JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we must determine the most appropriate state statute of limitations to apply to claims enforceable under § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871,
The respondent's complaint was filed two years and nine months after the claim purportedly arose. Petitioners moved to dismiss on the ground that the action was barred by the 2-year statute of limitations contained in § 41-4-15(A) of the New Mexico Tort Claims Act.
In ruling on the petitioners' motion to dismiss, the District Court concluded that the New Mexico Supreme Court's decision in DeVargas was not controlling because "the characterization of the nature of the right being vindicated under § 1983 is a matter of federal, rather than state, law."
The Court of Appeals' reasoning was slightly different from the District Court's. It agreed that the characterization of a § 1983 claim is a matter of federal law, and that the New Mexico Supreme Court's decision in DeVargas was therefore not conclusive on the question. 731 F. 2d, at 643, 651, n. 5. The opinion reviewed the varying approaches of the United States Courts of Appeals,
I
The Reconstruction Civil Rights Acts do not contain a specific statute of limitations governing § 1983 actions
The language of § 1988,
In order to determine the most "most appropriate" or "most analogous" New Mexico statute to apply to the respondent's claim, we must answer three questions. We must first consider whether state law or federal law governs the characterization of a § 1983 claim for statute of limitations purposes. If federal law applies, we must next decide whether all § 1983 claims should be characterized in the same way, or whether they should be evaluated differently depending upon the varying factual circumstances and legal theories presented in each individual case. Finally, we must characterize the essence of the claim in the pending case, and decide which state statute provides the most appropriate limiting principle. Although the text of neither § 1983 nor § 1988 provides a pellucid answer to any of these questions, all three parts of the inquiry are, in final analysis, questions of statutory construction.
II
Our identification of the correct source of law properly begins with the text of § 1988.
This interpretation is also supported by Congress' third instruction in § 1988: state law shall only apply "so far as the same is not inconsistent with" federal law. This requirement emphasizes "the predominance of the federal interest" in the borrowing process, taken as a whole. Burnett v. Grattan, 468 U. S., at 48.
In borrowing statutes of limitations for other federal claims,
III
A federal cause of action "brought at any distance of time" would be "utterly repugnant to the genius of our laws." Adams v. Woods, 2 Cranch 336, 342 (1805). Just determinations of fact cannot be made when, because of the passage of time, the memories of witnesses have faded or evidence is lost. In compelling circumstances, even wrongdoers are entitled to assume that their sins may be forgotten.
The borrowing of statutes of limitations for § 1983 claims serves these policies of repose. Of course, the application of any statute of limitations would promote repose. By adopting the statute governing an analogous cause of action under state law, federal law incorporates the State's judgment on the proper balance between the policies of repose and the substantive policies of enforcement embodied in the state cause of action. However, when the federal claim differs from the state cause of action in fundamental respects, the State's choice of a specific period of limitation is, at best, only a rough approximation of "the point at which the interests in favor of protecting valid claims are outweighed by the interests in prohibiting the prosecution of stale ones." Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U.S. 454, 463-464 (1975).
Thus, in considering whether all § 1983 claims should be characterized in the same way for limitations purposes, it is useful to recall that § 1983 provides "a uniquely federal remedy
In this light, practical considerations help to explain why a simple, broad characterization of all § 1983 claims best fits the statute's remedial purpose. The experience of the courts that have predicated their choice of the correct statute of limitations on an analysis of the particular facts of each claim demonstrates that their approach inevitably breeds uncertainty and time-consuming litigation that is foreign to the central purposes of § 1983.
A catalog of other constitutional claims that have been alleged under § 1983 would encompass numerous and diverse topics and subtopics: discrimination in public employment on the basis of race or the exercise of First Amendment rights,
When § 1983 was enacted, it is unlikely that Congress actually foresaw the wide diversity of claims that the new remedy would ultimately embrace. The simplicity of the admonition in § 1988 is consistent with the assumption that Congress intended the identification of the appropriate statute of limitations to be an uncomplicated task for judges, lawyers, and litigants, rather than a source of uncertainty, and unproductive and ever-increasing litigation. Moreover, the legislative purpose to create an effective remedy for the enforcement of federal civil rights is obstructed by uncertainty in the applicable statute of limitations, for scarce resources must be dissipated by useless litigation on collateral matters.
Although the need for national uniformity "has not been held to warrant the displacement of state statutes of limitations for civil rights actions," Board of Regents v. Tomanio, 446 U. S., at 489, uniformity within each State is entirely consistent with the borrowing principle contained in § 1988.
IV
After exhaustively reviewing the different ways that § 1983 claims have been characterized in every Federal Circuit, the Court of Appeals concluded that the tort action for the recovery of damages for personal injuries is the best alternative available. 731 F. 2d, at 650-651. We agree that this choice is supported by the nature of the § 1983 remedy, and by the federal interest in ensuring that the borrowed period of limitations not discriminate against the federal civil rights remedy.
The specific historical catalyst for the Civil Rights Act of 1871 was the campaign of violence and deception in the South, fomented by the Ku Klux Klan, which was denying decent citizens their civil and political rights. See Briscoe v. LaHue, 460 U.S. 325, 336-340 (1983). The debates on the Act chronicle the alarming insecurity of life, liberty, and property in the Southern States, and the refuge that local authorities extended to the authors of these outrageous incidents:
The atrocities that concerned Congress in 1871 plainly sounded in tort. Relying on this premise we have found tort analogies compelling in establishing the elements of a cause of action under § 1983, Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S., at 187, and in identifying the immunities available to defendants, Briscoe v. LaHue, 460 U. S., at 330; City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247, 258 (1981); Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 553-557 (1967). As we have noted, however, the § 1983 remedy encompasses a broad range of potential tort analogies, from injuries to property to infringements of individual liberty.
Among the potential analogies, Congress unquestionably would have considered the remedies established in the Civil Rights Act to be more analogous to tort claims for personal injury than, for example, to claims for damages to property or breach of contract. The unifying theme of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 is reflected in the language of the Fourteenth Amendment
Had the 42d Congress expressly focused on the issue decided today, we believe it would have characterized § 1983 as conferring a general remedy for injuries to personal rights.
The relative scarcity of statutory claims when § 1983 was enacted makes it unlikely that Congress would have intended to apply the catchall periods of limitations for statutory claims that were later enacted by many States. Section 1983, of course, is a statute, but it only provides a remedy and does not itself create any substantive rights. Chapman v. Houston Welfare Rights Organization, 441 U.S. 600, 617-618 (1979). Although a few § 1983 claims are based on statutory rights, Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U.S. 1, 4-8 (1980), most involve much more. The rights enforceable under § 1983 include those guaranteed by the Federal Government in the Fourteenth Amendment: that every person within the United States is entitled to equal protection of the laws and to those "fundamental principles of liberty and justice" that are contained in the Bill of Rights and "lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions."
Finally, we are satisfied that Congress would not have characterized § 1983 as providing a cause of action analogous to state remedies for wrongs committed by public officials. It was the very ineffectiveness of state remedies that led Congress to enact the Civil Rights Acts in the first place.
V
In view of our holding that § 1983 claims are best characterized as personal injury actions, the Court of Appeals correctly applied the 3-year statute of limitations governing actions "for an injury to the person or reputation of any person." N. M. Stat. Ann. § 37-1-8 (1978). The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE POWELL took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
JUSTICE O'CONNOR, dissenting.
Citing "practical considerations," the Court today decides to jettison a rule of venerable application and adopt instead one "simple, broad characterization of all § 1983 claims." Ante, at 272. Characterization of § 1983 claims is, I agree, a matter of federal law. But I see no justification, given our longstanding interpretation of 42 U. S. C. § 1988 and Congress' awareness of it, for abandoning the rule that courts must identify and apply the statute of limitations of the state claim most closely analogous to the particular § 1983 claim. In declaring that all § 1983 claims, regardless of differences in their essential characteristics, shall be considered most closely analogous to one narrow class of tort, the Court, though purporting to conform to the letter of § 1988, abandons the policies § 1988 embodies. I respectfully dissent.
I
The rule that a federal court adjudicating rights under § 1983 will adopt the state statute of limitations of the most closely analogous state-law claim traces its lineage to M'Cluny v. Silliman, 3 Pet. 270 (1830), Campbell v. Haverhill, 155 U.S. 610 (1895), and O'Sullivan v. Felix, 233 U.S. 318 (1914). These opinions held that where "Congress . . . could have, by specific provision, prescribed a limitation, but no specific provision [was] adduced," O'Sullivan v. Felix,
This Court has consistently interpreted § 1988 as instructing that the rule applicable to the analogous state claim shall furnish the rule of decision "so far as the same is not inconsistent with the Constitution and the laws of the United States." Ibid. See, e. g., Board of Regents v. Tomanio, 446 U.S. 478 (1980); Robertson v. Wegmann, 436 U.S. 584 (1978); Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U.S. 454 (1975). Cf. Auto Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U.S. 696 (1966).
In Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, supra, the Court described the policies behind Congress' decision to borrow the most appropriate state limitations period:
Despite vocal criticism of the "confusion" created by individualized statutes of limitations, most Federal Courts of Appeals and state courts have continued the settled practice of seeking appropriate factual analogies for each genus of § 1983 claim. See, e. g., Gashgai v. Leibowitz, 703 F.2d 10 (CA1 1983); McClam v. Barry, 225 U. S. App. D. C. 124, 697 F.2d 366 (1983), overruled on other grounds, Brown v. United States, 239 U. S. App. D. C. 345, 742 F.2d 1498 (1984); Blake v. Katter, 693 F.2d 677 (CA7 1982); White v. United Parcel Service, 692 F.2d 1 (CA5 1982); Kilgore v. City of Mansfield, Ohio, 679 F.2d 632 (CA6 1982); Polite v. Diehl, 507 F.2d 119 (CA3 1974) (en banc); Miller v. City of Overland Park, 231 Kan. 557, 646 P.2d 1114 (1982); Sena School Bus Co. v. Santa Fe Board of Education, 677 P.2d 639 (N. M. App. 1984); Arquette v. Hancock, 656 S.W.2d 627 (Tex. App. 1983); Moore v. McComsey, 313 Pa.Super. 264,
II
The majority concedes that "[b]y adopting the statute governing an analogous cause of action under state law, federal law incorporates the State's judgment on the proper balance between the policies of repose and the substantive policies of enforcement embodied in the state cause of action." Ante, at 271. Yet the Court posits, without any serious attempt at explanation, that a § 1983 claim differs so fundamentally from a state-law cause of action that "any analogies to those causes of action are bound to be imperfect." Ante, at 272. The only fundamental differences the Court identifies — § 1983's "uniqueness," its "high purposes," its "supplementary" nature — in no way explain the determination that a single inflexible analogy should govern what the Court concedes is the "wide diversity" of claims the § 1983 remedy embraces. Ante, at 275.
Thus with hardly a backward look, the majority leaves behind a century of precedent. See, e. g., Campbell v. Haverhill, 155 U.S. 610 (1895). Inspired by "the federal interests in uniformity, certainty, and the minimization of unnecessary
The Court's all-purpose analogy is appealing; after all, every compensable injury, whether to constitutional or statutory rights, through violence, deception, or broken promises, to the person's pocketbook, person, or dignity, might plausibly be described as a "personal injury." But so sweeping an analogy is no analogy at all. In all candor, the Court has perceived a need for uniformity and has simply seized the opportunity to legislate it. The Court takes this step even though a number of bills proposed to recent Congresses to standardize § 1983 limitations periods have failed of enactment, see, e. g., S. 436, 99th Cong., 1st Sess. (1985); S. 1983, 96th Cong., 1st Sess. (1979); H. R. 12874, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. (1976), a fact that the Court would normally interpret as a persuasive indication that Congress does not agree that concerns for uniformity dictate a unitary rule. See Ford Motor Credit Co. v. Milhollin, 444 U.S. 555, 565 (1980) ("[C]aution must temper judicial creativity in the face of . . . legislative silence"); Robertson v. Wegmann, 436 U. S., at 593, and n. 11; Auto Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U. S., at 704.
As well as co-opting federal legislation, the Court's decision effectively forecloses legislative creativity on the part of the States. Were a State now to formulate a detailed statutory scheme setting individualized limitations periods for various § 1983 claims, drawing upon policies regarding the timeliness of suits for assault, libel, written contract, employment disputes,
In exchange for the accrued, collective wisdom of many legislatures, Bell v. Morrison, 1 Pet., at 360, the Court gains only a half measure of uniformity. The Court has heretofore wisely disavowed uniformity as a value not warranting "displacement of state statutes of limitations for civil rights actions." See Board of Regents v. Tomanio, 446 U. S., at 489; Robertson v. Wegmann, supra, at 584-585, and n. 11. True, the Court's decision means that all § 1983 claims in a given State must be brought within a single set period. Yet even the promise of uniformity within each State is illusory. In achieving statewide symmetry among civil rights claims the Court creates fresh problems of asymmetry that are of far greater moment to the local practitioner. Any lawyer knows that § 1983 claims do not occur in splendid isolation; they are usually joined with claims under state tort or contract law arising out of the same facts. In the end, today's decision saves neither judges nor local practitioners any headaches, since for 150 years characterization of the state law claims with reference to the relevant facts has been a routine prerequisite to establishing the applicable statute of limitations. As one state high court noted:
Accord, Campbell v. Haverhill, 155 U. S., at 616. Such will be the inevitable result of the Court's decision. For example, under the newly revised Pennsylvania statutory scheme at issue in today's companion case, Springfield Township School District v. Knoll, post, p. 288, a state law claim for libel or slander will be stale in one year, 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5523(1)(1982), but a § 1983 claim based on the same facts can still be filed after two years, § 5524(2). More puzzling still, a § 1983 claim for violation of constitutional rights arising out of a breach of contract will be foreclosed in two years but its state law counterpart based on the identical breach will remain fresh and litigable at six years. § 5527(2). This sort of half-baked uniformity is a poor substitute for the careful selection of the appropriate state law analogy.
Today's decision does not so much resolve confusion as banish it to the lower courts. The Court's new analogy lacks any magical power to conjure uniformity where diversity is the natural order. In fact, the rule the Court adopts failed in application literally before the ink of the Tenth Circuit's decision was dry. The decision of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in this case, affirmed today, was only one of four handed down on the same day in a valiant attempt to fix limitations periods for the entire Tenth Circuit. Kansas law conveniently supplied a 2-year statute for "injury to the rights of another," see Hamilton v. City of Overland Park, 730 F.2d 613 (1984); but Utah law contained no such provision, see Mismash v. Murray City, 730 F.2d 1366 (1984) (selecting Utah's 4-year residuary statute, absent any statute for personal injury). Colorado law defied the newly minted rule by supplying not one but two periods that govern various injuries to personal rights. McKay v. Hammock, 730 F.2d 1367 (1984). The Tenth Circuit resolved its dilemma by
As Professor Mishkin remarked regarding federal choice-of-law rules, often "the call for `uniformity' " is not so much grounded in any practical necessity as in a "desire for symmetry of abstract legal principles and a revolt against the complexities of a federated system." Mishkin, The Variousness of "Federal Law": Competence and Discretion in the Choice of National and State Rules for Decision, 105 U. Pa. L. Rev. 797, 813 (1957). See also Hart, The Relations Between State and Federal Law, 54 Colum. L. Rev. 489, 539-540 (1954) (we must have "the wit not to be deluded by little-minded assumptions about the value of uniformity and symmetrical organization charts," id., at 542). Though the task of characterization is admittedly not "uncomplicated," ante, at 275, it is nevertheless a routine feature of state procedural law, a task that is handled daily by the same judges, lawyers, and litigants as rely on § 1983, often in the same actions. It was Congress' choice in 1866, when it incorporated by reference "the common law, as modified . . . by . . . the statutes of the [forum] State," to forgo legislating a simplistic rule and to entrust judges with the task of integrating a federal remedy into a federal system.
Therefore, I would reverse the Court of Appeals' scholarly but ultimately flawed attempt to impose a single state limitations period for all § 1983 claims. Because I would apply the statute of limitations New Mexico applies to state claims directly analogous to the operative facts of this case, I respectfully dissent.
FootNotes
"Actions against a governmental entity or a public employee for torts shall be forever barred, unless such action is commenced within two years after the date of occurrence resulting in loss, injury or death . . . ." N. M. Stat. Ann. § 41-4-15(A) (1978).
"When a district judge, in making in a civil action an order not otherwise appealable under this section, shall be of the opinion that such order involves a controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion and that an immediate appeal from the order may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation, he shall so state in writing in such order. The Court of Appeals may thereupon, in its discretion, permit an appeal to be taken from such order, if application is made to it within ten days after the entry of the order . . . ."
"The jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters conferred on the district courts by the provisions of this Title, and of Title `CIVIL RIGHTS,' and of Title `CRIMES,' for the protection of all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and for their vindication, shall be exercised and enforced in conformity with the laws of the United States, so far as such laws are suitable to carry the same into effect; but in all cases where they are not adapted to the object, or are deficient in the provisions necessary to furnish suitable remedies and punish offenses against law, the common law, as modified and changed by the constitution and statutes of the State wherein the court having jurisdiction of such civil or criminal cause is held, so far as the same is not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States, shall be extended to and govern the said courts in the trial and disposition of the cause . . . ."
"In the First Amendment area, § 1983 was relied on for a challenge to state laws that required loyalty oaths, or prevented the wearing of armbands in protest of our policy in Vietnam. It was also used to restrain prosecutions under Louisiana's Subversive Activities and Communist Control Law. It was utilized by the NAACP to establish that organization's authority to advise Negroes of their legal rights. It was used to challenge bans on lawyer advertising and spending limitations on the public education activities of charities. . . . The case establishing that a welfare recipient has a right to notice and a hearing before his benefits are terminated was a § 1983 case. Along the same line, § 1983 cases have confirmed the due process rights of recipients of utility service [and] of employees entitled under state law to seek redress for unlawful discharge . . . . Section 1983 has been used to challenge mandatory maternity leave policies and state restrictions on social security benefits. The list includes challenges to state restrictions on the right to vote, from poll taxes and white primaries to unequal apportionment schemes. It includes a challenge to unequal age limitations for males and females on the sale of beer, and on limitations on the right to marry the person of one's choice. And it includes successful efforts by mental patients and by prisoners to achieve First Amendment freedoms . . . and due process rights while within institutional walls." Blackmun, Section 1983 and Federal Protection of Individual Rights — Will the Statute Remain Alive or Fade Away?, Madison Lecture delivered at New York University School of Law, Nov. 14, 1984 (to be published in 60 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 1, 19-20 (1985) (footnotes omitted)).
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