Stevens v. Aaren

Background

Dean M. Stevens, a state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, brought a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The operative third amended complaint asserted an excessive-force claim against Deputy Carson Busher and a claim against Deputy Brad James based on alleged supervisor liability. The court had previously found that those allegations were sufficient to proceed.

Stevens alleged that on February 20, 2005, Busher placed him in waist and leg restraints, walked him barefoot to a second-story roof at the Main Adult Detention Facility, and pushed him toward the edge three times. Stevens alleged that he heard James’s voice over Busher’s radio saying, “That’s enough,” and later understood the incident as a “mock execution.” Busher denied involvement and stated that he did not recall Stevens. James denied involvement and stated that he had never been Busher’s supervisor or worked as a correctional deputy at the facility during the relevant period.

Judicial Notice

The defendants asked the court to take judicial notice of more than 50 filings Stevens made in state and federal lawsuits between August 2005 and September 2010. Judicial notice allows a court to accept a fact without requiring ordinary proof when the fact can be accurately determined from reliable sources. The court granted that request under Federal Rule of Evidence 201 because the existence of the filings could be readily verified.

Statute of Limitations

The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that the claim was barred by the statute of limitations and that Stevens failed to state a claim under § 1983. Summary judgment is a decision entered when the evidence shows there is no genuine dispute about a material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

The court explained that § 1983 uses the forum state’s limitations period for personal-injury claims. In California, the period is generally two years. California law can add two years of tolling for a person imprisoned on a criminal charge or under a criminal sentence of less than life, giving an inmate four years to bring a damages claim under § 1983.

The court found that Stevens knew of the alleged injury and its claimed cause on February 20, 2005. Therefore, he had until February 20, 2009, to file the action. He filed it on July 19, 2021, more than 12 years after that deadline.

The court considered whether equitable tolling could extend the deadline. Under the California rule discussed by the court, tolling based on incapacity requires a plaintiff to show that, when the claim accrued, he was unable to manage his property, conduct business, or understand the nature or effects of his actions. The court did not consider allegations from Stevens’s earlier complaint because the third amended complaint had replaced it. The court found that the third amended complaint did not allege incapacity during the relevant period. It also found that evidence of Stevens’s active prosecution of multiple state and federal cases showed that he was not incapacitated while the limitations period was running.

Rulings

The court held that the action was untimely and did not reach the defendants’ alternative argument that Stevens failed to state a claim. Defendants C. Busher and B. James’s motion for summary judgment was granted. The claims against them were dismissed with prejudice as untimely.

Stevens’s recently filed “affidavit emergency injunctive relief” was denied as moot because the action had been dismissed. The order terminated Docket Nos. 58 and 102.