Third Circuit Finds Relation-Back Rule Misapplied to Philadelphia Prisoner’s “Crappy” Ordeal Lawsuit
by David M. Reutter
On March 21, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated summary judgment in favor of a Philadelphia Department of Corrections (DOC) guard, who was accused of leaving a prisoner to languish for hours in a truly “crappy” situation after his cell toilet exploded. The Court said that the district court misapplied the “relation back” analysis to see if the prisoner’s amended complaint was sufficiently related to the original in order for its filing to be counted within the statute of limitations. Instead of looking to that statute to determine the period for assessing notice, the Court said, the lower court should have looked at the period for service provided under Fed.R.Civ.P. 4(m).
Troy Lamont Moore, Sr., was sitting in his cell in Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center (PICC) around 11:15 p.m. on September 16, 2013, when “the water in the toilet absolutely exploded,” according to the civil rights complaint he later filed; “the burst out of the toilet,” he said, “was so violent there was defecation four feet high [up] the walls.” Contaminant also ended up in Moore’s eyes and mouth. He immediately vomited, and he was allegedly left experiencing shortness of breath and chest pain.
Five minutes later, PICC guard Saajida Walton walked by the cell, and Moore called out for help. Walton allegedly looked at Moore, acknowledged him but “continued on her rounds.” Left standing in the sewage, Moore banged on the cell door for the next hour. But Walton “act[ed] like she couldn’t hear” him, Moore’s complaint recalled. She did, however, let other prisoners out to bathe and mop up the sewage that leaked from Moore’s cell into the hallway. Moore finally gave up banging and lay down on his bunk. At shift change the next morning, another guard finally released him from the cell.
Moore exhausted administrative remedies without naming Walton—because he did not know her name. When inquiring of PICC officials, he misunderstood it to be “Walden,” rather than Walton. That error compounded itself in preventing service of summons on his civil rights complaint. Moreover, PICC officials were uncooperative in helping Moore identify Walton. They also contended that video of the incident was destroyed and further said they had no other way to determine the identity of the guard on duty.
Moore filed his complaint in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which dismissed it without prejudice when he failed to effect service on the Defendant guard. By the time he filed his first amended complaint, “S. Walton” was a named Defendant. Nevertheless, the district court dismissed that complaint as untimely under the statute of limitations; that is two years in Pennsylvania for personal injury claims, and the district court concluded that service of summons was executed outside that time period. Moore appealed.
The Third Circuit found error occurred when the lower court relied on the statute of limitations rather than Rule 4(m), which governs the service of summons. The “relation-back” doctrine under Rule 15(c) “allows the court to treat a later-filed amended pleading as if it had been filed at the time of the initial pleading,” the Court noted. It thus “ameliorates the running of the statute of limitations.”
Rule 15(c)(1)(C) directs that the time period in Rule 4(m) governs where three prongs have been met: (1) the conduct was the same as in the original complaint; (2) the defendant had notice of the action; (3) and the defendant knew or should have known but for a mistake in identity that the lawsuit would be brought against him/her. At issue then was whether Walton had notice of the action.
The 90-day time period in Rule 4(m) had expired, but the district court had also granted an extension upon a finding of good cause in Walton’s misspelled name, which was not Moore’s fault. The Third Circuit held that the Rule 15(c)(1)(C) notice period incorporates mandatory extensions for “good cause” under Rule 4(m), so the district court erred in looking instead to the statute of limitations.
The problem for Moore now, the Court noted, is that the notice period closed when the original complaint was dismissed. But it reversed the district court and remanded the case nonetheless, to determine whether Walton may have received actual or constructive notice of the lawsuit before that initial dismissal.
Moore is represented in his suit by attorneys Alan L. Yatvin and Caroline J. Bojarski of Weir Greenblatt Pierce LLP in Philadelphia. However, before the Court, he was represented by attorneys Jonathan Dame, Regina Wang, Yiyang Wang and Brian S. Wolfman of Georgetown University Law Center Appellate Courts Immersion Clinic in Washington, D.C. See: Moore v. Walton, 96 F.4th 616 (3d Cir. 2024)
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