Opinion ID: 483247
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Causes of Action of Which Duress is an Element

Text: 104 The second New York doctrine that may be applicable to toll the running of the statute holds that when duress is part of the cause of action alleged, the statute of limitations is tolled until the duress has ended because the offensive conduct is regarded as a continuous wrong. Baratta v. Kozlowski, 94 A.D.2d 454, 458-59, 464 N.Y.S.2d 803, 806 (2d Dep't 1983) (citing Kamenitsky v. Corcoran, 97 Misc. 384, 388, 161 N.Y.S. 756, 759 (Sup.Ct.App. Term 1916), rev'd on other grounds, 177 A.D. 605, 164 N.Y.S. 297 (1st Dep't 1917)); accord Pacchiana v. Pacchiana, 94 A.D.2d 721, 462 N.Y.S.2d 256, 257 (2d Dep't 1983) (citing Kamenitsky v. Corcoran ); McLaughlin, Supplementary Practice Commentaries C 201:6, at 25 (McKinney Supp.1987). In Kamenitsky v. Corcoran, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant had repeatedly extorted money from him by threatening to cause the revocation of his license to do business unless payments were made. The court held that the statute of limitations on plaintiff's claim to recover the payments was tolled until the time when the [plaintiff's] compulsion through fear ceased. 97 Misc. at 388, 161 N.Y.S. at 959. Thus, the duration of the tolling under the duress theory is the period during which the duress continued. Id.; Baratta v. Kozlowski, 94 A.D.2d at 458-59, 404 N.Y.S.2d at 806. 105 Kamenitsky stands only for the proposition that duress tolls the running of a statute of limitations if duress against the plaintiff is an element of the cause of action asserted. If a plaintiff was under some duress from the defendant not to sue but duress is not part of the gravamen of his claim, New York courts do not toll the statute of limitations. Piper v. Hoard, 107 N.Y. 67, 70-72, 13 N.E. 626 (1887) (duress does not toll statute on claim for fraud); Baratta v. Kozlowski, 94 A.D.2d at 459-60, 404 N.Y.S.2d at 806-07 (threat to kill does not toll statute on claim for conversion of property); Stadtman v. Cambere, 73 A.D.2d 501, 422 N.Y.S.2d 102, 103 (1st Dep't 1979) (threat to have plaintiff fired does not toll statute on claim for conversion of property). 106 The tolling-by-duress principle has evident potential application to the present action. Plaintiffs' principal complaint is that, as part of defendants' annual fund-raising campaign, employees of the Town and the County were coerced to make payments of one percent of their salaries in order to gain promotions or other employment benefits. The contention is that these forced payments both (1) constituted extortion within the meaning of the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1951 (1982), see, e.g., United States v. Margiotta, 688 F.2d at 134; United States v. Brecht, 540 F.2d 45, 51 (2d Cir.1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1123, 97 S.Ct. 1160, 51 L.Ed.2d 573 (1977); United States v. Daley, 564 F.2d 645, 648 (2d Cir.1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 933, 98 S.Ct. 1508, 55 L.Ed.2d 530 (1978), thereby providing the predicate racketeering activity needed to sustain a civil RICO claim, and (2) deprived them of their First Amendment rights to associate with the political parties of their choice, which is the gravamen of their claims under Sec. 1983. Plaintiffs seek refunds of their coerced contributions. As duress is clearly an element of these claims, the court erred in ruling that all claims accruing earlier than December 14, 1973, were automatically barred. 107 We note also that, although the actual applicability of the tolling-by-duress principle to any given class member depends on a factual finding of duress on him within three years of the commencement of suit, as a general matter the existence of duress was, to a substantial degree, supported at the liability trial. The jury found that the Town, the Town Committee, and the County Committee had engaged in a practice and procedure of the coercive solicitation of contributions, and that a substantial number of [Town employees] generally underst[oo]d that they were expected to contribute about one percent of their annual salaries to the Republican Party and fear[ed] that if they failed or refused to [do so] they would lose opportunities for promotion, overtime and other requests for favorable consideration. (Interrogatories 1(a), (b), (d), and (e).) The jury found that these three defendants were aware, or should reasonably have foreseen, that they were exploiting the employees' fears (interrogatory 3), and found that in all of the 11 specific instances queried in the interrogatories, employees had made payments that were induced by such fear (interrogatories 7 and 8). A factfinder could also reasonably infer that a person who made a payment under duress in order to gain or preserve employment benefits was unlikely to feel free to bring suit immediately thereafter. Thus, although a cause of action for refund may have accrued at a certain time, the duress factor may well have prevented the statute from running for some time thereafter, perhaps until the next demand was made, or until a demand was made but rejected. For example, an employee who made a contribution under duress in early 1973 may have been under duress until the next demand for an annual contribution was made in early 1974; if this were found, the statute would have been tolled until early 1974, and the pursuit of his claim for refund in the present action would be timely notwithstanding its accrual prior to December 14, 1973. In other words, a claim that accrued prior to December 14, 1973, was timely asserted in the present case if the duress that induced the payments continued at least until December 14, 1973. As another example, the jury found that five persons had been coerced to make payments in 1974; if those persons also made payments under duress from defendants prior to December 14, 1973, the jury could infer that that duress was continuous, and the claim for recovery of those earlier payments would not be time-barred. 108 Though the timeliness of the claims described in some of these illustrations may have become irrelevant as to the County on account of its exoneration by the jury with respect to its activities during the period covered by the trial of the liability issues, the principle is discussed here because, as set forth in the preceding section, the American Pipe doctrine makes timely all claims of plaintiff class members against the County that accrued on or after December 2, 1971. The combined effect of American Pipe and the tolling-by-duress principle is to make timely those claims against the County of which duress is an element even if they accrued prior to December 2, 1971, if the duress continued at least to that date. 109 We stress, however, that the duress theory is not available to toll all of the claims of all of the class members. First, some of those persons contend that although contributions were coercively solicited, they refused to contribute. Their claims for lost job opportunities, while still cognizable under civil RICO and Sec. 1983, do not involve capitulation to duress but rather are claims for retaliation on account of their rejection of improper demands. We do not believe that New York law extends the tolling-by-duress principle this far. Further, since the tolling lasts only so long as the duress lasts, there may be class members to whom the principle does not apply because they made no payments under duress within three years of the commencement of suit on these claims. For example, the jury found that several employees made induced payments in the period 1968 to 1970. If these employees made no further payments under duress, the tolling may well have ended not later than 1970. Since the state court action was not begun until 1974, the claims of these employees would, by hypothesis, already have been barred by the three-year statute of limitations. 110 As to the claims to which the tolling-by-duress principle is applicable, there seems, in theory, to be no limit as to how old a claim might be timely. We note, however, that plaintiffs' amended complaint requests refunds of sums coercively collected since 1971. As a practical matter, therefore, assuming there has been no amendment to this pleading, we regard claims that accrued prior to January 1, 1971, as not being at issue. 111 In sum, we conclude that New York's tolling-by-duress principle has some application to the present action and may well permit the pursuit of many claims that the district court ruled were time-barred. The fact-specific nature of the duress contention means that on this appeal we can give the district court only the above general guidance. We leave it to the court on remand to determine, either summarily where there are no genuine questions of material fact on these duress issues or after a trial at which these questions are put to the jury, which plaintiffs, if any, are entitled to the benefit of the New York rule that where duress is part of the cause of action, it tolls the statute of limitations for as long as the duress continues. 112