[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 21-11572

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

MAURICE J. JACKSON, 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

KEN SCOTT,

COACH SIDWELL, 

SCOTT WALKER, 

FRANK HELPER, 

JOHN DOE #1, et al., 

Defendants-Appellees.

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____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 0:20-cv-62656-WPD

____________________

Before NEWSOM, BRANCH, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Maurice Jackson, a plaintiff proceeding pro se, appeals the 

district court’s sua sponte dismissal of his complaint for failure to 

state a claim on which relief may be granted under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915(e), as well as the district court’s denial of his Fed. R. Civ. P. 

59(e) motion to alter or amend the judgment. Because Jackson’s 

claims against the defendants are untimely, we affirm.

I. 

Several decades ago, Maurice Jackson played high school 

football at several Broward County, Florida high schools. Now 

forty-seven years old, he is currently a prisoner of the state of Florida where he has been incarcerated continuously for the last sixteen 

years. Sometime during the years 2018 and 2019, Jackson became 

aware of chronic traumatic encephalopathy and its association with 

football after reading several news articles and watching television 

programs on the topic. 

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After learning of CTE, Jackson sued Ken Scott, his head football coach during his junior and senior year, the school board of 

Broward County, Florida, the Florida High School Athletic Association, and several other known and unknown individuals affiliated 

with the school board and FHSAA. He sued under Section 1983,

alleging that the defendants violated his due process right to bodily 

integrity and showed deliberate indifference to his medical needs 

while he was a member of several Broward County high school

football teams, in violation of both the federal and Florida state 

constitutions.

Specifically, Jackson alleged that football games and practices he participated in required him to absorb consistent, sudden, 

and violent blows to his head. He describes two specific instances 

that occurred during games played in September 1990 and September 1991, respectively, where he suffered blows severe enough to 

cause disorientation, a “ringing” sensation, hearing loss, nausea, 

and vomiting. Despite those symptoms, he alleges that his coaches 

encouraged him to continue playing. He asserts that these instances, as well as other blows suffered throughout the time he 

played football, caused him to suffer long term brain damage and 

other symptoms consistent with CTE.

Because Jackson was proceeding in forma pauperis, the district court screened his complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2) and 

dismissed it as untimely. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). The district 

court concluded that because Jackson sued under Section 1983, his

claims were subject to a four-year statute of limitations borrowed 

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from Florida tort law. The district court held that Jackson’s claims 

accrued in 1991, the date of the latest incident forming the basis of 

his complaint. It concluded that the statute of limitations began to 

run at that time, that it had clearly expired, and that Jackson had

therefore failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. 

Jackson filed a timely Rule 59(e) motion to alter or amend 

the judgment, which the district court denied. Jackson appealed.

II. 

We divide our discussion into two parts. First, we address 

the district court’s dismissal of Jackson’s complaint under Section 

1915(e). Second, we address the district court’s denial of Jackson’s 

motion to alter or amend the judgment. We affirm the district 

court on both issues.

The district court dismissed Jackson’s complaint under Section 1915(e) for failure to state a claim on which relief can be 

granted on the grounds that Jackson’s claims were untimely. On 

appeal, Jackson argues that his claims are timely because CTE is a 

“degenerative disease” that “may not manifest to any medically detectable degree for many years.” We disagree.

We review a Section 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) dismissal de novo and 

take all allegations in the complaint as true. Mitchell v. Farcass, 112 

F.3d 1483, 1490 (11th Cir. 1997). A district court may dismiss a complaint for failure to state a claim if it is apparent from the face of the 

complaint that the applicable statute of limitations bars the claim.

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United States v. Henco Holding Corp., 985 F.3d 1290, 1296 (11th 

Cir. 2021). 

We also review the district court’s interpretation and application of the statute of limitations de novo. Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Hamilton, 453 F.3d 1331, 1334 (11th Cir. 2006). The statute of limitations for Section 1983 claims is borrowed from the forum state’s residual personal injury statute of limitations, which in 

Florida is four years. McGroarty v. Swearingen, 977 F.3d 1302, 1307

(11th Cir. 2020); see also Fla. Stat. § 95.11(3)(p).

A Section 1983 cause of action accrues, and the statute of 

limitations begins to run, when “the facts which would support a 

cause of action are apparent or should be apparent to a person with 

a reasonably prudent regard for his rights.” McGroarty, 977 F.3d at

1309 (quoting Van Poyck v. McCollum, 646 F.3d 865, 867 (11th Cir. 

2011)). This requires only that the plaintiff know or should know 

(1) that he has suffered an injury that forms the basis of his action 

and (2) who has inflicted the injury. Chappell v. Rich, 340 F.3d 

1279, 1283 (11th Cir. 2003).

Here, the district court did not err in dismissing Jackson’s 

Section 1983 claims as untimely. Jackson filed his complaint decades after his career as a high school football player ended. According to his own allegations, symptoms from the injuries forming the 

basis of his action were “clear” when the injuries occurred. They 

were so obvious that a television reporter approached the sideline 

during the 1991 game concerned about Jackson’s “apparent and visibly injured condition.” Jackson’s own argument that his coaches 

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showed deliberate indifference is premised on the allegation that 

his injuries during the 1991 game were “obvious” and “significant.”

And he knew the identities of the individuals that allegedly inflicted 

his injuries by urging him to continue playing in the game. In sum, 

the facts that he now relies on to support his Section 1983 action 

were apparent to him in 1991. That is when his cause of action accrued, and the statute of limitations began to run. Chappell, 340 

F.3d at 1283. Because approximately twenty-nine years passed between the time his cause of action accrued and when Jackson filed 

his complaint, Jackson’s claims are untimely, and we affirm the district court’s dismissal under Section 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii).

The district court also denied Jackson’s Rule 59(e) motion to 

alter or amend the judgment. We review the denial of a Rule 59(e) 

motion for abuse of discretion. Lamonica v. Safe Hurricane Shutters, Inc., 711 F.3d 1299, 1317 (11th Cir. 2013). Under this standard, 

we will affirm unless we find the district court has made a clear 

error of judgment or has applied the wrong legal standard. 

Eghnayem v. Boston Sci. Corp., 873 F.3d 1304, 1313 (11th Cir. 

2017). A Rule 59(e) motion may only be granted on the grounds of 

newly discovered evidence or manifest errors of law or fact. Arthur 

v. King, 500 F.3d 1335, 1343 (11th Cir. 2007). A Rule 59(e) motion 

may not be used to relitigate old matters or to raise arguments that 

could have been raised prior to the judgment. Michael Linet, Inc. 

v. Vill. of Wellington, Fla., 408 F.3d 757, 763 (11th Cir. 2005). 

Here, the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Jackson’s Rule 59(e) motion, as Jackson did not show that the 

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court made a clear error of judgment or applied the wrong standard in dismissing his Section 1983 claims as untimely. Though Jackson recently learned of additional long-term consequences of his 

football injuries, he nevertheless alleges that his injuries were apparent to him and to others in 1991. Furthermore, because the district court dismissed all of Jackson’s Section 1983 claims over which 

it had jurisdiction, it did not err by declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over any remaining state constitutional claims.

Shotz v. City of Plantation, Fla., 344 F.3d 1161, 1185 (11th Cir. 2003) 

(a district court may decline supplemental jurisdiction over a state 

law claim if “the district court has dismissed all claims over which 

it has original jurisdiction”) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3)). 

AFFIRMED. 

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