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555 F.2d 142

Docket No. 76-1782.

Austin v. Brammer

Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals

Submitted April 7, 1977.

Decided and Filed May 20, 1977.

Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1977-05-20

2 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Unless otherwise specifically provided in sections 2305.04 to 2305.14, inclusive, and sections 1302.98 and 1304.29 of the Revised Code, if a person entitled to bring any action mentioned in such sections, unless for penalty or forfeiture, is, at the time the cause of action accrues, within the age of minority, of unsound mind, or imprisoned, such person may bring it within the respective times limited by such sections, after such disability is removed. * * *” (Emphasis added.)”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including 37 Ohio App. 3d 179 - Miller v. Stevens, 636 F. Supp. 425 - Vargas v. Jago

Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Opinion by (per_curiam) · Decided 1977-05-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently August 2010 · most notably Wyser-Pratte Management Co. v. Telxon Corp. (2005), Elliott v. City of Union City (1994)

28 federal appellate · 2 state decisions

29019771980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1*143Donald Austin, Lucasville, Ohio, for plaintiff-appellant.

¶2John M. Cronquist, Cronquist, Smith & Marshall, Philip J. Weaver, Jr., Cleveland, Ohio, for defendants-appellees.

¶3Before CELEBREZZE, PECK and EN-GEL, Circuit Judges.

¶4PER CURIAM.

¶5Donald Austin appeals from the district court’s dismissal of his suit brought under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985. His complaint charged that defendant police officers of the Ashtabula City Police Department violated his civil rights by giving perjurious testimony in a state criminal action, which resulted in his conviction and sentencing on a charge of rape and breaking and entering. Upon motion of the defendants, the district court dismissed plaintiff’s complaint with a determination “that the most nearly analogous statute of limitations of the State of Ohio to the factual predicate of plaintiff’s complaint is that applying to actions of false arrest and false imprisonment and that the period of limitations thereunder is one year, O.R.C. § 2305.11, and that the within action was not commenced within one year of the date of plaintiff’s conviction. . . . ” The district court likewise denied plaintiff’s motion to vacate and reconsider its earlier judgment upon plaintiff’s representation that even if the district court was correct in determining the application of the statute of limitations, that statute was nevertheless tolled because plaintiff was at all times subject to the disability of imprisonment, relying upon O.R.C. § 2305.16 which provides:

Unless otherwise specially provided in sections 2305.04 to 2305.14, inclusive, and sections 1302.98 and 1304.29 of the Revised Code, if a person entitled to bring any action mentioned in such sections, unless for penalty or forfeiture, is, at the time the cause of action accrues, within the age of minority, of unsound mind, or imprisoned, such person may bring it within the respective times limited by such sections, after such disability is removed. When the interests of two or more parties are joint and inseparable, the disability of one shall inure to the benefit of all.
After the cause of action accrues, if the person entitled to bring such action becomes of unsound mind and is adjudicated as such by a court of competent jurisdiction or is confined in an institution or hospital under a diagnosed condition or disease which renders him of unsound mind, the time during which he is of unsound mind and so adjudicated or so confined shall not be computed as any part of the period within which the action must be brought. (Emphasis supplied)

¶6While no findings were made by the district court, it would appear that it was persuaded by the arguments of defendants that the tolling statute would not apply to the facts of this case because the disability of imprisonment did not exist at the time of the accrual of the cause of action, but rather only took place after the defendant had been sentenced following his conviction.

¶7It is apparent from the plaintiff’s pleadings that he claims at all times to have been in custody either in the county jail or in the Ohio correctional system. Since no evidentiary hearing was held, we must accept such averments as true for the purposes of the motion to dismiss. Defendants’ claim that “imprisonment” within the meaning of the statute means only confinement in a penitentiary following conviction finds no support that we are aware of in Ohio law. The authorities cited to the district court by defendants, Carrie v. Robinson, 13 Ohio 181 (1844), and Ward v. Racer, 20 Ohio 250 (1851), are inapposite.

¶8*144Accordingly, while we agree with the district court that O.R.C. § 2305.111 is the most nearly analogous statute of limitations, we conclude that the dismissal of plaintiff’s amended complaint on that basis without an evidentiary hearing or appropriate factual finding was inappropriate in the face of the claim that the statute was tolled by O.R.C. § 2305.16.

¶9Reversed and remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent herewith.

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