Kruppenbacher v. Annucci

Background

Joseph Kruppenbacher, who was incarcerated at Clinton Correctional Facility, filed this pro se action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal statute allowing claims against state officials for violating federal rights. He sued Anthony J. Annucci and seven other officials or employees of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. He sought declarations, an injunction, and money damages.

Kruppenbacher based the action on events at Green Haven Correctional Facility in January 2016. He alleged that on January 6, 2016, prison personnel ordered him to go to a visit and to the medical unit. He alleged that Lieutenant Susan Hann threatened to deny his visit and to write him up and place him in keep-lock if he refused. He said he went to the medical unit under protest, where he was subjected to blood-pressure testing and further examination, including an order to undress to his undershorts and an inspection in the presence of four people of the opposite gender. He alleged that he was later allowed to attend his visit.

He further alleged that Hann retaliated by referring him for psychiatric attention, that prison guard Wilfredo Lamboy trashed his property, and that he was placed in keep-lock from January 6 to January 7, causing him to miss meals and recreation. He alleged that a doctor later determined that nothing was wrong with him.

Screening and Limitations Issue

The court explained that federal law requires screening of prisoner complaints seeking relief from governmental entities or their officers or employees. The court must dismiss claims that are frivolous, malicious, fail to state a claim, seek money from an immune defendant, or fall outside the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. Although courts read pro se complaints liberally, the complaint must still contain enough facts to make a claim plausible.

For § 1983 claims, the limitations period comes from the state’s general period for personal-injury claims. The court stated that New York’s period is three years and that a claim generally begins when the plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the injury. A prisoner’s complaint is treated as filed when the prisoner delivers it to prison authorities for mailing.

Kruppenbacher signed the complaint in 2019, but the opinion noted that the filing date was uncertain because the complaint did not show when he placed it into the prison mail system. The envelope was postmarked December 23, 2019, and the court assumed for purposes of its analysis that the complaint was filed in December 2019. Under that assumption, claims arising before December 2016 appeared to be too late. The court therefore stated that the claims in this action were time-barred on the face of the complaint.

Order

The court did not immediately dismiss the complaint. Because the limitations defense was an affirmative defense and Kruppenbacher was proceeding without a lawyer, the court gave him notice and an opportunity to respond. It directed him to submit a declaration to the court’s Pro Se Intake Unit within 60 days, labeled with docket number 20-CV-0110, explaining why the § 1983 claims should not be dismissed as time-barred.

The court said the declaration should include facts supporting equitable tolling, a doctrine that can extend a filing deadline in compelling circumstances to prevent unfairness. The court identified fraudulent concealment of a claim and inducement by a defendant to delay filing as examples. No summons would issue at that time. If Kruppenbacher failed to comply within the allowed period and could not show good cause for that failure, the court said it would dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted.