United States District Court, W.D. Arkansas, Texarkana Division
ORDER
Susan
O. Hickey Chief United States District Judge
Before
the Court is Defendant Deputy Jerry Crider's Motion to
Dismiss. (ECF No. 18). Plaintiff has not filed a response and
the time to do so has passed. The Court finds this matter
ripe for consideration.
I.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff
is currently an inmate in the Arkansas Department of
Correction (“ADC”), Ouachita River Unit, in
Malvern, Arkansas. Plaintiff filed his complaint on February
20, 2019, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, naming Deputy
Jerry Crider, [1] Heath Ross, and Sheriff James Singleton as
Defendants. (ECF No. 1). Plaintiff alleges Defendants Ross
and Singleton denied him medical care while he was
incarcerated in the Hempstead County Jail “from
2-16-2016 to the time I was sent to prison, which was almost
a year.” Id. at p. 9. Plaintiff alleges that
on February 16, 2016, Deputy Crider arrested Plaintiff and
violated his constitutional rights when he
“slammed” Plaintiff into the side of the car and
“slammed” the cuffs on Plaintiff “way too
[h]ard.” Id. at p. 5.
Service
was executed on Deputy Crider on March 29, 2019. On April 8,
2019, Deputy Crider filed the instant Motion to Dismiss
arguing that Plaintiff's claim for excessive force
against him should be denied as being time-barred by the
three-year statute of limitations. (ECF No. 18).
II.
APPLICABLE LAW
Rule
8(a) contains the general pleading rules and requires a
complaint to present “a short and plain statement of
the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to
relief.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2). “In order to meet
this standard, and survive a motion to dismiss under Rule
12(b)(6), ‘a complaint must contain sufficient factual
matter, accepted as true, to state a claim for relief that is
plausible on its face.'” Braden v. Wal-Mart
Stores, Inc., 588 F.3d 585, 594 (8th Cir. 2009)
(quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678
(2009)). “A claim has facial plausibility when the
plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to
draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable
for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft, 556
U.S. at 678. While the Court will liberally construe a
pro se plaintiff's complaint, the plaintiff must
allege sufficient facts to support his claims. See Stone
v. Harry, 364 F.3d 912, 914 (8th Cir. 2004).
III.
DISCUSSION
Deputy
Crider argues that Plaintiff's excessive force claim
against him is time-barred because his Complaint was filed
more than three (3) years after the incident
occurred.[2]
The
Supreme Court has adopted the “prisoner mailbox
rule” for determining the date on which a pro
se prisoner's notice of appeal is filed. Houston
v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266 (1988). The Eighth Circuit has
extended the application of the prisoner mailbox rule to
include all civil complaints filed by prisoners. Sulik v.
Taney County, Mo., 316 F.3d 813, 815 (8th Cir. 2003).
According to this rule, a prisoner's complaint is
considered filed as soon as the prisoner delivers the
complaint to prison authorities for mailing to the court
clerk. Id. at 276. In other words, the date of
filing for any pro se prisoner's complaint is
the date the complaint was deposited with prison authorities.
Here,
although it is not clear when Plaintiff handed his complaint
over to prison officials at the ADC, the envelope containing
the complaint is postmarked February 12, 2019, which is four
days before the applicable statute of limitations deadline.
Based on the prisoner mailbox rule, Plaintiff's complaint
is considered to have been filed on February 12, 2019, at the
very latest. Accordingly, Plaintiff's claim for excessive
force based on the February 16, 2016 incident against Deputy
Crider is not time-barred by the statute of limitations.
IV.
CONCLUSION
For the
reasons stated above, Deputy Crider's Motion to Dismiss
(ECF No. 18) is DENIED.
IT
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