Opinion ID: 447530
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Appropriate Statute of Limitations for Doe's Bivens Action

Text: 82 When a federal action contains no statute of limitations, courts will ordinarily look to analogous provisions in state law as a source of a federal limitations period. See, e.g., Burnett v. Grattan, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 2924, 2929, 82 L.Ed.2d 36 (1984); Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U.S. 454, 464, 95 S.Ct. 1716, 1722, 44 L.Ed.2d 295 (1975); Brown v. United States, 742 F.2d 1498, 1503 (D.C.Cir.1984) (en banc). Concluding that damage to reputation ... is central to the [plaintiff's] claim, Opinion at 2, the district court applied the District of Columbia's one year statute of limitations governing defamation actions to Doe's Bivens suit. See D.C.Code Sec. 12-301(4). 28 We agree with the district court that the one year limitations period should be applied. 83 The gist of Doe's claims against the individual defendants is that they disseminated false and defamatory statements to other attorneys, statements which destroyed her reputation as a sober and serious person. Plaintiff's Complaint p 28, J.A. at 12. She seeks the traditional damages remedy to which she would be entitled in a common law defamation action. In Burnett, the Supreme Court indicated that the limitations period for the most analogous state action is ordinarily appropriate for the federal action if it adequately accounts for the practicalities of litigating, and the substantive policies underlying, the federal claim. See Burnett, 104 S.Ct. at 2929. We can discern no difference in the practicalities of or the policies behind a Bivens action for the deprivation of a liberty interest in reputation and an ordinary defamation claim. See Olinger v. American Savings and Loan Ass'n, 409 F.2d 142 (D.C.Cir.1969). Moreover, this circuit has previously applied the one year limitations period contained in section 12-301(4) to constitutionally based defamations actions. See Church of Scientology v. Foley, 640 F.2d 1335 (D.C.Cir.1981) (per curiam) (en banc), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 961, 101 S.Ct. 3110, 69 L.Ed.2d 972 (1981). 29 See also McClam v. Barry, 697 F.2d 366 (D.C.Cir.1983) (applying the local statute of limitations governing assault to a police brutality action because the facts necessary to prove the constitutional claim and the interests protected by the constitutional tort were most analogous to common law assault). 30 84 After determining that the relevant limitations period was one year, the district court construed the plaintiff's complaint to allege that the individual defendants spread the allegedly defamatory charges against Doe only at the time of her discharge from the Department; since she was terminated well over a year before the suit was filed, the district court ruled that the Bivens claim was time-barred. See Opinion at 1095-96. As we have already stated, see supra pp. 1101-02, the district court was obliged to resolve any ambiguity in the complaint in Doe's favor before granting the Department's motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Accordingly, a motion to dismiss may be granted on the basis that the action is time-barred only when it appears from the face of the complaint that the relevant statute of limitations bars the action. See Richards v. Mileski, 662 F.2d 65, 73 (D.C.Cir.1981); see also Jones v. Rogers Memorial Hospital, 442 F.2d 773, 775 (D.C.Cir.1971). 31 J. SKELLY WRIGHT, Circuit Judge: 85