Bird v. Hawai'i, No. 17-16076 (9th Cir. 2019)
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The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. 1983 complaint alleging that the Department violated her right to due process when it listed her name, without notice, on the State's Child Protective Services Central Registry. In this case, plaintiff's name was listed on the Registry after her husband confessed to killing their newborn baby and the criminal investigation concluded that plaintiff was not a suspect.
The panel held that, because plaintiff alleged only individualized claims for deprivation of procedural due process, the normal discovery rule of accrual applies. The panel agreed with the district court that plaintiff had knowledge of the injury giving rise to her claims by May 2013, but failed to file her action within the two year statute of limitations. Furthermore, the complaint would not have been saved by any amendment and thus the district court did not err in denying plaintiff leave to amend.
Court Description: Civil Rights. The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal, on statute of limitations grounds, of a complaint brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that the Hawai‘i Department of Human Services violated plaintiff’s right to due process when it listed her, without notice, on the State’s Child Protective Services Central Registry. Plaintiff and her then-husband were placed on the State’s Registry after their 7-week-old baby died of cardiac arrest in 2007. Bird’s husband later confessed to killing the infant and a criminal investigation concluded that plaintiff was not a suspect. The Department of Health Services did not, however, remove plaintiff’s name from the Registry, nor did it notify her that her name was listed. In 2013, plaintiff discovered, during a background check, that her name was on the Registry. Plaintiff’s attorney communicated with the Department and threatened to sue when plaintiff’s name was not removed, but did not file suit until more than two years later. Applying Hawai‘i’s two-year statute of limitations, the panel held that plaintiff’s complaint was not subject to any BIRD V. STATE OF HAWAI‘I 3 exceptions from the normal discovery rule of accrual. The panel held that plaintiff had knowledge of the injury giving rise to her claim by May 2013 when she threatened to sue the Department if she was not removed from the Registry. Accordingly, her suit, filed in July 2015, was time-barred. The panel rejected plaintiff’s assertion that a claim seeking injunctive relief to invalidate an ongoing unconstitutional statutory and regulatory scheme does not accrue until the statute is repealed. The panel held that the traditional interests of protecting defendants and facilitating the administration of claims was applicable to a due process claim and justified enforcing a limitations period through the discovery rule of accrual. The panel further rejected plaintiff’s claim that her complaint alleged a continuing violation. The panel held that because the violation plaintiff alleged was the placement of her name on the Registry without constitutionally required due process, she had brought only an individualized claim. As such, the systematic branch of the continuing violations doctrine was inapplicable, and the discovery rule of accrual applied. Concurring in the per curiam opinion, Judge Bybee stated that plaintiff had assuredly stated a plausible due process claim and that the Department of Health Services should not interpret the panel’s decision, which was based on statute of limitations grounds, as in any way condoning the blatantly insufficient procedures by which the Department maintains plaintiff’s name in its Central Child Abuse Registry. 4 BIRD V. STATE OF HAWAI‘I
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