Steven Wicks, et al v. Dudley Anderson, et al
Filing
NOT PRECEDENTIAL PER CURIAM OPINION Coram: AMBRO, VANASKIE and SLOVITER, Circuit Judges. Total Pages: 4.
Case: 14-4795
Document: 003112019941
Page: 1
Date Filed: 07/16/2015
NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________
No. 14-4795
___________
STEVEN WICKS; CAROLINE WICKS; GEORGE BIDLESPACHER;
MARILYN BIDLESPACHER; GREG BROWN; KAREN BROWN,
Appellants
v.
DUDLEY N. ANDERSON; KEVIN WAY; ROBIN A. READ; WILLIAM BURD;
DANIEL MATHERS; MARC DRIER; MARY E. BUTLER; KENNETH D. BROWN;
LYCOMING COUNTY; THE 29TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Civil Action No. 4-14-cv-00143)
District Judge: Honorable C. Darnell Jones, II
____________________________________
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
July 13, 2015
Before: AMBRO, VANASKIE and SLOVITER, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed: July 16, 2015)
___________
OPINION*
___________
PER CURIAM
*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
Case: 14-4795
Document: 003112019941
Page: 2
Date Filed: 07/16/2015
Appellants, proceeding pro se, seek review of the District Court’s order granting
the defendants’ motions to dismiss a civil rights action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
For the following reasons, we will affirm.
As we write only for the parties, who are familiar with the facts and procedural
history, we will set forth only those facts necessary to our conclusions. In 2009, Steven
and Caroline Wicks (the Wickses), William Blair, and George Bidlespacher filed an
action in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania against
a variety of local government officials, alleging improprieties, including missing
documents, in connection with their separate state court civil cases. A Magistrate Judge
recommended that the defendants’ motions to dismiss be granted, and District Judge
Christopher C. Conner adopted that recommendation. We affirmed. Wicks v. Lycoming
Cnty., 456 F. App’x 112 (3d Cir. 2012) (not precedential) (Wicks I).
On January 27, 2014, the Wickses and George Bidlespacher, joined now by
Marilyn Bidlespacher and Greg and Karen Brown, filed a new action in the District
Court. They named as defendants several parties who had been sued in the 2009 action:
Lycoming County Common Pleas Court Judges Dudley N. Anderson and Kenneth D.
Brown; William J. Burd, the Lycoming County Prothonotary; Kevin Way, the Lycoming
County Court Administrator; Daniel Mathers, Chairman of the Board of Viewers; and
Lycoming County and the 29th Judicial District of Pennsylvania (“29th District”). The
plaintiffs added as defendants Judge Conner; Robin Read and Mary Butler, attorneys who
represented the defendants in Wicks I; and Marc Drier, an attorney who represented
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Date Filed: 07/16/2015
Caroline Wicks in divorce proceedings. The plaintiffs complained again about allegedly
missing documents, and asserted that the defendants conspired to thwart their state and
federal court cases. The defendants filed motions to dismiss, arguing, inter alia, that the
plaintiffs’ claims were barred by the applicable statute of limitations. The District Court
agreed and dismissed the complaint with prejudice. The plaintiffs appealed.1
Claims brought under § 1983 are subject to the state statute of limitations for
personal injury actions. Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 266-67 (1985). For civil rights
actions originating in Pennsylvania, a two-year statute of limitations applies. Lake v.
Arnold, 232 F.3d 360, 368 (3d Cir. 2000); 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5524. A § 1983 cause of
action accrues when the plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the injury that
constitutes the basis of the cause of action. Sameric Corp. of Delaware, Inc. v. City of
Philadelphia, 142 F.3d 582, 599 (3d Cir. 1998). The running of the statute of limitations
is an affirmative defense that generally must be raised by the defendant. See Fed. R. Civ.
P. 8(c).
The plaintiffs’ claims pertain to injuries that allegedly occurred in 2007 and 2009,
during the adjudication of their state court lawsuits and the Wicks I litigation. Therefore,
1
We have appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we exercise plenary review
over a District Court’s decision to grant a motion to dismiss on statute of limitations
grounds. See Algrant v. Evergreen Valley Nurseries Ltd. P’ship, 126 F.3d 178, 181 (3d
Cir. 1997). Because we agree that the plaintiffs’ claims are time-barred, we will not
consider the District Court’s additional determinations that claims were barred by res
judicata, that the attorney-defendants did not act under color of state law, that the judicial
defendants were protected by immunity, and that some of that the plaintiffs’ allegations
were insufficient under the pleading standards articulated in Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly,
550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007).
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as the defendants argued, the two-year statute of limitations expired well before the
plaintiffs filed the present action on January 27, 2014.2 The plaintiffs seek to avoid the
statute of limitations bar by asserting that their injuries are ongoing, see Cowell v. Palmer
Twp., 263 F.3d 286, 292 (3d Cir. 2001) (discussing continuing violations theory), and
that they “did not learn of the fraud and falsehoods visited upon them until the summer of
2013”); Schmidt v. Skolas, 770 F.3d 241, 251 (3d Cir. 2014) (discussing Pennsylvania’s
discovery rule). In support of these claims, the plaintiffs point to letters, emails, and
handwritten notes pertaining to their state court lawsuits, Wicks I, and a judicial
complaint against Judge Anderson. The dates of these documents, however, indicate that
they were generated more than two years before the plaintiffs filed the present lawsuit.
Although the plaintiffs alleged that their complaint was based on “after-discovered
information which demonstrates . . . egregious judicial corruption[,]” they fail to identify
that “information.” Finally, there is no indication in the record that the defendants
prevented the plaintiffs from discovering their alleged injuries through fraud or
concealment. See Bohus v. Beloff, 950 F.2d 919, 925 (3d Cir. 1991).
For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the District Court’s judgment.
As the District Court noted, the plaintiffs’ claims are untimely even if the statute of
limitations did not begin to run until we affirmed the dismissal of Wicks I on January 5,
2012. In addition, Pennsylvania’s two year statute of limitations bars the plaintiffs from
raising a malpractice claim against Marc Drier, whose representation of Caroline Wicks
in divorce proceedings ended in 2006. Knopick v. Connelly, 639 F.3d 600, 606 (3d Cir.
2011) (“Pennsylvania imposes a two-year statute of limitations on tortious conduct,
including legal malpractice actions.”).
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