Walters v. Bharara
- Alvin Hellerstein
- 1:20-cv-08803
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Walters v. Bharara, Judge Hellerstein dismissed Walters’s federal civil-rights lawsuit as untimely because the alleged leaks occurred more than three years before filing.
William T. Walters, whose complaint was dismissed, and the named defendants, in whose favor judgment was entered.
What happened
In Walters v. Bharara, William T. Walters sued over leaks of grand-jury investigations that allegedly occurred between April 2013 and May 2014. The last reported leak appeared on June 1, 2014, and Walters filed his complaint on October 22, 2020.
The court explained that federal civil-rights claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 generally have a three-year filing deadline. It rejected Walters’s argument that a Department of Justice investigation paused that deadline, stating that the investigation did not extend the time to sue.
Judge Hellerstein granted the motions to dismiss, dismissed the complaint, entered judgment in the defendants’ favor, and closed the case. The court did not decide whether another legal rule or the other grounds raised in the motions also barred the lawsuit.
The detailed version
- Walters v. Bharara · No. 1:20-cv-08803
- Alvin Hellerstein
- Sept. 13, 2021
Background
William T. Walters sued Preetinder Bharara, David Chaves, George Venizelos, Richard Zabel, Telemachus Kasulis, Daniel Goldman, and Does 1–50. The complaint challenged alleged leaks of grand-jury investigations by Chaves. According to the complaint, the leaks occurred from April 2013 through May 2014, and the last newspaper story containing them was published by the Wall Street Journal on June 1, 2014.
Walters had previously raised the leaks in a motion seeking dismissal of the indictment against him, arguing that they compromised his right to a fair trial. The district court rejected that motion, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The opinion states that those courts held the leaks did not deprive Walters of a fair trial and that his conviction judgment was lawfully entered.
Statute of limitations
The court stated that an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is governed by a three-year statute of limitations, meaning the lawsuit generally must be filed within three years of the relevant conduct. Walters filed this complaint on October 22, 2020, more than three years after the alleged leaks.
Walters argued that the Department of Justice’s investigation of the leaks should affect the filing deadline. The court rejected that argument, explaining that the investigation did not pause the limitations period. The court also rejected the theory of equitable estoppel, which can sometimes prevent a party from relying on a deadline when its conduct justifies that result. The court stated that Walters could not wait for the investigation to end and then sue after the limitations period had expired.
Other grounds and disposition
The court noted that a violation of grand-jury secrecy might possibly exist as an independent tort. It nevertheless found the statute of limitations issue decisive and therefore did not rule on whether Heck v. Humphrey barred the lawsuit or on the other grounds raised in the motions to dismiss.
Judge Hellerstein granted the motions to dismiss. The complaint was dismissed, the Clerk was directed to terminate ECF 47 and ECF 54, judgment was entered in the defendants’ favor, and the case was marked closed.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.