Court Opinion

ID: 9495523
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:04:45.325478+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:03.862207
License: Public Domain

KING, District Judge,
concurring:
I join Parts I and III of the majority’s opinion and concur in the result of Part II. However, I write separately to express that, in my view, we need not delve into the implications of Hanna or Walker because this appeal involves a federal § 1983 claim, not a state claim based on diversity jurisdiction.1 Consequently, the inquiry should begin with West v. Conrail, 481 U.S. 35, 107 S.Ct. 1538, 95 L.Ed.2d 32 (1987), a case requiring the court to borrow the statute of limitations for a federal claim, as is the case here.
Admittedly, West involved the borrowing of the statute of limitations from another federal law, while Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985), mandates that we borrow the statute of limitations for the § 1983 claim at issue in this case from state law. However, this difference is inconsequential for our purposes because when we borrow state law for a federal claim, we are applying federal, not state, law and do not undermine the federal nature of the claim. See Jutzi-Johnson v. United States, 263 F.3d 753, 760 (7th Cir.2001)(“When a federal court borrows a state statute of limitations, the court is not applying state law; it is applying federal law.”). Therefore, in my view, West’s holding is equally applicable when we borrow the state statute of limitations for this § 1983 action.
For the foregoing reasons, I concur in the result in Part II, but join Parts I and III of the majority’s opinion.

. I also do not join in the majority's discussion of Hanna and Walker, as I do not believe that Walicer qualifies Hanna as the majority states. Indeed, it cannot be said that Hanna had not contemplated the situation in Walker. In fact, the Hanna Court chose to distinguish, not overrule, Ragan v. Merchants Transfer & Warehouse Co., 337 U.S. 530, 69 S.Ct. 1233, 93 L.Ed. 1520 (1949), a case that is, according to the Supreme Court, "indistinguishable” from Walker. See Walker, 446 U.S. at 748, 100 S.Ct. 1978. In my view, the problem is not that Walker qualifies Hanna. Instead, the problem is that West, in conjunction with Walker, created an anomaly resulting in Rule 3 having a different scope depending upon whether the underlying claim is based on federal or state law. Insofar as the Supreme Court has created this anomaly as to Rule 3, it is beyond our ability to change. Whether this anomaly may portend incongruént application of other Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is not a question we need to confront in this case.