Opinion ID: 766295
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Retroactivity of section 352.1

Text: 13 For a prisoner incarcerated for a term less than life, section 352.1 of the California Civil Procedure Code 5 tolls the statute of limitations for two years. 6 Section 352.1, however, only became effective on January 1, 1995. See Ellis, 176 F.3d at 1189. Before section 352.1 was passed, prisoners could toll claims for their entire sentence if less than life. See id. Therefore, the dispositive issue is whether application of section 352.1 retroactively to the posture of this case would impermissibly bar Fink's Eighth Amendment claims. 14 [W]e apply federal law, not state law, in deciding whether to apply the amended [section 352.1] retroactively. TwoRivers v. Lewis, 174 F.3d 987, 993 (9th Cir. 1999) (citations omitted). 7 In TwoRivers, we examined federal retroactivity law as applied to a change to an Arizona statute regarding tolling of claims while a person is incarcerated. TwoRivers applied the analysis set forth in Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244 (1994). The test begins with legislative intent. Absent clear evidence of such intent, courts next examine whether the new statute would have retroactive effect. To assist us in this inquiry, Landgraf identified three types of laws which generally donot have retroactive effect: those authorizing prospective relief, those conferring or removing jurisdiction, and those statutes properly characterized as procedural. Two Rivers, 174 F.3d at 994. [P]rocedural statutes generally may be applied retrospectively without giving rise to concerns about retroactivity. Id. However, although tolling statutes are generally considered procedural, that label does not preclude us from examining whether [statutes have] retroactive effect.  Id. (citing Chenault v. U.S. Postal Serv., 37 F.3d 535, 539 (9th Cir. 1994)). Rather, we have consistently rejected the retroactive application of procedural statutes which result in manifest injustice. Id. 15 Applying this analysis, TwoRivers held that retrospective application of the new Arizona statute to the plaintiff would indeed be manifestly unjust. Id. at 995. Retrospective application would have left the plaintiff with less than three months from the new statute's effective date to file suit. TwoRivers held that a time period of less than three months does not constitute a reasonable time for a prisoner to file suit. Id. at 996. 16 Here, the district court determined that Fink's claim expired on November 9, 1996. This date included two years of tolling under section 352.1 plus the one-year limitations period. The district court found that applying section 352.1 retroactively to Fink's action did not violate due process. Applying the TwoRivers analysis, we find that the district court was correct. 17 Initially, we note that the California Legislature did not specifically indicate that section 352.1 was to be applied prospectively only. In repealing section 352(a)(3) and enacting section 352.1, the California Legislature manifestly intended to limit the ability of prisoners to bring lawsuits based on remote facts. Parker v. Marcotte, 975 F. Supp. 1266, 1270 (C.D. Cal. 1997). By enacting this legislation, the Legislature intend[ed] to limit the ability to bring lawsuits by prisoners when the facts that give rise to the lawsuits are old, and difficult to prove or disprove. Id. (quoting 1994 Cal. Legis. Serv. Ch. 1083, S 1, S.B. No. 1445 (West)). 18 Therefore, we next examine whether retroactive application of section 352.1 to Fink's action results in manifest injustice. It does not. Fink had ample time to bring suit; he simply waited too long. Fink's claim accrued on November 9, 1993, when the doctor allegedly mistreated him. He had at least three years to file this action. 8 He also had a reasonable time to bring suit after section 352.1 became effective on January 1, 1995. Cf. TwoRivers, 174 F.3d at 996. Moreover, Fink had at least constructive notice of the new tolling provision in November of 1994, when the California Legislature passed section 352.1. He also had over two and a half months after his actual release from prison to bring this suit. Instead, he waited another six months, until May of 1997, to file this action. Retroactive operation of section 352.1, applied to the posture of this case, does not result in manifest injustice. See id. at 995 (We need not go so far as to hold that TwoRivers has a `vested right' in his tolled two-year statute of limitations. It is enough to conclude that retroactive operation of the new statute results in `manifest injustice' and therefore its application here is inappropriate) (citations omitted). Unlike the plaintiff in TwoRivers, who had less than three months to bring suit after the new statute became effective, Fink had almost two years (if the statute of limitations expired on November 9, 1996) to bring suit after section 352.1 took effect. 19 Under our application, section 352.1 applies retroactively as long as a plaintiff had a reasonable time after January 1, 1995 to bring suit. See Texaco, Inc. v. Short, 454 U.S. 516, 527 n.21 (1982) (reasoning that newstatutes of limitation must allow a reasonable time after they take effect for the commencement of suits upon existing causes of action) (quoting Wilson v. Iseminger, 185 U.S. 55, 62 (1902)). This approach also makes sense when compared to other possibilities such as (1) applying section 352.1 to all claims regardless of when they accrued, or (2) only applying the section to claims accruing after January 1, 1995. As the court analyzed in Parker, barring per se all claims that accrued before 1995 would raise constitutional concerns. See Parker, 975 F. Supp. at 1270. On the other hand, only applying the section to claims accruing after January 1, 1995 would allow every prior claim, no matter how old, to survive as long as the prisoner lived and remained incarcerated. 20 Under our approach, claims such as Fink's that accrued before January 1, 1995 are tolled for two years from accrual, or until January 1, 1995, whichever occurs later, as long as such an application does not result in manifest injustice. See TwoRivers, 174 F.3d at 995-96; Parker, 975 F. Supp. at 1272. In addition to satisfying the constitutional concerns analyzed in TwoRivers, this interpretation implements the California Legislature's intent to limit the ability to bring lawsuits by prisoners when the facts that give rise to the lawsuits are old, and difficult to prove or disprove, 1994 Cal. Legis. Serv. Ch. 1083, S 1, S.B. No. 1445 (West).