the estate. 

Brianna Ray, the daughter of Robert C. Ray and Gina

Miller and the sole beneficiary of her father’s estate,

recently turned eighteen and replaced Miller as administrator. We note this change primarily to explain the

case caption; it has no effect on our decision.

II. DISCUSSION

We review de novo a district court’s order granting a

Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss based on the statute of

limitations. Middleton v. City of Chicago, 578 F.3d 655,

657 (7th Cir. 2009).

Notwithstanding the sad facts underlying this case,

the estate’s § 1983 claims are obviously untimely and

must be dismissed. Federal law does not set the limita-
4 No. 11-1409

tions period in § 1983 actions. Instead, 42 U.S.C. § 1988(a)

instructs us to look to state law. Specifically, we look

to the limitations period for personal injury actions.

Anderson v. Romero, 42 F.3d 1121, 1124 (7th Cir. 1994). In

Illinois, that period is two years. 735 ILCS 5/13-202;

Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 387 (2007); Ashafa v. City of

Chicago, 146 F.3d 459, 462 (7th Cir. 1998). The limitations

period is applied in its entirety, complete with related

tolling provisions. Hardin v. Staub, 490 U.S. 536, 538 (1989)

(“Courts . . . should not unravel state limitations rules

unless their full application would defeat the goals of

the federal statute at issue.”). From the time his cause

of action accrued, between September 25th and 28th,

2007, Ray and then his representative had two years to

sue for violations of Ray’s constitutional rights. 735

ILCS 5/13-209(a)(1). Because the former administrator,

Miller, was (and had to be) an adult, and because there

is no allegation that the defendants have interfered

with her ability to state a claim, the plaintiff has

presented no justifiable reason to toll the limitations

period. The age of the beneficiary of the estate makes

no difference. In order to be timely, Ray’s § 1983 claims

had to be filed by September 28, 2009. This suit was

filed more than ten months late, on August 6, 2010. The

district court, therefore, properly dismissed Ray’s § 1983

claims. Logan v. Wilkins, 644 F.3d 577, 582 (7th Cir. 2011)

(explaining that although a statute of limitations defense is not usually part of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to

dismiss, “when the allegations of the complaint reveal

that relief is barred by the applicable statute of limitations, the complaint is subject to dismissal for failure to

state a claim”).
No. 11-1409 5

The plaintiff’s argument to the contrary—that the

limitations period should be tolled because the

beneficiary of the estate was a minor when the claim

arose—is both novel and unsupported. Imagine if she

were correct. We can presume that there are, and have

been, thousands of estates with minor beneficiaries in

Illinois alone. Is it possible that claims belonging to

those estates are tolled until the beneficiaries reach the

age of majority? That would be an extraordinary right

for estates. And if estates did have such a right, we

would expect it to be reflected in the Illinois code, or

in at least a single case, in some jurisdiction. The

plaintiff can find no such law or case, of course,

because there is no such right.

When someone entitled to sue under § 1983 dies, and

the claim inures to his or her estate, the administrator

must diligently pursue the claim or lose it, much like

the allegedly injured person entitled to bring the

claim in the first place. An administrator’s position is not

identical to the injured party’s because Illinois gives a

representative up to an extra year to bring a claim if

the person originally entitled to bring it dies with less

than a year left in the limitations period. 735 ILCS 5/13-

209(a)(1). But that nuance has no bearing on this

case since Ray died the same day as his claims accrued. A representative had to bring the estate’s

claims within two years of that day, September 28, 2007.

Unfortunately for Brianna, the beneficiary of Ray’s

estate, that is not what happened and the estate’s § 1983

claims are now time-barred.
6 No. 11-1409

The argument that Brianna’s age somehow matters is

belied by another settled point of law: § 1983 claims are

personal to the injured party. See, e.g., Russ v. Watts, 414

F.3d 783, 790 (7th Cir. 2005) (holding that parents may

sue only for constitutional injury to themselves, not for

constitutional injuries to their son); Estate of Johnson by

Castle v. Libertyville, 819 F.2d 174, 178 (7th Cir. 1987)

(holding that parents cannot recover under § 1983 for

injuries to their daughter, but only for injuries to themselves); Spence v. Staras, 507 F.2d 554, 557 (7th Cir. 1974)

(holding that a parent could sue only in a representative

and not an individual capacity for a deprivation of her

son’s constitutional rights). Until now, our cases have

left this bedrock principle of § 1983 law in the background and it has partially surfaced mainly where

parents have sued for injures to their children. But other

circuits have been more explicit about the general point.

See, e.g,. Claybrook v. Birchwell, 199 F.3d 350, 357 (6th

Cir. 2000) (a § 1983 claim is “entirely personal to the

direct victim of the alleged constitutional tort . . . only the

purported victim, or his estate’s representative(s), may

prosecute a section 1983 claim”); Archuleta v. McShan,

897 F.2d 495, 497 (10th Cir. 1990) (it is a “well-settled

principle that a section 1983 claim must be based upon

the violation of plaintiff’s personal rights, and not the

rights of someone else”). So, if § 1983 claims are

personal to the party alleging a constitutional injury,

facts about Brianna—as a beneficiary of Ray’s estate, as

a minor, or as a party entitled to bring a state-law

wrongful death claim—could only matter for the limitations period if she were alleging a constitutional injury
No. 11-1409 7

to herself. As set out in the complaint and as conceded

at argument, however, the § 1983 claims in this case

involve only the “deprivation of Robert Ray’s 14th

Amendment rights to basic health care services.” Brianna

has not alleged a constitutional injury to herself based

on loss of society with her father, so she does not seek

to have us address whether the rule in Russ, 414 F.3d

at 790, applies to a claim by a child for constitutional

injuries to her parent.

Finally, we suspect that the plaintiff has confused the

way state law factors into remedies available under § 1983

with the way state law determines the limitations period.

With regard to the limitations period, the law could not

be more straightforward: courts look to the state personal injury statute of limitations and its attendant

tolling provisions. The limitations period, therefore, has

nothing to do with the Illinois Wrongful Death Act and

does not depend on who may benefit from the suit. Remedies, however, are different. An estate bringing a decedent’s § 1983 claims may seek damages allowable under

a state wrongful death statute. See, e.g., Bass v. Wallenstein,

769 F.2d 1173, 1189 (7th Cir. 1985) (considering the Illinois

Wrongful Death Act to determine the proper measure of

damages in a § 1983 suit alleging violations of decedent’s

Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights). But just

because it may be appropriate to consider the Illinois

Wrongful Death Act in relation to remedies does not mean

that same state law has any relevance when determining

the limitations period. Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 276-

77 (1985), made it clear that the only state-law limitations provisions relevant to § 1983 claims are those that
8 No. 11-1409

pertain to personal injury actions. After Wilson, courts are

no longer free to borrow “the most appropriate [limitations period] provided by state law.” Johnson v. Railway

Express Agency, 421 U.S. 454, 462 (1975). But, having

confused how we may determine the correct measure

of damages with the way we must analyze the limitations period, that is just what the plaintiff has asked

us to do.

III. CONCLUSION

The statute of limitations has run on the estate’s § 1983

claims and they were properly dismissed.

AFFIRMED.

11-1-11