HOWARD WALTER WILLIAMS, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT,
v.
JOHN J. HOLLINS, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR DAVIDSON COUNTY, TENN., AND BETHEL JAMES QUALLS, A POLICE OFFICER, DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES

6th Cir. | 1970-01-07
No. 19548
Before WEICK and EDWARDS, Circuit Judges, and O’SULLIVAN, Senior Circuit Judge.
428 F.2d 1221 United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (1970) Negative Treatment
Cited by 2 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.


Holding

The court held that the plaintiff's civil rights action was barred by the one-year statute of limitations, as there was no tolling provision for incarceration in Tennessee.


Facts & Procedural History

Plaintiff sued defendants for conspiring to deprive him of civil rights, leading to his conviction for robbery. The action was filed more than one yea…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM:

PER CURIAM:

Howard Walter Williams, Plaintiff in the District Court, appeals from dismissal of his complaint for damages against Appellees John J. Hollins and Bethel James Qualls. His complaint charged that these persons conspired and acted together to deprive him of his civil rights, secured to him in Title 42, U.S. C.A. Section 1983. The alleged conspiracy is claimed to have brought about appellant’s trial and conviction for robbery in the year 1965. The present action was instituted on January 9, 1969. A motion for summary judgment was made by defendants on the ground that plaintiff’s action was barred by the one-year statute of limitations provided by Tenn. Code Anno. § 28-304.

In Mulligan v. Schlachter, 389 F. 2d 231, 233 (6th Cir. 1968) this Court held:

“Since the Civil Rights Act itself contains no limitation period, the courts will look to the most analogous statute of limitations where the cause of action arose.”

There we dealt with the Michigan statute which had a provision that the statute of limitations does not apply if the cause of action arose while the prospective complainant is in jail. We held, however, that since the cause of action of the plaintiff did not arise while he was in jail, the statute was not tolled. Crawford v. Zeitler, 326 F. 2d 119 (6th Cir. 1964).

Tennessee has no statute tolling the statute of limitations while a prospective complainant is in jail. In Jones v. Bombeck, 375 F. 2d 737 (3rd Cir. 1967) the Court said:

“We can discern no reason why the statute should be tolled because the appellant was incarcerated.” 375 F. 2d at 739.

The judgment of the District Court is affirmed.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw