Rashoun SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF AKRON; Akron Police Department; Michael Matulavich, Former Police Chief; John Ross; Michael Miles, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 10-4418.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
April 6, 2012.
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No. 10-4418.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
April 6, 2012.
SUTTON, Circuit Judge.
Rashoun Smith filed several federal and state law claims against the City of Akron, its police department and several officers, stemming from allegations of excessive force during an arrest. The district court rejected the claims as a matter of law. We affirm.
I.
On August 27, 2007, officers John Ross and Michael Miles, while on patrol in the City of Akron, began following Smith, who was driving a stolen vehicle. Noticing the police car behind him, Smith stopped his car, exited and began talking with the officers. He told them the car belonged to a friend, whom he refused to name. The officers arrested Smith. Smith says he was cooperative during the arrest; the officers say he resisted. Either way, both sides agree that Ross and Miles wrestled Smith to the ground, punched and kneed him in his back, sprayed him with chemical spray and tased him before placing him in the police cruiser.
Two years later, Smith filed a complaint in state court, claiming violations of the federal constitution and state tort law by “John and Jane Doe Nos. 1-10,” the City of Akron, and the Akron Police Department. The city removed the case to federal court, after which Smith amended his complaint to add Ross and Miles as defendants in place of “John Doe” numbers one and two.
Ross and Miles moved to dismiss the claims against them because Smith added them after the two-year statute of limitations had expired. The district court granted the motion, reasoning that Smith‘s amendment did not “relate back” to his original complaint. See
II.
The dismissal of the claims against Ross and Miles. Smith acknowl
Smith says he meets these requirements because Ross and Miles knew about the complaint soon after he filed it and should have known that Smith intended to sue them as the “John and Jane Doe” arresting officers named in the complaint. That may be true. But it overlooks another prerequisite of
Smith adds that a recent Supreme Court decision requires us to alter our interpretation of
Krupski‘s problem is not Smith‘s problem. Smith did not make a mistake about which defendant to sue; he simply did not know whom to sue or opted not to find out within the limitations period. Cox, 75 F.3d at 240; Moore, 267 Fed.Appx. at 454-56. Because he waited until the last day of the two-year limitations period to file his complaint, that left no time to discover the identity of his arresting officers within the relevant time. Even after Krupski,
Smith separately argues that because he filed his original complaint in Ohio and because Ohio has more permissible John Doe pleading standards, he should be permitted to correct the complaint after the end of the two-year limitations period. Even if we were willing to accept this doubtful theory, it offers no aid to Smith. As it turns out, he did not satisfy Ohio‘s John Doe pleading standards either. Compare Erwin v. Bryan, 125 Ohio St.3d 519, 929 N.E.2d 1019, 1026 (2010) (plaintiff must state that the defendant‘s name could not be discovered, sufficiently identify the defendant to facilitate obtaining service and personally serve the summons on the defendant), with R.1 (Smith‘s original complaint).
Municipal liability—
These allegations do not do the trick. That Ross or Miles failed to follow the city‘s manual does not show a failure to train because an individual “officer‘s shortcomings may have resulted from factors other than a faulty training program.” City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 390-91, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989). The complaints against Ross and Miles also speak to shortcomings of the officers, not to shortcomings in the training they received. The complaints, at any rate, concern unrelated allegations of misconduct or occurred after this incident. Id. at 391, 109 S.Ct. 1197; Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. —, 131 S.Ct. 1350, 1360, 179 L.Ed.2d 417 (2011) (no pattern where previous violations involved different types of violations). Any mistakes Miles may have made on his first day on the job speak more directly to inexperience than to inadequate training. At most, Smith‘s evidence supports the inference that Ross and Miles may have acted inappropriately, but not that the city trained them to act inappropriately or customarily allowed them to do so. The
Municipal liability—state tort claims. Smith filed several state common law tort claims against the city defendants, including negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The district court dismissed the claims because Ohio law provides immunity to municipalities from civil actions for injuries “caused by any act or omission of ... an employee of the political subdivision in connection with a governmental ... function.”
III.
For these reasons, we affirm.