Opinion ID: 41813
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Berry’s Arguments

Text: Berry presents three arguments for reversal, but the arguments do not address our grounds for deciding the case. First, Berry asserts that the case must be permitted to proceed because the district court found that his claim was not 2 Ordinarily, Georgia’s two-year statute of limitations would have run by November 1994, that is, two years after the property was forfeited, but there is no direct evidence in the record that Berry received notice. By Berry’s own admission, however, he was aware of the forfeiture at some point before February 1995, because on that date the state court denied his first attempt to have the forfeited property returned to him. Berry does not indicate when he filed that proceeding, but construing the complaint generously, we can assume that he instituted it before the February 1995 dismissal. 3 The district court used December 1993 as the date at which Berry became aware of the forfeiture. This caused the district court to conclude that December 1995 was the last-chance filing date relevant to determining when the statute of limitations ran. These dates were based on a lawsuit Berry allegedly filed in the district court in December 1993 seeking the return of the forfeited property, which Berry concedes to filing in his appellate brief. However, because the December 1993 action is not mentioned in the complaint or any document attached thereto or referenced therein, the district court records identifying that action were outside the scope of the record for purposes of ruling on the Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) motion. The error, however, is harmless. 5 frivolous. Second, Berry contends that the statute of limitations was tolled while he was pursuing state remedies. Third, Berry claims that the statute of limitations only begins to run when the property owner is properly notified of the forfeiture action, which never occurred here, citing our unpublished decision in United States v. Williams, No. 04-12829 (11th Cir. April 29, 2005). The frivolity screening undertaken by the district court here only required the court to take a look at the case as soon as it was filed and make a preliminary determination as to the case’s possible validity. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. Nothing in the statute provides a plaintiff with immunity from any meritorious defense a defendant thereafter raises. Further, regarding his tolling argument, Berry was not entitled to any tolling for that time he spent pursuing relief in state court because nothing in state or federal law required him to exhaust his claims there before pursuing this action. In Williams, we vacated a criminal forfeiture order because the defendant had not been served with notice of the proceeding, indicating that the time period within which he could file a claim never began to run. However, Williams involved a motion filed in the actual forfeiture proceeding, and not an action brought under § 1983 seeking collateral review of a state court proceeding. Thus, Williams does not provide any reason to ignore the rule being applied in this case 6 that the limitation period begins to run when the person with the claim had actual notice.