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26 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 199 (1984-1985)
Civil Rights and Personal Injuries: Virginia's Statute of Limitations for Section 1983 Suits

handle is hein.journals/wmlr26 and id is 215 raw text is: CIVIL RIGHTS AND PERSONAL INJURIES: VIRGINIA'S STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS FOR SECTION 1983 SUITS JOHN R. PAGAN* Congress often creates rights of action without explicitly limiting the period for bringing suit. Since as early as 1830,1 federal courts have interpreted congressional silence as a tacit instruction to ab- sorb state statutes of limitations within the interstices of the fed- eral enactments, thereby fashioning remedial details where Con- gress has not spoken but left matters for judicial determination within the general framework of familiar legal principles.2 Invok- ing the Rules of Decision Act,3 courts have applied state limitation provisions in a variety of federal question cases. In 1914, the Su- preme Court approved the use of state statutes of limitations in civil rights litigation,4 a practice which the Court now considers *Associate Professor of Law, University of Arkansas at Little Rock. A.B., College of Wil- liam and Mary; M. Litt., Oxford University; J.D., Harvard University. The author gratefully acknowledges the valuable suggestions of Judge J. R. Zepkin and Professor John Donaldson. He also wishes to thank his former students and colleagues at the Marshall-Wythe School of Law for their friendship, encouragement, and inspiration. To them this Article is respect- fully dedicated. Copyright 1985 by John R. Pagan. 1. See International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U.S. 696, 703-04 (1966) (citing M'Cluny v. Silliman, 28 U.S. (3 Pet.) 270 (1830)). 2. Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U.S. 392, 395 (1946). 3. 28 U.S.C. § 1652 (1982), which provides: The laws of the several states, except where the Constitution or treaties of the United States or Acts of Congress otherwise require or provide, shall be re- garded as rules of decision in civil actions in the courts of the United States, in cases where they apply. Id. See Campbell v. Haverhill, 155 U.S. 610, 613-20 (1895). 4. See O'Sullivan v. Felix, 233 U.S. 318 (1914). The plaintiff in O'Sullivan sought dam- ages for physical injuries and emotional distress received when the defendants beat him to prevent him from voting. Three and a half years after the attack, he filed suit under the predecessors of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 (1982). The Supreme Court affirmed dismissal of his civil rights action on the ground that the forum state's one-year statute of limitations for actions resulting from offenses or quasi offenses, id. at 322, barred recovery. Louisiana law applied, the Court held, because Congress had not fixed a specific limitation period for litigation under remedial civil rights laws. The Court declined to borrow the time limits in federal criminal statutes protecting civil rights because the punitive nature of those laws

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