Court Opinion

ID: 9459516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:23:07.077124+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:12.175434
License: Public Domain

*89BRIGHT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent. I believe this case to be controlled by our decision in Glasscoe v. Howell, 431 F.2d 863 (8th Cir. 1970). There we held that the Arkansas one-year statute of limitations for false imprisonment or assault and battery did not apply to a civil rights action against state police who allegedly wrongfully arrested appellant and beat him into unconsciousness. We concluded that either the three-year limitation for actions “founded on any contract or liability, express or implied,” or the five-year general statute of limitations should apply. Ark.Stat.Ann. §§ 37-206, -213 (1962). Quoting from the Ninth Circuit case of Smith v. Cremins, 308 F.2d 187, 190 (1962), we adopted the following reasoning:
“Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act clearly creates rights and imposes obligations different from any which would exist at common law in the absence of statute. A given state of facts may of course give rise to a cause of action in common-law tort as well as to a cause of action under Section 1983, but the elements of the two are not the same. The elements of an action under Section 1983 are (1) the denial under color of state law (2) of a right secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States. Neither of these elements would be required to make out a cause of action in common-law tort; both might be present without creating common-law tort liability. As Mr. Justice Harlan recently suggested, ‘a deprivation of a constitutional right is significantly different from and more serious than a violation of a state right and therefore deserves a different remedy even thqugh the same act may constitute both a state tort and the deprivation of a constitutional right.’ ” [Glasscoe, supra, 431 F.2d at 865.]
Following this same reasoning in this case, I would apply Iowa’s five-year general statute of limitations. Iowa Code Ann. § 614 ¶ 4 (Supp.1973). To apply Iowa’s two-year statute of limitations governing common law actions in contract or tort or actions for a statute penalty as opposed to statutorily created liability, seems to me too narrow a characterization of the breadth of the cause of action and remedy intended under the Civil Rights Act.
To the extent that Savage v. United States, 450 F.2d 449, 451 (8th Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 405 U.S. 1043, 92 S.Ct. 1327, 31 L.Ed.2d 585 (1972), may be deemed inconsistent with Glasscoe, I would follow Glasscoe as the more persuasive authority. See Baker v. F & F Investment, 420 F.2d 1191, 1197-1198 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 821, 91 S.Ct. 42, 27 L.Ed.2d 49 (1970); Wakat v. Harlib, 253 F.2d 59, 62-64 (7th Cir. 1958); Lazard v. Boeing Co., 322 F. Supp. 343, 345-346 (E.D.La.1971).