Opinion ID: 669656
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Statute of Limitations and the Secs. 1983 and 1985 Claims

Text: 56 The individual appellants contend that the Sec. 1983 and Sec. 1985 claims are time-barred either because the original complaint was filed more than three years after the pertinent events or because the amended complaint did not relate back to the time of the original complaint because the requirements of Rule 15(c) were not met. In opposition to these arguments, Cornwell does not dispute that the statute of limitations governing Sec. 1983 and Sec. 1985 actions is three years, but she argues principally (1) that the defendants' conduct constituted a continuing wrong, the last acts of which occurred within three years of the filing of the original complaint, and (2) that the amended complaint related back to the date of the original complaint. She also contends that the individual appellants have waived their argument that the amended complaint did not meet the relation-back requirements of Rule 15(c) because they did not make that argument in the district court. For the reasons below, we agree with Cornwell that defendants' policies and conduct constituted a continuing wrong and that the original complaint was therefore not barred by the three-year statute of limitations. However, we conclude that the individual appellants' relation-back argument has merit.
57 Under federal law, which governs the accrual of claims brought under Secs. 1983 and 1985, see, e.g., Morse v. University of Vermont, 973 F.2d 122, 125 (2d Cir.1992), a claim generally accrues once the  'plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the injury which is the basis of his action,'  Singleton v. New York, 632 F.2d 185, 191 (2d Cir.1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 920, 101 S.Ct. 1368, 67 L.Ed.2d 347 (1981), (quoting Bireline v. Seagondollar, 567 F.2d 260, 263 (4th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 842, 100 S.Ct. 83, 62 L.Ed.2d 54 (1979)). When a plaintiff experiences a  'continuous practice and policy of discrimination,'  however,  'the commencement of the statute of limitations period may be delayed until the last discriminatory act in furtherance of it.'  Gomes v. Avco Corp., 964 F.2d 1330, 1333 (2d Cir.1992) (quoting Miller v. International Telephone & Telegraph Corp., 755 F.2d 20, 25 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 851, 106 S.Ct. 148, 88 L.Ed.2d 122 (1985)); see also Association Against Discrimination in Employment, Inc. v. City of Bridgeport, 647 F.2d 256, 274 (2d Cir.1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 988, 102 S.Ct. 1611, 71 L.Ed.2d 847 (1982) (Association Against Discrimination in Employment ). While discrete incidents of discrimination that are not related to discriminatory policies or mechanisms may not amount to a continuing violation, see, e.g., Lambert v. Genesee Hospital, 10 F.3d 46, 53 (2d Cir.1993), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 1612, --- L.Ed.2d ---- (1994), a continuing violation may be found where there is proof of specific ongoing discriminatory polices or practices, or where specific and related instances of discrimination are permitted by the employer to continue unremedied for so long as to amount to a discriminatory policy or practice. 58 Where a continuing violation can be shown, the plaintiff is entitled to bring suit challenging all conduct that was a part of that violation, even conduct that occurred outside the limitations period. See Association Against Discrimination in Employment, 647 F.2d at 274; Acha v. Beame, 570 F.2d 57, 65 (2d Cir.1978). In Association Against Discrimination in Employment, for example, we considered whether the plaintiffs had filed their administrative complaint with EEOC within the required 300-day period, see 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-5(e) (after charges filed with local agency, complaint to EEOC must be filed within three hundred days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred, or within thirty days after receiving notice that the State or local agency has terminated the proceedings), with respect to conduct that had occurred years before that filing. We held that a consistent pattern of discriminatory hiring practices from 1971 to 1975 constituted a continuing violation and that the plaintiffs' claims accrued in 1975 when the last act of discrimination occurred. Thus, we concluded that plaintiffs' 1975 filing with the EEOC was timely even with respect to claims arising from discriminatory hiring from 1971 to 1973. 59 In the present case, the district court correctly ruled that the discrimination and harassment suffered by Cornwell was a continuing violation that began in 1981 and did not end until she finally left MacCormick in 1986. This ruling was supported by the same evidence that established her hostile-environment claim, which required her to show harassment sufficiently severe or pervasive 'to alter the conditions of [her] employment and create an abusive working environment,'  see generally Meritor Savings Bank FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 67, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 2405, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986) (quoting Henson v. City of Dundee, 682 F.2d 897, 904 (11th Cir.1982)). The district court found that defendants' personnel policies discriminated on the basis of gender and that Cornwell suffered race- and gender-based harassment that DFY and its supervisory personnel permitted to continue. It found that in 1986 Cornwell suffered the same kinds of harassment at the hands of some of the same YDAs, and under the aegis of some of the same supervisory personnel, as in 1981-1983. The court found that the only reason the harassment had not continued in the interim between February 1983 and March 1986 was Cornwell's absence on account of the illness precipitated by the first set of incidents. Against the background of DFY's gender-discriminatory policies and the hostile work environment created by those male YDAs who sought to rid MacCormick of female YDAs, the court properly concluded that the acts of discrimination and harassment by the individual defendants constituted a continuing wrong that did not end until April 1986, when Cornwell was finally driven from MacCormick for good. Cornwell's original complaint, filed in June of that year, was therefore timely. 60
61 The timeliness of the original complaint does not resolve the statute-of-limitations question with respect to the individual appellants, however, for the original complaint did not name them as defendants. Since the last act complained of occurred in April 1986 and the amended complaint was filed in 1992, well beyond the applicable three-year limitations period, the amended complaint was timely with respect to the individual appellants only if it related back to the date of the original complaint. 62 The question of relation back is governed by Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(c). At the time this action was commenced, Rule 15(c) provided, in pertinent part, as follows: 63 (c) Relation Back of Amendments. Whenever the claim or defense asserted in the amended pleading arose out of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence set forth or attempted to be set forth in the original pleading, the amendment relates back to the date of the original pleading. An amendment changing the party against whom a claim is asserted relates back if the foregoing provision is satisfied and, within the period provided by law for commencing the action against the party to be brought in by amendment that party (1) has received such notice of the institution of the action that the party will not be prejudiced in maintaining his defense on the merits, and (2) knew or should have known that, but for a mistake concerning the identity of the proper party, the action would have been brought against the party. 64 Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(c) (effective through November 30, 1991) (emphasis added). Effective December 1, 1991, the Rule was amended in response to the decision of the Supreme Court in Schiavone v. Fortune, 477 U.S. 21, 29, 106 S.Ct. 2379, 2384, 91 L.Ed.2d 18 (1986), in certain respects that are not pertinent here. As amended, the Rule continues to provide that when a party is added by an amended complaint, the amended complaint relates back as to that party only if 65 the party to be brought in by amendment (A) has received such notice of the institution of the action that the party will not be prejudiced in maintaining a defense on the merits, and (B) knew or should have known that, but for a mistake concerning the identity of the proper party, the action would have been brought against the party. 66 Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(c) (as amended) (emphasis added). 67 While we express no view as to whether the individual appellants in this case had sufficient notice of the action in 1986 to escape any prejudice in maintaining whatever defenses they had on the merits, we think it abundantly clear that the emphasized portion of the Rule was not satisfied. The requirement that a new defendant knew he was not named due to a mistake concerning identity presupposes that in fact the reason for his not being named was a mistake in identity. Cornwell, however, does not allege that she would have named the individual appellants as defendants in her original complaint but for a mistake concerning identity. Nor, in light of the record in the present case, would such an assertion be tenable. Plainly she knew the identities of the DFY employees who she contended had harassed and discriminated against her. Further, an exhibit to the original complaint identified those individuals and set out details of their alleged misconduct. Cornwell was not required to sue them, and her failure to do so in the original complaint, in light of her obvious knowledge and the detailed nature of that pleading's exhibit, must be considered a matter of choice, not mistake. 68 It is true that in the district court the defendants did not articulate this aspect of their relation-back argument with clarity. It is plain, however, that they raised the statute-of-limitations defense in their answers and that they thereafter moved for dismissal on the basis of that defense, arguing both that the original complaint was untimely and that the amended complaint did not relate back. The court denied their motions, stating that the amended complaint related back to the date of the original complaint and noting that the the same individuals were alleged in both pleadings to have committed the discriminatory acts, but apparently not realizing that though those allegations were made, those individuals had not originally been sued. We conclude that the matter of relation back was sufficiently before the district court that we should not conclude that the individual appellants waived it. 69