2002 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

1-29-2002

Graff v. Kohlman

Precedential or Non-Precedential:

Docket 0-3281

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Recommended Citation

"Graff v. Kohlman" (2002). 2002 Decisions. Paper 48.

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 NOT-PRECEDENTIAL 

 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

 FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT 

 

 No. 00-3281 

 JOSEPH E. GRAFF; SANDRA E. GRAFF 

 v. 

 

 MICHAEL P. KOHLMAN, an individual; 

 BEAVER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, a municipal corporation; 

 PATRICIA FOWLER, an individual; DENNIS GOEHRING, an individual; 

 DUANE RAPE, an individual; NEW SEWICKLEY TOWNSHIP, BEAVER COUNTY 

 PENNSYLVANIA, a municipal corporation 

 

JOSEPH E. GRAFF, individually and as Administrator of the Estate 

 of Sandra E. Graff, deceased, Appellant

 

 

 On Appeal from the United States District Court 

 for the Western District of Pennsylvania 

 D.C. Civil Action 99-01237 

 (Honorable William L. Standish) 

 

 Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a) 

 (Submitted: December 12, 2000) 

 

 Before SCIRICA, AMBRO, and POLLAK, 

 Circuit Judges 

 

 (Filed January 29, 2002) 

 _________________________ 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION 

 _________________________ 

POLLAK, District Judge. 

 This appeal arises out of allegations by Joseph E. Graff ("Graff") 

that Beaver 

County and New Sewickley Township officials conspired to assess inflated 

property taxes 

against a farm owned by Graff and his late wife, Sandra E. Graff. Graff 

asserts claims 

for violations of 42 U.S.C.  1983 and 1985 based on this conduct. The 

District Court 
dismissed those claims. We affirm. 

 I 

 In 1987, Graff entered into an agreement to purchase an active farm 

in Beaver 

County, Pennsylvania, for $63,000. Prior to the close of the sale, a fire 

completely 

destroyed the farm house and other auxiliary buildings. Graff 

nevertheless completed the 

purchase of the property at the agreed-upon price. After the fire, the 

Beaver County Tax 

Assessment Office informed him that it would reduce the assessed value of 

the property 

from $39,488 to $27,700 because of the damage, but that the assessed value 

would return 

to approximately its original amount if Graff rebuilt the destroyed 

buildings. After Graff 

finished building a new farm house in 1992, smaller than its predecessor, 

the County 

increased the assessed value of the property to $86,700. This figure was 

more than twice 

the original assessed value. Graff appealed the increase to the Beaver 

County Assessment 

Appeals Board. During the pendency of the appeal, he completed 

construction of a barn 

on the property, resulting in another increase in its assessed value in 

1993. 

 On July 26, 1994, the Court of Common Pleas of Beaver County ruled on 

Graff's 

appeal, setting his assessments at $82,000 for 1992 and $87,500 for 1993. 

Graff appealed 

the trial court's decision to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 

which remanded 

for further proceedings. The trial court eventually upheld its prior 

order. Graff appealed 

again, and the Commonwealth Court affirmed in a memorandum opinion dated 

April 9, 

1997. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Graff's petition for 

allowance of appeal 

and subsequent request for reconsideration. 

 In 1997, Graff appealed his property assessment again. This time, 

the Beaver 

County Board of Assessment Appeals reduced the assessed value of Graff's 

property to 

$56,000. Although Beaver County appealed the decision, it and Graff 

eventually reached 

a settlement in 1999 setting the assessed value of Graff's property at 

$62,000 for 1997. 

Graff has not disputed any subsequent property tax assessment by Beaver 

County. 

 Graff filed the complaint that forms the basis for this appeal on 

April 4, 1999. In 

it, Graff alleges that the large increases in his 1992 and 1993 

assessments were the result 
of an improper request made by Patricia Fowler ("Fowler"), the secretary 

of the New 

Sewickley Township, to Michael Kohlman ("Kohlman"), Beaver County's Chief 

Assessor. Graff further contends that Fowler's actions were authorized, 

consented to, 

approved, or adopted by Dennis Goehring ("Goehring") and Duane Rape 

("Rape"), both 

members of the New Sewickley Township Board of Supervisors. Graff also 

alleges that 

Kohlman took a number of other actions that injured him further. Graff 

contends that, 

among other things, Kohlman improperly changed the designation of Graff's 

property 

from agricultural to residential, improperly described his home as 

"architecturally 

unique," and filed wrongful complaints against an expert witness Graff 

employed. 

Graff's complaint asserts claims for violation of 42 U.S.C.  1983 and 

1985 against 

Kohlman, Fowler, Goehring and Rape, as well as Beaver County and New 

Sewickley 

Township. Specifically, he alleges that the defendants conspired to 

deprive him of rights 

guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States 

Constitution 

and by Article I, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. 

 The defendants moved in the District Court to dismiss Graff's 

complaint for 

failure to state a claim. They contended that his  1983 claim was barred 

by the 

applicable statute of limitations and that his  1985 complaint was 

defective because it 

failed to identify Graff or his wife as members of a class protected by 

that statute against 

racial or other class-based animus. The District Court granted the motion 

as to the two 

federal claims, and declined to retain supplemental jurisdiction over the 

remaining state 

law claims. Graff appeals the District Court's determination that his 

1983 claim is 

time-barred. We review the District Court's ruling on this issue de novo. 

See Dixon 

Ticonderoga Co. v. Estate of O'Connor, 248 F.3d 151, 161 (3d Cir. 2001). 

 II 

 In Pennsylvania,  1983 claims are governed by the two-year statute 

of limitation 

period provided by 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann.  5524(7). See Wilson v. 

Garcia, 471 U.S. 

261, 266-67 (1985); Sameric Corp. of Delaware, Inc. v. City of 

Philadelphia, 142 F.3d 

582, 599 (3d Cir. 1998). A cause of action filed under  1983 accrues 

when the plaintiff 

knows or should know that his or her constitutional rights have been 

violated. See id.; 
Sandutch v. Muroski, 684 F.2d 252, 254 (3d Cir. 1982). 

 In the case before us, the District Court determined that Graff's 

complaint was 

untimely on its face because Graff knew or should have known that his 

rights were being 

violated in 1992 and 1993, but failed to file his  1983 complaint until 

August 4, 1999. 

On appeal, Graff's primary contention is that the District Court failed to 

examine his 

pleadings in the light most favorable to his claim, and that if it had 

done so, it would have 

accepted his theory that the defendants engaged in a "continuing 

conspiracy" against him 

that operated even at the time of his 1999 settlement. Based on this 

contention, Graff 

argues that his complaint does not on its face show noncompliance with the 

statute of 

limitations, and that it therefore should not be dismissed on a Rule 

12(b)(6) motion. We 

find this argument unavailing. 

 The essence of Graff's claim is that the defendants conspired to 

inflate his 1992 

and 1993 property tax assessments in a manner that deprived him of his 

constitutional 

rights. Graff had notice of this injury at the latest in 1993, when the 

county imposed 

its second increase in his tax assessment. To be sure, the complaint does 

allege wrongful 

activities by the defendants that took place after 1993. Assuming they 

are true, however, 

none of these allegations reveals a constitutional injury to Graff that 

could only have been 

discovered after April 4, 1997 (two years before the filing of his 

complaint). For 

example, although the complaint alleges that the county engaged in 

"lengthy litigation in 

retaliation for Graff's refusal to accept an [improper] assessment," we 

note that Graff 

himself initiated that litigation when he appealed his 1992 assessment. 

In addition, the 

allegation that the defendants filed baseless complaints against Graff's 

expert witness 

after the completion of initial proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas 

does not state a 

claim for an injury against Graff. And although Graff alleges that the 

county settled his 

1997 tax assessment in 1999 pursuant to a conspiracy that began in 1992, 

nothing in the 

complaint indicates why Graff believes that the settlement involved 

wrongful activity that 

injured him. 

 For the foregoing reasons, we must reject Graff's contention that, 

when combined 
with the allegedly wrongful assessments of 1992 and 1993, the subsequent 

conduct 

alleged in his complaint establishes a "continuing conspiracy" against him 

that makes his 

April 4, 1999 filing timely. This court has previously held that the 

statute of limitations 

for civil conspiracies runs separately for each overt act causing damage. 

See Bougher v. 

University of Pittsburgh, 882 F.2d 74, 80 (3d Cir. 1989); Wells v. 

Rockefeller, 728 F.2d 

209, 217 (3d Cir. 1984). As we have explained, the only acts alleged in 

Graff's complaint 

that caused him actual constitutional injury were the assessments of the 

allegedly inflated 

property valuations in 1992 and 1993. We also reject Graff's claim that 

his complaint is 

timely because he did not discover the involvement of Goehring and Rape 

until well after 

the initial disputes over his tax assessment. In general, the rule that a 

cause of action 

accrues upon discovery of the injury does not require that a plaintiff 

have identified every 

party who may be liable on its claim. See New Castle County v. 

Halliburton NUS Corp., 

111 F.3d 1116, 1125 (3d Cir. 1997). 

 For the foregoing reasons, viewing the complaint in the light most 

favorable to 

Graff, we hold that his  1983 claim accrued prior to April 4, 1997. The 

order of the 

District Court dismissing this claim for failure to comply with the 

relevant statute of 

limitations will therefore be affirmed. 

TO THE CLERK: 

 Please file the foregoing opinion. 

 /s/ Louis H. Pollak 

 Louis H. Pollak 

 District Court Judge