Source: http://tn.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20190520_0000359.C06.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2019-09-15 06:32:02
Document Index: 596168997

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 2305', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 2311', '§ 2311', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1658', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 2311', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 2305', '§ 1983', '§ 2117']

Terry H. Gilbert, Jacqueline C. Greene, FRIEDMAN & GILBERT, Cleveland, Ohio, David E. Mills, THE MILLS LAW OFFICE LLC, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellants Kwame Ajamu and Wiley Bridgeman. William M. Menzalora, CITY OF CLEVELAND, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee City of Cleveland.
Before: ROGERS and BUSH, Circuit Judges. [*]
The district court denied leave to amend, reasoning that § 1983 claims brought in Ohio do not survive the death of the tortfeasor, and, therefore, the requested amendments would be futile.[6]On appeal, Defendants argue that the district court was correct, but also suggest an alternative ground for affirming-that Plaintiffs did not timely present their claims to the estates of the deceased Defendants. We address the survival and timeliness arguments in turn.
The Supreme Court has interpreted this statutory language as requiring a three-step process for determining which jurisdiction's procedural law, such as provisions concerning statutes of limitations or the survival of claims, is used in § 1983 suits. See Robertson v. Wegmann, 436 U.S. 584, 588-89 (1978). First, a district court must determine whether there is an applicable federal law that covers the issue, and, if there is, apply it. See id. Second, if there is no relevant federal law, then the district court must determine what the appropriate rule is in the state where the district court sits. See id. at 588. Third, the district court must determine whether the law of that state is "inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States;" if there is no inconsistency, the state law is used, but if inconsistency exists, a federal common-law rule is used. Id. at 588-89.
Ohio Rev. Code § 2305.21. Plaintiffs argued before the district court that their claims fall within "injuries to the person," while Defendants argued that "injuries to the person" encompasses only physical injuries, and not the violation of rights alleged in this case. The district court agreed with Defendants, citing a district court case holding that under Ohio law, § 1983 claims similar to those brought by Plaintiffs did not involve "injuries to the person." Tinney v. Richland Cty., No. 1:14 CV 703, 2014 WL 6896256, at *2 (N.D. Ohio Dec. 8, 2014), aff'd, 678 Fed.Appx. 362 (6th Cir. 2017).
On appeal, Defendants again argue that Plaintiffs' claims for malicious prosecution, fabrication of evidence, and Brady violations cannot be characterized as "injuries to the person" that survive the death of the tortfeasor. Therefore, they argue that Tinney controls the result here. Defendants also argue that State ex rel. Crow v. Weygandt, 162 N.E.2d 845, 848 (Ohio 1959), an Ohio Supreme Court case holding that state-law claims for malicious prosecution do not survive the death of a party, means that Plaintiffs' § 1983 claims for malicious prosecution also do not survive. The Weygandt court based its holding on Ohio Revised Code § 2311.21, which provided:
Unless otherwise provided, no action or proceeding pending in any court shall abate by the death of either or both of the parties thereto, except actions for libel, slander, malicious prosecution, for a nuisance, or against a judge of a County Court for misconduct in office, which shall abate by the death of either party.
This provision is still in effect, its language unamended since the Weygandt decision except for one capitalization change. See Ohio Rev. Code § 2311.21. Finally, Defendants point to Stein-Sapir v. Birdsell, 673 F.2d 165, 167 (6th Cir. 1982), a Sixth Circuit case recognizing the Weygandt rule.
Neither Defendants' reliance on Tinney nor their argument based on Weygandt is persuasive. To begin with, the Sixth Circuit's unpublished opinion affirming the district court in Tinney is no longer good law. After the district court's judgment in this case, Tinney was superseded by Crabbs, a published opinion of this circuit that expressly rejected Tinney's holding and held instead that all § 1983 claims are subject to the forum state's survival rules for personal injury actions, regardless of the specific type of injury underlying the § 1983 claim. See Crabbs, 880 F.3d at 296.
It is immaterial that Crabbs addressed an unreasonable search claim under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, see id. at 293, whereas Plaintiffs' claims here are for malicious prosecution, fabrication of evidence, and Brady violations. Crabbs expressly disagreed with Tinney, which did involve a malicious prosecution claim. The Tinney plaintiff had sued in Ohio; therefore, his § 1983 claims were subject to Ohio survival rules just as Plaintiffs' claims are here. Noting that the Tinney court did not apply Ohio's survival rule for personal injury actions to a § 1983 malicious prosecution claim, the Crabbs court announced that it was "part[ing] way with" Tinney. Crabbs, 880 F.3d at 296. With that language, Crabbs rejected Tinney's reasoning pertaining to malicious prosecution claims.
If the explicit rejection of Tinney were not enough to defeat Defendants' argument, the Crabbs court's more general discussion of its rationale would be. Although Crabbs involved an unreasonable search claim, the reasoning applied to all § 1983 claims. See 880 F.3d at 296. In explaining that all § 1983 claims must be classified together for purposes of determining what state procedural rules apply, the Crabbs court cited Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261 (1985), in which the Supreme Court addressed what state statute of limitations should apply in § 1983 actions. See Crabbs, 880 F.3d at 294-95. (After Wilson was decided, Congress enacted a federal statute of limitations, codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1658.) Crabbs cited Wilson for three general propositions. "First, the characterization of § 1983 as a cause of action is itself a question of federal law . . . . Second, all § 1983 claims must be characterized in the same way . . . . Third, § 1983 actions are best characterized as personal injury actions." Crabbs, 880 F.3d at 294-95 (second emphasis added) (citing Wilson, 471 U.S. at 269-70, 271-75, 280).
More specifically, the Crabbs court reasoned that all § 1983 claims must be treated the same way for survival-of-claims purposes, just as they are for statute-of-limitations purposes. Id. at 295. The court's language could not be clearer: "the appropriate level at which to generalize a § 1983 claim under state law is as a personal injury action, sounding in tort, and nothing further." Id. at 296 (emphasis added). Therefore, although Weygandt and Ohio Revised Code § 2311.21 are still good law, after Crabbs, they do not establish a separate survival rule for malicious prosecution claims brought under § 1983.
Our court's 1982 decision in Stein-Sapir is not to the contrary. Although Defendants argue that that opinion adopted the Weygandt rule, all Stein-Sapir did was apply Weygandt-and an Ohio Court of Appeals decision extending Weygandt's survival rule to libel and slander claims-to hold that the plaintiff's state-law defamation claims did not survive the defendant's death. See Stein-Sapir, 673 F.2d at 167. Stein-Sapir involved only state law and did not mention § 1983.
When hearing a direct appeal, this court evaluates the merits of the case based on the current law and its interpretation, not the law and its interpretation existing when the district court entered its judgment. See Chaz Concrete Co., LLC v. Codell, 545 F.3d 407, 409 (6th Cir. 2008). After Crabbs, all claims brought under § 1983 are to be treated as actions sounding in personal injury tort. Because Ohio Revised Code § 2305.21 provides that actions for personal injury survive the death of the tortfeasor, and that statute does not conflict with the laws of the United States, see Crabbs, 880 F.3d at 295, all § 1983 actions brought in Ohio survive the death of the tortfeasor.
Therefore, through no fault of its own because its ruling predated Crabbs, the district court was in error as to its grounds for finding that the proposed amendments, substituting the administrator of the estates of Terpay, Staimpel, and Farmer for those Defendants, would be futile.
Defendants argue that we should affirm the district court on alternative grounds-namely, that the claims against the estates were not timely brought. Proper adjudication of this issue requires analysis of both Ohio and federal law. Defendants argue that Ohio estate law regarding the timely filing of claims defines which entities have the capacity to be sued, while Plaintiffs argue that those provisions are merely statutes of limitations. See Ohio Rev. Code §§ 2117.06, 2117.37.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;If a police officer violates the Constitution, "42 U.S.C. &sect; 1983 provides a civil remedy for those" injured by the violation. Peffer v. Stephens, 880 F.3d 256, 263 (6th Cir. 2018). But officers sued under the aegis of &sect; 1983 are protected from liability by the doctrine of qualified immunity "insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). Qualified immunity does not apply if (1) "on the plaintiff's facts," a constitutional violation occurred, and (2) the alleged violation was of "clearly established constitutional rights of which a ...