Jones v. N.Y.P.D.

Background

Matthew Jones, representing himself and proceeding without paying court fees, alleged that various individuals, including officers of the New York City Police Department and the Monticello Village Police Department, sexually abused him in 1988, when he was two years old. He asserted claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of federal constitutional rights, along with state-law claims for negligence and assault and battery.

The court had dismissed Jones’s original complaint in an order dated January 2, 2024, because the claims were barred by the applicable statutes of limitations, which are laws setting deadlines for filing lawsuits. The court allowed him to amend the complaint to show that the claims were timely or that the deadlines should be extended. Jones filed an amended complaint on January 18, 2024. The court found that it alleged facts virtually identical to those in the original complaint.

Child Victims Act and Adult Survivors Act

Jones appeared to argue that New York’s Adult Survivors Act made his state-law claims timely. The court rejected that argument because the law’s revival period applied to adults who were at least 18 years old when the alleged abuse occurred, while Jones alleged that he was two.

The court also considered New York’s Child Victims Act. That law revived certain previously time-barred child-sexual-abuse claims, but the court stated that revived claims had to be filed by August 14, 2021, after an extension related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Jones filed this action on October 25, 2023, more than two years after that deadline. The court therefore ruled that he could not rely on the Act’s revival provision. It also stated that the Act’s separate extension for claims filed in the future did not apply because Jones’s claims were already time-barred when the Act took effect.

The court further noted that the Child Victims Act’s revival provision does not apply to claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The amended complaint also alleged no facts supporting extension of the filing deadlines under either state or federal law.

Ruling

The court dismissed the amended complaint for failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted because the claims were untimely. This was a screening dismissal under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii), which requires dismissal of a fee-waived complaint that does not state a legally sufficient claim.

Judge Laura Taylor Swain declined to give Jones another opportunity to amend because he had already been allowed to amend and the defects could not be cured by another amendment. The court certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Jones permission to proceed without paying fees for an appeal. It directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment based on this order and the January 2, 2024 dismissal order.