Statue of Limitations – Constitutional Violation

Listen to this article

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Amin Ijbara Equity Corp. et al., v. Village of Oak Lawn et al.

Case No.: 15-2655

Officials: POSNER and SYKES, Circuit Judges, and YANDLE, District Judge.

Focus: Statue of Limitations – Constitutional Violation

Amin Ijbara owned a strip mall in the Village of Oak Lawn, Illinois, but defaulted on his mortgage payments, precipitating a foreclosure. He blames this misfortune on Oak Lawn officials, accusing them of waging a campaign of regulatory harassment that included frivolous inspections and citations for nonexistent or trumped-up building-code violations, which cost him money and scared off prospective tenants. He filed this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that this abuse of power violated his right to equal protection of the law.

The district judge dismissed the suit as time-barred. She held that Ijbara’s claim accrued when the foreclosure action was filed, or at the very latest, when the judge presiding in that action appointed a receiver to take control of the mall. Ijbara’s suit, filed almost three years later, missed the two- year limitations deadline. Ijbara resists this conclusion, arguing that his claim did not accrue until the state court entered final judgment in the foreclosure action. If he’s right, the suit was timely and dismissal was improper. He is not right. Ijbara confuses the eventual consequences of a constitutional violation with the constitutional injury that starts the limitations clock. Ijbara was well aware of his injury and its cause long before the entry of final judgment in the foreclosure proceeding. We affirm.

Affirmed

Full Text

Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.