Opinion ID: 151895
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Heading: The Legal Principles Governing When a Claim for IIED Accrues

Text: There are four cases that are directly relevant to the analysis of when a claim for IIED accrues under Indiana law. Two cases come from the Supreme Court of the United States: Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994), and Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 127 S.Ct. 1091, 166 L.Ed.2d 973 (2007). Two cases come from the Indiana courts: Scruggs v. Allen County/City of Fort Wayne, 829 N.E.2d 1049 (Ind.Ct.App. 2005), and Johnson v. Blackwell, 885 N.E.2d 25 (Ind.Ct.App.2008). [3] We review these cases in chronological order because each case is informed by the preceding cases. In Heck v. Humphrey , the Supreme Court addressed the issue of whether an individual convicted of a state crime could bring a § 1983 claim against the prosecutors and investigators involved with the state conviction for engaging in an unlawful, unreasonable, and arbitrary investigation leading to the plaintiff's arrest, destroying exculpatory evidence, and employing an illegal voice identification procedure at trial, while the state conviction was still valid. 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383. The Court found that the petitioner could not pursue the § 1983 action because the § 1983 action served as a collateral attack on the conviction through a procedure other than habeas corpus. Id. at 485, 114 S.Ct. 2364. To arrive at this holding, the Court specifically analyzed the claims in the complaint and found that the claims directly attacked the validity of the conviction. Id. at 486-87, 114 S.Ct. 2364. The Court analogized the claims to the common law tort of malicious prosecution. Id. at 484, 114 S.Ct. 2364. Following the common law principle that a plaintiff cannot bring a claim for malicious prosecution until the prior criminal proceedings have been terminated in his favor, the Court found that the plaintiff in Heck could not bring the claims in his complaint until his conviction had been overturned. Id. The Court carefully limited its holding to claims that directly attack the validity of the conviction: We hold that, in order to recover damages for allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid, a § 1983 plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. § 2254. A claim for damages bearing that relationship to a conviction or sentence that has not been so invalidated is not cognizable under § 1983. Thus, when a state prisoner seeks damages in a § 1983 suit, the district court must consider whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence; if it would, the complaint must be dismissed unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the conviction or sentence has already been invalidated. But if the district court determines that plaintiff's action, even if successful, will not demonstrate the invalidity of any outstanding criminal judgment against the plaintiff, the action should be allowed to proceed, in the absence of some other bar to suit. Heck, 512 U.S. at 486-87, 114 S.Ct. 2364. Under the Heck framework, a claim that directly attacks the validity of a conviction cannot accrue until after the conviction has been terminated in a manner favorable to the plaintiff. The Indiana courts adopted the Heck framework in Scruggs, 829 N.E.2d 1049. In Scruggs, several criminal defendants brought a civil action against the state and a number of state actors alleging that their imprisonment violated the state constitution because they were not indicted by a grand jury. 829 N.E.2d at 1050. The Indiana Court of Appeals found that the complaint failed to state a claim for which relief could be granted. Id. at 1052. The Scruggs Court based its holding on two grounds: (1) there was no violation of the state constitution because the state constitution did not require that an individual be indicted through the grand jury process rather than on information, and (2) adopting Heck, the plaintiffs could not move forward in their claims for false imprisonment because their claims would directly attack the validity of their convictions and they could not show that their convictions had been overturned or dismissed. 829 N.E.2d at 1051. Following Heck and Scruggs, both the Supreme Court and the Indiana Court of Appeals revisited the issue of claim accrual for individuals with claims of false arrest and other claims associated with overturned convictions. In Wallace v. Kato , the Supreme Court found that a claim for false arrest or false imprisonment accrues at the time the individual is brought before a magistrate or arraigned on charges. 549 U.S. 384, 127 S.Ct. 1091, 166 L.Ed.2d 973. The Court applied federal common law to the question of claim accrual because the plaintiff brought the claim in a § 1983 action. Id. at 388, 127 S.Ct. 1091. Relying on federal common law, the Court held that the claim cannot accrue until the tort of false imprisonment ends. Id. The Court recognized that this rule may be informed by the reality that the victim may not be able to sue while he is still imprisoned. Id. at 390, 127 S.Ct. 1091. Then, the Court turned to the question of when false imprisonment ends: Reflective of the fact that false imprisonment consists of detention without legal process, a false imprisonment ends once the victim becomes held pursuant to such processwhen, for example, he is bound over by a magistrate or arraigned on charges. Thereafter, unlawful detention forms part of the damages for the entirely distinct tort of malicious prosecution, which remedies detention accompanied, not by absence of legal process, but by wrongful institution of legal process. . . . Thus, petitioner's contention that his false imprisonment ended upon his release from custody, after the State dropped the charges against him, must be rejected. It ended much earlier, when the legal process was initiated against him, and the statute would have begun to run from that date, but for its tolling by reason of petitioner's minority. Wallace, 549 U.S. at 389, 127 S.Ct. 1091. The Court distinguished Wallace from Heck on the ground that the claim in Heck was analogous to the tort to malicious prosecution rather than false imprisonment. Id. While a claim of malicious prosecution would inevitably impugn a conviction, a claim of false imprisonment only impugns an anticipated future conviction because the claim ends well before the conviction occurs (or before the plaintiff knows whether charges will even be pursued). Our Circuit recently had cause to interpret Wallace in Evans v. Poskon, 603 F.3d 362 (7th Cir.2010). In Evans we characterized Wallace as holding a claim that accrues before a criminal conviction may and usually must be filed without regard to the conviction's validity. Id. at 363. This description of the holding in Wallace hones in on the factual distinction between Heck and Wallace: the tort of false arrest is complete, and therefore begins to accrue, once the individual is brought before a magistrate; the tort of malicious prosecution is not complete until a conviction occurs and that conviction has been overturned, and therefore the statute of limitations for malicious prosecution does not begin to accrue until that time. Id. The Indiana Court of Appeals again addressed the issue of claim accrual in Johnson v. Blackwell, 885 N.E.2d 25. The court in Johnson interpreted Wallace in much the same way we interpreted Wallace in Evans. In Johnson, the plaintiff-appellate, Jon S. Johnson, filed a complaint against several members of the Madison County Sheriff's Department, alleging civil rights violations, false imprisonment, false arrest, wrongful infliction of emotional distress, and invasion of privacy by intrusion. 885 N.E.2d at 28. Although Johnson brought the civil suit in Indiana state court, the underlying criminal charge was federal. Johnson had been arrested and convicted for possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine. The arrest and conviction were the result of an anonymous tip that led the officers (the defendants in the civil suit) to Johnson's house. The officers went to Johnson's house without a search warrant. At the house, the detectives threatened Johnson until he allowed them into the home to search. The officers found drugs in the home and federal charges were brought. Johnson was convicted. Our Court vacated the conviction and ordered the case remanded to the district court for an evidentiary hearing on whether the detectives lacked reasonable suspicion to seize Johnson. The district court found that the officers did lack reasonable suspicion and the indictment was dismissed. Johnson's complaint against the officers focused exclusively on the officers' threats to enter the house and their actions when they searched Johnson's house and arrested him without probable cause. Johnson brought his claim more than two years after the search of his home. The Indiana Court of Appeals found that all of the claims were timebarred. Id. The Johnson court determined that Indiana's two-year statute of limitations, I.C. XX-XX-X-X, governed and then discussed when the claims accrued. Id. at 30. The court adopted the rule from Wallace v. Kato for the false arrest/false imprisonment claims and found that the period of limitations began to run when the alleged false imprisonment endedat the time Johnson was arraigned. Id. at 30. In addressing the other claims (civil rights violations, wrongful infliction of emotional distress, and invasion of privacy by intrusion), the court found that they accrued when the house was searched. Id. at 31. Notably, in addressing these claims the court did not apply the same bright-line rule from Wallace that accrual happens upon arraignment. Instead, the court applied the standard discovery rule for accrual and considered when the tort occurred and when Johnson knew, or should have known, about the tort. Id. The only claimed tortious conduct occurred during the time of the illegal search and Johnson was present for the entire duration of the tortious conduct. Therefore, the court found that those claims accrued on the day that the search occurred and Johnson could not benefit from the tolling doctrine of continuing wrong. Id. at 32. Defendants claim that the Indiana Court of Appeals in Johnson overruled their earlier decision in Scruggs to adopt the Heck reasoning. That is not true. Johnson's claims did not attack the validity of the conviction. Johnson claimed that the wrongful conduct of the defendant officers was their aggressive behavior during the search of his house. These allegations do not amount to a challenge to the conviction. [4] As such, Johnson's complaint did not invoke the Heck framework and we do not read the Johnson opinion to be a recantation of Indiana's prior adoption of Heck. Instead, we read these cases to rely on the same general distinction we relied on in Evans: whether the claimed tort occurred and was completed before convictionas would be the case with a claim for false arrest, false imprisonment, or IIED resulting from offensive behavior at the time of arrestor the claimed tort was not complete prior to convictionas would be the case with a claim for malicious prosecution or IIED resulting from actions that lead to a false conviction. If the claimed tort occurred and was completed before the conviction, such as the claims in Johnson, the claims accrue immediately upon the completion of the tort. If the claimed tort continued through, or beyond, the point of conviction, the court must ask whether the claims would directly implicate the validity of the conviction. If the claims would not directly implicate the validity of the conviction, the court should follow the standard discovery rule applied in Indiana: The claim accrues at the time the individual knew or should have known of the tort. See Johnson, 885 N.E.2d at 30 (citing Filip v. Block, 879 N.E.2d 1076, 1082 (Ind.2008)). If the claim would directly implicate the validity of the conviction, then Heck and Scruggs come into play and the claim does not accrue until the conviction has been disposed of in a manner favorable to the plaintiff.