by David Kim

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that all 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims arising in West Virginia are subject to a two-year statute of limitations under West Virginia Code § 55-2-12(b), resolving inconsistent applications by U.S. District Courts in that state. The Court emphasized that binding U.S. Supreme Court precedent requires federal courts to apply a forum state’s general or residual personal injury limitations period to § 1983 actions rather than any tort-specific statute, even where state law would apply a shorter period to analogous state-law claims. The Court reversed the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia’s dismissal of the Appellant’s malicious prosecution claim as untimely but affirmed dismissal of her claim against the municipal defendant for failure to allege any policy or custom as required by Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978).

Background

In December 2021, Wheeling Police Department officers investigated a battery complaint and obtained an arrest warrant for a person named Ashley Cooper. Nearly one year later, on November 13, 2022, officers from the City of McMechen arrested Ashley Anna Cooper pursuant to that warrant while responding to an unrelated incident at her residence. On January 23, 2023, the Assistant Prosecuting Attorney dismissed the charge after determining that the actual perpetrator was a different individual, Ashley Marie Cooper.

On December 16, 2024, Appellant filed a § 1983 complaint against the City of Wheeling and the officers involved in obtaining the warrant, alleging they arrested her without probable cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The defendants moved to dismiss, and notably, they conceded that a two-year limitations period applied to malicious prosecution claims.

The District Court nevertheless applied the one-year statute of limitations found in West Virginia Code § 55-2-12(c) and dismissed Appellant’s claim as untimely because she filed suit 23 months after her claim accrued.

Analysis

The Court observed that § 1983 contains no statute of limitations, requiring federal courts to borrow from state law. Historically, courts applied the limitations period “most analogous” to the particular § 1983 claim, but this approach generated confusion. In Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261 (1985), the Supreme Court instructed that “§ 1983 claims are best characterized as personal injury actions,” mandating application of a state’s personal injury limitations period to all such claims.

The Court stated that when states have multiple personal injury statutes with different limitations periods, courts must apply the general or residual statute. The Court noted that the Supreme Court clarified in Owens v. Okure, 488 U.S. 235 (1989), that “where state law provides multiple statutes of limitations for personal injury actions, courts considering § 1983 claims should borrow the general or residual statute for personal injury actions.” West Virginia Code § 55-2-12 contains three subsections, with subsection (b) providing a two-year period for “damages for personal injuries” and subsection (c) providing a one-year period for actions that could not survive a party’s death at common law.

Both the Fourth Circuit and the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia have previously recognized that the two-year period in subsection (b) governs § 1983 claims. The Court cited Smith v. Travelpiece, 31 F.4th 878 (4th Cir. 2022), which stated that “West Virginia’s two-year statute of limitations for personal injury actions applies” to § 1983 claims, as well as Patton v. County of Berkeley, 242 W. Va. 315 (2019), in which the state’s high court similarly held that § 1983 claims “are personal injury actions governed by the state’s two-year statute of limitations.”

Resolving the District Court Split

Despite this guidance, the Court acknowledged that U.S. District Courts in West Virginia have applied inconsistent limitations periods. Some courts have correctly applied the two-year period, while others have relied on the one-year period in subsection (c) based on state-law precedents applying that shorter period to state malicious prosecution claims.

The Court rejected this approach as irreconcilable with binding authority. It reasoned that although matching § 1983 claims to their closest state-law analogs might seem “intuitively appealing,” this methodology “cannot be squared with binding precedent that has explicitly held that the ‘most analogous cause of action’ for § 1983 claims are general personal injury actions, not state tort-specific causes of action.”

The defendants argued that subsection (c)’s one-year period should apply because West Virginia malicious prosecution claims do not survive a party’s death. The Court found this reliance on Wilt v. State Automobile Mutual Insurance Co., 203 W. Va. 165 (1998), misplaced because Wilt addressed state-law claims under the West Virginia Unfair Trade Practices Act rather than federal § 1983 claims. The Court explained that “applying different statutes of limitations for different § 1983 claims filed in the same forum state, depending on their survivability or underlying tort, would defy the Supreme Court’s holding that we are to treat all § 1983 claims the same and uniformly apply the residual or general personal injury statute to each claim.”

The Court declared: “we make clear today – to the extent it was not already clear – that the applicable statute of limitations period for § 1983 claims arising in West Virginia is two years pursuant to Section 55-2-12(b), regardless of the survivability of a claim in state law.”

The Court also addressed accrual. A § 1983 malicious-prosecution claim accrues “once the underlying criminal proceedings have resolved in the plaintiff’s favor,” and a prosecutor’s voluntary dismissal qualifies as a favorable termination. McDonough v. Smith, 588 U.S. 109 (2019); Thompson v. Clark, 596 U.S. 36 (2022); Owens v. Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office, 767 F.3d 379 (4th Cir. 2014). Applying that rule, the Court held Appellant’s claim accrued on January 23, 2023, when the prosecutor dismissed the charge, and that her December 16, 2024, complaint was therefore timely under the two-year period in W. Va. Code § 55-2-12(b).

Municipal Liability

The Court affirmed dismissal of Appellant’s claim against the City of Wheeling for failure to state a claim. Under Monell, a plaintiff seeking to hold a municipality liable for a constitutional violation must establish “the existence of an official policy or custom that is fairly attributable to the municipality and that proximately caused the deprivation of their rights.” Howard v. City of Durham, 68 F.4th 934 (4th Cir. 2023). The Court determined that Appellant’s complaint contained no allegation against the City approximating any municipal policy or custom, referencing the City only in the “Parties” section.

Conclusion

Thus, the Court held Appellant’s malicious prosecution claim was timely because she filed suit within two years of her claim’s accrual.

Accordingly, the Court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. See: Cooper v. City of Wheeling, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 6216 (2026). 

Subscribe today

Already a subscriber? Login