Opinion ID: 200920
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the ricra limitations period

Text: 14 The threshold issue in this case involves the rule of prescription that applies to employment discrimination claims brought under the RICRA. The Rhode Island General Assembly enacted the RICRA in 1990. The statute does not contain a built-in statute of limitations. The court below was the first to attempt a definitive answer to the question of when an employment discrimination action brought under the RICRA should be deemed timely. 15 Where, as here, a state's highest court has not spoken on a matter of state substantive law, a federal court sitting in diversity must ascertain the rule the state court would most likely follow under the circumstances, even if [its] independent judgment on the question might differ. Blinzler v. Marriott Int'l, Inc., 81 F.3d 1148, 1151 (1st Cir.1996). In that endeavor, the federal court may seek guidance from a wide range of sources, including but not limited to analogous state court decisions, persuasive adjudications by courts of sister states, learned treatises, and public policy considerations identified in state decisional law. Id. 16 When a rights-creating statute is silent as to what limitations period should apply, the Rhode Island Supreme Court's practice has been to look first to residual statutes of limitations. See, e.g., Paul v. City of Woonsocket, 745 A.2d 169, 171-72 (R.I. 2000); Lyons v. Town of Scituate, 554 A.2d 1034, 1035 (R.I.1989); Commerce Oil Ref. Corp. v. Miner, 98 R.I. 14, 199 A.2d 606, 607-08 (1964). Two of these residual statutes are arguably applicable here: a three-year statute of limitations for [a]ctions for injuries to the person, R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-1-14(b), and a catchall ten-year statute of limitations for civil actions to which no other provision applies, id. § 9-1-13(a). 17 We believe that the former is a natural fit. The state supreme court has construed the injuries to the person taxonomy broadly: 18 [T]he phrase `injuries to the person' is to be construed comprehensively and as contemplating its application to actions involving injuries that are other than physical. Its purpose is to include within that period of limitation actions brought for injuries resulting from invasions of rights that inhere in man as a rational being, that is, rights to which one is entitled by reason of being a person in the eyes of the law. 19 Commerce Oil, 199 A.2d at 610. As a result, the vast majority of state statutes that create tort-like rights of action but do not contain built-in timeliness rules have been deemed to fall within the compass of section 9-1-14(b). See Lyons, 554 A.2d at 1036 (collecting cases); see also Commerce Oil, 199 A.2d at 610 (applying section 9-1-14(b) to actions for malicious use of process). Although the case law admits of an occasional aberration, see, e.g., Church v. McBurney, 513 A.2d 22, 24-26 (R.I.1986), the trend is clear. 20 The RICRA's provenance confirms this intuition. The Rhode Island General Assembly enacted the statute in response to the United States Supreme Court's decision in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 105 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989). See Ward v. City of Pawtucket Police Dep't, 639 A.2d 1379, 1381 (R.I. 1994) (discussing the RICRA's legislative history). The Patterson Court interpreted 42 U.S.C. § 1981 to provide protection from racial discrimination only in contract formation and not in the subsequent modification and performance of contracts. 491 U.S. at 171, 109 S.Ct. 2363. The RICRA aspired to fill this void and to afford the same expanded protection in instances of discrimination based on age, sex, religion, disability, and national origin. 1 The contours of the RICRA plainly reveal the General Assembly's overarching intent to craft a broad civil rights act that would both complement and supplement federal civil rights protections. See Eastridge v. R.I. Coll., 996 F.Supp. 161, 169 (D.R.I. 1998); Ward, 639 A.2d at 1381-82. 21 A frank recognition of this goal simplifies the interpretive task. The Rhode Island Supreme Court consistently has regarded civil rights violations as injuries to the person, see, e.g., Paul, 745 A.2d at 172, and the natural inference to be drawn from the case law is that the RICRA, like other civil rights laws, makes actionable injuries to the person. 22 Then, too, it is reasonable to presume that the RICRA's drafters, who modeled the statute after section 1981, must have been aware of the precedents interpreting the federal statute and must have intended the state law to trigger the same limitations period. In Goodman v. Lukens Steel Co., 482 U.S. 656, 107 S.Ct. 2617, 96 L.Ed.2d 572 (1987), for example, the United States Supreme Court held squarely that the relevant state statute of limitations governing personal injury claims applied to section 1981 actions. Id. at 660-62, 107 S.Ct. 2617. The Court reasoned that since section 1981 is a civil rights statute primarily concerned with preventing and compensating fundamental injur[ies] to the individual rights of a person, the most analogous state statute of limitations would be the one generally applicable to personal injury actions. Id. at 661, 107 S.Ct. 2617; see also Partin v. St. Johnsbury Co., 447 F.Supp. 1297, 1299, 1301 (D.R.I.1978) (characterizing an action under section 1981 as essentially an action to redress a violation of a tort duty and applying the statute of limitations for injuries to the person); cf. Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 277, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985) (characterizing a violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as an injury to the individual rights of the person and upholding the use of a state statute of limitations governing actions for injuries to the person). 23 Despite this wealth of authority, we cannot settle upon section 9-1-14(b) as the appropriate source for a rule of timeliness without first testing the district court's conviction that the legislature could not have intended that limitations period to apply. The court noted that in the employment discrimination context the RICRA and the FEPA furnish overlapping remedies. Rathbun, 253 F.Supp.2d at 231. In its view, reading the two statutes together indicates a legislative intention that the later enacted statute (the RICRA) should be subjected to the one-year statute of limitations that the General Assembly explicitly inserted into the FEPA. Id. at 231-32. 24 The district court premised this holding on two well-traveled canons of construction. One is the venerable concept that statutes which relate to the same subject matter should be considered together so that they will harmonize with each other and be consistent with their general objective scope. State v. Ahmadjian, 438 A.2d 1070, 1081 (R.I.1981). This canon of construction, often referred to by the catch phrase in pari materia, does not necessarily require that the two statutes be enacted at the same time or even that they refer to one another. See, e.g., Blanchette v. Stone, 591 A.2d 785, 786 (R.I.1991). In pari materia treatment requires only that a logical nexus between two laws pulls strongly in favor of uniform treatment. Berthiaume v. Sch. Comm. of Woonsocket, 121 R.I. 243, 397 A.2d 889, 893 (1979). 25 Even assuming, purely for argument's sake, that the FEPA and the RICRA are in pari materia, the district court's thesis-that harmonizing them requires application of the same rule of timeliness to both — is incorrect. The FEPA is intended to foster equality of employment opportunities. See R.I. Gen. Laws §§ 28-5-3, 28-5-5. It closely tracks the language of, and acts as Rhode Island's analogue to, Title VII. Like Title VII, the FEPA is principally directed at employers. It establishes a comprehensive scheme for the vindication of the rights it protects. This scheme relies heavily on an obligatory administrative process. 26 The FEPA's temporal requirements are tied to this administrative process. A person seeking to enforce rights under the FEPA must file a charge with the Commission within one year from the time of the alleged discriminatory act or practice. Id. § 28-5-17(a). If, after a preliminary investigation, the Commission finds probable cause to believe that unlawful employment practices have occurred, it shall endeavor to eliminate [those practices] by informal methods of conference, conciliation, and persuasion. Id. § 28-5-17(b). The complainant, should he or she so choose, may obtain a right-to-sue letter from the Commission and bring suit within ninety days of receiving such a letter. Id. § 28-5-24.1(a). Failing all else, the Commission itself has the power to sue the offending party within two years of the charge-filing date. Id. § 28-5-18. 27 This statutory framework indicates a desire for intense agency involvement in resolving employment discrimination disputes. Cf. Burnett v. Grattan, 468 U.S. 42, 53-54, 104 S.Ct. 2924, 82 L.Ed.2d 36 (1984) (noting that the administrative procedures in Maryland's fair employment practices law indicate a preference for the [state] agency's intervention in live disputes). A short limitations period for filing an administrative charge makes sense in light of the obvious desirability of getting the agency involved while the wounds are fresh. See Roadway Express, Inc. v. RICHR, 416 A.2d 673, 676 (R.I. 1980) (A mandatory time limit promotes prompt investigations and attempts to conciliate alleged violations of the Act.). In that context, prompt notification also enables employers to collect and preserve evidence before the trail grows cold. Id. While the state supreme court has not commented directly on the requirement that a complainant file an administrative charge within one year of the alleged discrimination, R.I. Gen. Laws § 28-5-17(a) — the Roadway Express court was dealing with an earlier incarnation of the FEPA — it is reasonable to assume that the desire for prompt and efficient resolution of FEPA complaints animates that rule of timeliness as well. 28 The RICRA is a different kind of statute. It sweeps far more broadly than the FEPA, covering a host of situations, many of which do not involve the employer-employee relationship at all. Moreover, the RICRA neither establishes nor incorporates any sort of administrative process. As the Rhode Island Supreme Court stated in rejecting an attempt to apply the FEPA's administrative exhaustion requirements to RICRA claims by judicial fiat, [t]here is no language requiring, or even suggesting, that a plaintiff must first exhaust any or all administrative remedies before filing a civil action [under the RICRA]. Ward, 639 A.2d at 1382. And, moreover, there is no basis for reading such a requirement into the statute. Id. 29 This difference in orientation is telling. The RICRA is primarily a vehicle for compensating victims of civil rights violations. Cf. Burnett, 468 U.S. at 53, 104 S.Ct. 2924 (explaining that a principal goal of the federal civil rights statutes is compensation of persons whose civil rights have been violated). Seen in this light, it makes sense that the legislature would have wanted to apply to RICRA claims a limitations period geared to the occurrence of the discriminatory act or practice rather than a limitations period geared to a non-existent administrative process. See id. at 48-55, 104 S.Ct. 2924 (holding that state residual statutes of limitations, not the period for filing administrative employment discrimination complaints, are appropriate for federal civil rights actions); see also Rossiter v. Potter, 357 F.3d 26, 29-32 (1st Cir.2004) (rejecting application of Title VII's limitations period to ADEA actions that bypass the administrative process). We conclude, therefore, that the two statutes need not — and should not — be construed in lockstep. 2 30 The district court also based its holding on another canon of construction: that repeals by implication are disfavored and should not be judicially imposed unless that conclusion is inevitable. See Passamaquoddy Tribe v. Maine, 75 F.3d 784, 790 (1st Cir.1996); Berthiaume, 397 A.2d at 893. Legislatures are presumed to know of their prior enactments and not to have repealed any part of a prior law without registering an explicit statement to that effect. Brennan v. Kirby, 529 A.2d 633, 637 (R.I.1987). Thus, when apparently inconsistent statutory provisions are questioned, every attempt should be made to construe and apply them so as to avoid the inconsistency and [the words] should not be applied literally if to do so would produce patently absurd or unreasonable results. Id. Brandishing this doctrinal staff, the district court suggests that applying anything except a one-year limitations period to employment discrimination actions brought under the RICRA would impliedly repeal the FEPA's limitations period. Rathbun, 253 F.Supp.2d at 232. 31 We find this suggestion unconvincing. Repeal by implication is a matter of concern when two statutory provisions are inconsistent on their face. See, e.g., Blanchette, 591 A.2d at 786-87; Prov. Elec. Co. v. Donatelli Bldg. Co., 116 R.I. 340, 356 A.2d 483, 485-86 (1976). Here, however, no such collision looms: the FEPA's one-year statute of limitations can coexist peacefully with a disparate limitations period for RICRA actions. Although this coexistence means that factually identical claims will be treated differently by the courts depending on the statute under which a particular claim is asserted, that differential treatment flows naturally from the General Assembly's choice to embroider one statute (the FEPA) with an elaborate administrative process and to craft the other (the RICRA) without any reference to that administrative process. 32 The significance of this choice hardly can be overstated. The Rhode Island Supreme Court has determined unequivocally that, despite the area of overlap between the FEPA and the RICRA, the two statutes were meant to provide separate, if sometimes converging, avenues to relief. See Ward, 639 A.2d at 1382; cf. Johnson v. Ry. Express Agency, Inc., 421 U.S. 454, 457-61, 95 S.Ct. 1716, 44 L.Ed.2d 295 (1975) (reaching a similar conclusion in comparing 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and Title VII). That factually identical claims may be subject to different rules of timeliness depending upon the statutory vehicle that the claimant elects to employ is a natural consequence of the legislature's decision to offer claimants separate administrative and judicial paths through which to rectify the same wrongs. In the absence of a literal inconsistency, differential treatment of factually identical claims is not a proper ground for invoking the doctrine of repeal by implication. See Radzanower v. Touche Ross & Co., 426 U.S. 148, 155, 96 S.Ct. 1989, 48 L.Ed.2d 540 (1976); Passamaquoddy Tribe, 75 F.3d at 790. 33 In sum, there is strong evidence that the authors of the RICRA intended that statute to function as a broad civil rights law aimed at remedying injuries to the person. We discern no valid reason to rewrite that scheme by importing into it the FEPA's one-year limitations period. Because we are confident that the Rhode Island Supreme Court, when faced with the question, will not choose that course, we hold that RICRA actions are governed by Rhode Island's three-year residual statute of limitations for injuries to the person, namely, R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-1-14(b). In ruling to the contrary, the district court erred.