Opinion ID: 161458
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Plaintiff’s Federal Claims

Text: To support his federal claims under § 1983, plaintiff alleged in his first amended complaint that defendants “violated [his] rights to not be deprived of a property or liberty interest without due process of the law by not considering [his] legitimate rights visa vis [sic] the medical examinations, in punishing him for 1 We note, however, that the claims asserted in plaintiff’s second amended complaint suffer from the same deficiencies as the claims asserted in plaintiff’s first amended complaint. Specifically, plaintiff’s retaliation, wrongful discharge, and procedural due process claims fail due to his voluntary resignation, and his substantive due process/privacy claims are time barred. -5- exercising his statutory and common law rights and in not properly responding to [his] complaint and appeal.” See Appellant’s App. at 36, ¶ 168. Giving plaintiff the benefit of the doubt, we will assume that his allegations raise both procedural and substantive due process claims and that the former is focused on the circumstances of his resignation from the Utah OSHA, while the latter is focused on the circumstances of the mandatory medical examinations. With respect to the procedural due process claim, we agree with the district court that, even assuming plaintiff had a property interest in his employment, he relinquished any such interest by voluntarily resigning from his job, and the fact that defendants had previously threatened to discharge him did not make his resignation involuntary. See Parker v. Bd. of Regents of the Tulsa Junior Coll. , 981 F.2d 1159, 1161-62 (10th Cir. 1992). Accordingly, for substantially the same reasons set forth by the district court, see Appellant’s App. at 137-40, we affirm the district court’s entry of summary judgment on plaintiff’s procedural due process claim. -6- With respect to the substantive due process claim, 2 plaintiff claims in his opening brief that the mandatory medical examinations infringed on his constitutional right to privacy and that defendants further violated his privacy rights by failing to implement and follow the federal standards and procedures under OSHA for such examinations. Plaintiff’s claims on appeal arguably go well beyond the allegations in his first amended complaint and raise significant pleading and standing issues. However, we need not reach these issues because we hold that plaintiff’s substantive due process claim is time barred. The four-year limitations period in Utah Code Ann. § 78-12-25(3) provides the limitations period for plaintiff’s § 1983 claims. See Sheets v. Salt Lake County , 45 F.3d 1383, 1387 (10th Cir. 1995). Although the district court did not address this issue, we agree with defendants that any federal constitutional claim related to the medical examinations themselves, as opposed to plaintiff’s subsequent resignation and alleged wrongful discharge, accrued more than four 2 As used herein, the term “substantive due process” refers to the federal constitutional rights that have been incorporated against the states under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The federal constitutional right at issue here is the right to privacy or, more correctly, the right guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. See, e.g. , 19 Solid Waste Dep’t Mech., 156 F.3d at 1072 (analyzing Fourth Amendment privacy claims in § 1983 case involving challenge to state drug testing program); Yin v. California , 95 F.3d 864, 869-71 (9th Cir. 1996) (analyzing Fourth Amendment privacy claims in § 1983 case involving challenge to state medical examinations). -7- years before plaintiff filed his original complaint, or before October 16, 1994. 3 As a result, plaintiff’s substantive due process claim is time barred.