In Bird v. State of Hawaii, published August 23, 2019, the 9th Circuit affirmed dismissal of a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 complaint on statute of limitations grounds. In 2007, the plaintiff's younger child died as an infant. Authorities concluded that the child died due to maltreatment. The defendant state put the plaintiff and her husband on a state registry of child abusers. The state did not give plaintiff notice of doing so. The husband confessed to prosecutors to harming the child, causing her death, and pleaded guilty to first degree murder. The plaintiff was not a suspect. The plaintiff regained custody of her older child, moved to another state, and remarried. When she sought to adopt a child, she learned she was on the registry and so could not adopt. In 2012, she contacted the state and requested an administrative hearing before the listing agency. It offered her a limited administrative hearing, which she refused. In 2013, she threatened litigation. She filed her action for damages and injunctive relief, based on denial of due process, two years and two months after threatening litigation. The district court ruled the action barred by the state's two-year statute of limitations on personal injury.
The 9th Circuit agreed. Although the state statute of limitations for personal injury is applied to section 1983 actions, federal standards of accrual control. The discovery standard of accrual typically governs section 1983. Under it, accrual occurs when the plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the injury that is the basis for the action. The court rejected an argument that the plaintiff was faciallychallenging a statute, and that accrual did not occur until the statute was overturned. That position would essentially abolish statutes of limitations for facial challenges. The court also rejected the argument that there was a continuing violation during the time that she was on the registry. Federal law has limited application of the continuing violation doctrine for individual claims, limiting the doctrine to hostile environment workplace claims. The plaintiff therefore had knowledge of the injury giving rise to her suit no later than 2013, when she was denied the hearing she requested and threatened litigation. A concurring judge opined that an injustice had been done to the plaintiff.
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