Opinion ID: 2975963
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Abstention Principles

Text: Plaintiff’s alternative argument for extension of the date of accrual of his cause of action is based at least derivatively on ill-fitting abstention principles. Plaintiff contends that if he had filed his § 1983 claims prior to the completion of the state juvenile court proceedings, the district court would have been obliged to abstain. It follows, plaintiff argues, citing the Sixth Circuit’s ruling in Shamaeizadeh v. Cuniga, 182 F.3d 391 (6th Cir. 1999), that his cause of action did not accrue until the juvenile court proceedings concluded on October 22, 2004. The district court rejected this argument as well. The district court accepted the notion that a federal court would have been constrained to abstain from proceeding with plaintiff’s § 1983 claims during the pendency of the juvenile court proceedings, but held this likelihood alone did not toll the running of the statute of limitations and did not relieve plaintiff of the responsibility to timely file his claims. The district court was also unpersuaded by plaintiff’s reliance on Shamaeizadeh, holding that its deferredaccrual reasoning applied only in the context of state court criminal proceedings. Despite plaintiff’s characterization of his argument, the ruling in Shamaeizadeh is not based on application of abstention principles. Yet, abstention principles are not totally inapposite. Except in extraordinary circumstances federal courts should “permit state courts to try state cases free from interference by federal courts.” Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 43 (1971). The underlying concern of Younger is the “threat to our federal system posed by displacement of state courts by those of the National Government.” Moore v. Sims, 442 U.S. 415, 423 (1979). The Sixth Circuit has held that Younger abstention is appropriate “when the state proceeding (1) is currently pending, (2) involves an important state interest, and (3) affords the plaintiff an adequate opportunity to raise constitutional claims.” Coles v. Granville, 448 F.3d 853, 865 (6th Cir. 2006). “[T]he temporary removal of a child in a child-abuse context is . . . ‘in aid of and closely related to criminal statutes’” and Younger abstention has been applied when there was a pending state court child abuse proceeding. Moore, 442 U.S. at 423 (quoting Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592, 604 (1975)). “A district court deciding to abstain under Younger has the option of either dismissing the case without prejudice or holding the case in abeyance.” Coles, 448 F.3d at 866. These abstention principles form the backdrop for the parties’ arguments regarding accrual of plaintiff’s cause of action, but are only marginally related to plaintiff’s argument based on Shamaeizadeh. Shamaeizadeh represents an extension of the rule established in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994). In Heck, the Supreme Court held that Heck’s post-conviction action under § 1983 for claims analogous to the tort of malicious prosecution (brought during the pendency of his state-court criminal appeal) would not accrue until a final adjudication in Heck’s favor in state court, since the tort of malicious prosecution requires final adjudication in favor of the accused and No. 07-5406 Eidson v. State of Tenn. Dep’t of Children’s Services, et al. Page 7 any determination by the federal court regarding the legality of the prosecution would necessarily effect the validity of the state court proceedings. Id. at 480-87. Heck does not rest on abstention principles. Rather, the court held that Heck’s cause of action would not even accrue (i.e., an essential element of his claim would not be satisfied) until Heck’s conviction were reversed or vacated on direct appeal or otherwise. Id. at 484-87. In Shamaeizadeh, the Sixth Circuit extended the reasoning of Heck to a pre-conviction situation. Shamaeizadeh never was convicted; criminal charges against him were dismissed pretrial. For purposes of evaluating the timeliness of his § 1983 unlawful search claim, the court held that when a § 1983 claim would imply the invalidity of an anticipated future conviction, the statute of limitations would not begin to run until the criminal charges were dismissed. Shamaeizadeh, 182 F.3d at 397-99. The Shamaeizadeh court, following Heck, did not rely on abstention principles, but on deferred-accrual reasoning. In fact, the court expressly rejected the notion that the running of the statute of limitations should be deemed to begin at the time of the wrongful action and then be deemed tolled during any period that a federal court, applying abstention principles, were to stay the § 1983 action during the pendency of the criminal proceedings. Such an approach, the court reasoned, “would misdirect the criminal defendant,” distracting him from “focus[ing] on his primary mode of relief—mounting a viable defense to the charges against him—before turning to a civil claim under § 1983.” Id. at 399. Plaintiff here maintains that the district court erred in its failure to recognize that the juvenile court child neglect proceedings are quasi-criminal in nature. He insists that the reasoning of Shamaeizadeh is directly applicable and that his § 1983 cause of action did not accrue until after the juvenile court proceedings concluded. Defendants point out, however, that, even if Shamaeizadeh would otherwise be applicable, it has been divested of continuing vitality by the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Wallace v. Kato, 127 S. Ct. 1091 (2007). In Wallace, the court specifically held that Heck is not to be extended into the pre-conviction arena. Id. at 1098. The Wallace court recognized that deferred-accrual reasoning was unnecessary and inappropriate in the pre-conviction setting because the common abstention practice of staying the § 1983 action would afford adequate protection to the plaintiff. In an apt rhetorical question, the Wallace court expressly rejected the rationale employed in Shamaeizadeh, i.e., that requiring a criminal defendant to timely assert any civil claim would unfairly require him to divide his attention between criminal and civil cases: “But when has it been the law that a criminal defendant, or a potential criminal defendant, is absolved from all other responsibilities that the law would otherwise place on him?” Id. at 1100. In Fox v. DeSoto, 489 F.3d 227, 233 (6th Cir. 2007), the Sixth Circuit explicitly recognized that Wallace “abrogates the holding in Shamaeizadeh”: This court, drawing on the reasoning in Heck. . . held [in Shamaeizadeh] that when a §1983 claim would imply the invalidity of a future conviction, the statute of limitations would not begin to run until the criminal charges have been dismissed. . . . In no uncertain terms, however, the Court in Wallace clarified that the Heck bar had no application in the pre-conviction context. Id. at 234 (citations omitted; emphasis in original). Still, plaintiff argues that this case is distinguishable from Wallace. Even as he maintains that child neglect and custody proceedings are quasi-criminal, he nevertheless insists that his § 1983 claims that he was deprived of custody of his children without due process are not analogous to Wallace’s claims that he was arrested and detained without judicial process. He argues that his No. 07-5406 Eidson v. State of Tenn. Dep’t of Children’s Services, et al. Page 8 claims are more analogous to the malicious-prosecution-type claims presented in Heck, claims which Wallace recognized as distinguishable. See id. at 1096, 1098. Granted, some of plaintiff’s allegations are analogous to the sort of malicious-prosecution claims addressed in Heck. Yet, they are not analogous in the ways that mattered most to the Heck court. What made Heck’s malicious-prosecution-type § 1983 claims materially unique was the fact that proof of the invalidity of Heck’s conviction was essential or at least integral to (1) proving his claims and (2) recovering damages for the unlawful conviction. See Heck, 512 U.S. at 484-87. Here, in contrast, plaintiff’s claims against defendants for due process violations (based primarily on allegations of denial of a timely hearing and presentation of false testimony) could hypothetically have been pursued and established without necessarily impugning the validity of any eventual finding that he had abused his daughter. None of plaintiff’s claims is dependant on a determination that he was wrongfully held to have abused his daughter. Plaintiff’s claims were brought prior to a juvenile court adjudication of dependency and neglect—and indeed, no final adjudication was ever made before plaintiff’s daughters were returned to his custody.5 Plaintiff acknowledges that the precipitating event in this action was the initial removal of his daughters from his custody on November 18, 2003, based on the misconduct of a nonparty to this action (i.e., his daughter’s false accusation) and before any of the alleged misconduct by defendants occurred. Plaintiff could theoretically have prevailed on his due process claims (based on the alleged ensuing misconduct of defendants) even if Amanda had never recanted her accusation and plaintiff had ultimately been held responsible for abuse. Plaintiff’s due process claims are in this respect more analogous to the false-arrest-type § 1983 claim presented in Wallace, the sort of action that Heck recognized should be allowed to proceed, in the absence of some other bar, like abstention. Id. at 486-87. Moreover, irrespective of the difference between types of § 1983 claims asserted, the rule of Heck cannot be divorced from its post-conviction setting. This is the teaching of Wallace. Wallace simply cannot be fairly read to imply that the accrual of a § 1983 malicious-prosecutiontype claim is necessarily and indefinitely delayed in a pre-conviction setting until there is some accused-favorable resolution of pending or anticipated future prosecution. The Wallace court even referred to the “Heck-required setting aside of the extant conviction” as it explained the “impracticality” of the urged “bizarre extension” of Heck to the pre-conviction setting. Id. at 1098. The court went on to observe that “[i]f a plaintiff files a false arrest[-type § 1983] claim before he has been convicted (or files any other claim related to rulings that will likely be made in a pending or anticipated criminal trial), it is within the power of the district court, and in accord with common practice, to stay the civil action until the criminal case or the likelihood of a criminal case is ended.” Id. Recognizing that a § 1983 plaintiff’s right to relief could be preserved in this manner, the Wallace court deemed it unnecessary to extend the rule of Heck to the pre-conviction setting. The Wallace court thus took the same approach employed in this case by the district court, which held first, that the pendency of juvenile court proceedings did not delay the accrual of plaintiff Eidson’s § 1983 cause of action; and second, that plaintiff was required to proceed with his claims within twelve months after they accrued and obtain an abstention-based stay pending resolution of the juvenile court proceedings or suffer dismissal for filing beyond the period of limitation. Plaintiff maintains this approach is not equitable. He observes that Wallace refrained from holding that the running of the statute of limitations on the § 1983 action would be equitably tolled during any abstention-based dismissal or stay of the § 1983 action. 127 S. Ct. at 1098-1100. Hence, he argues 5 Even the May 2004 juvenile court “probable cause” finding was not a final adjudication of abuse or neglect, but merely a judicial validation of the initial temporary removal of the daughters from plaintiff’s custody. No. 07-5406 Eidson v. State of Tenn. Dep’t of Children’s Services, et al. Page 9 that Wallace affords no assurance that the statute of limitations would be tolled during the pendency of an abstention-based stay. Plaintiff’s protest is overstated. The Wallace court did not hold that the running of the limitation period could not be tolled; only that tolling is traditionally a matter of state law and that adoption of an “omnibus” federal tolling rule would not be appropriate. Id. The Wallace court was content to entrust the matter of tolling to abstaining district courts in the exercise of their discretion on a case-by-case basis. Yet, prerequisite to obtaining any such tolling relief, of course, is the timely filing of the § 1983 action that will prompt abstention during the pendency of related state court proceedings. Because plaintiff did not timely file his § 1983 action, he forfeited any hope of such relief. It follows that the district court did not err in refusing to recognize the Shamaeizadeh extension of the rule of Heck. Although its given reason for doing so is questionable, its decision has been subsequently vindicated by Wallace and Fox, and we are free to affirm the district court’s ruling on other grounds. Dismas Charities, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 401 F.3d 666, 677 (6th Cir. 2005). Accordingly, because we conclude that the rule of Heck does not apply in the pre-conviction setting to delay accrual of plaintiff’s due process cause of action, we concur in the district court’s ruling that plaintiff’s § 1983 claims are time-barred.