Clark v. Hanley

89 F.4th 78

Veronica-May CLARK, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Thomas HANLEY, Kevin Manley, Peter Murphy, Kimberly Weir,Roberto Quiros, and Jane and John Does 1-9, Defendants-Appellees.^*

No. 22-302

August Term 2022

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit

Argued: June 7, 2023

Amended: December 27, 2023

Decided: December 20, 2023

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Meyer, J.)

For Plaintiff-Appellant: Alexandra Bursak (Andrew D. Silverman, Jennifer M. Keighley, on the brief), Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, New York, NY.

(Sasha Buchert and Richard Saenz, Lambda Legal, Washington D.C. and New York, NY, for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., The Amicus Project at UConn Law, Just Detention International, and Center for Constitutional Rights, as amici curiae)

(Richard Luedeman, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, UConn School of Law, Hartford, CT, for Amicus Project at UConn Law, as amicus curiae)

For Defendants-Appellees: Stuart M. Katz (Wilson T. Carroll, on the brief), Cohen and Wolf, P.C., Bridgeport, CT, on behalf of Defendant-Appellee Thomas Hanley.

Zenobia G. Graham-Days, Assistant Attorney General, for William Tong, Attorney General, Connecticut Office of the Attorney General, Hartford, CT, on behalf of Defendants-Appellees Kevin Manley, Peter Murphy, Kimberly Weir, Roberto Quiros, Jane and John Does 1-9.

Before: Livingston, Chief Judge, Chin and Kahn, Circuit Judges.

Judge Chin dissents in a separate opinion.

Debra Ann Livingston, Chief Judge:

During the summer of 2011, Plaintiff-Appellant Veronica-May Clark ("Clark"), an incarcerated transgender woman serving a 75-year term of imprisonment for murder, assault, and burglary, was repeatedly sexually assaulted by Defendant-Appellee Thomas Hanley ("Hanley"), a corrections officer at the Connecticut prison facility where Clark was then housed.¹ Clark initiated the present action in the fall of 2018—more than seven years after Hanley's abuse—asserting federal civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violation of her Eighth Amendment rights, along with tort claims under Connecticut law. Conceding that she filed this action more than four years beyond the applicable statute of limitations, Clark asserts that the trauma she suffered in 2011 and her fear of retaliation from corrections staff, aggravated by her then-undisclosed gender dysphoria, constitute extraordinary circumstances that prevented her from taking timely steps to file this action against Hanley and other allegedly acquiescent corrections officers (together, the "Defendants"). Clark seeks equitable tolling of the statute of limitations.

Based primarily on its assessment of Clark's testimony at an evidentiary hearing, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Meyer, J.) denied Clark's equitable tolling claim and dismissed her suit as untimely.² The court concluded that portions of Clark's testimony, which focused on the circumstances that allegedly hampered her from timely filing, were not credible, and that Clark's asserted bases for equitable tolling were, in large part, a post hoc rationalization to buttress her equitable tolling claim.³

On appeal, Clark contends that the district court engaged in impermissible factfinding at the pleading stage and resolved contested issues of fact bearing on the merits of her legal claims in violation of the Seventh Amendment. Clark further argues that the record adduced at the evidentiary hearing entitles her to equitable tolling as a matter of law. These arguments lack merit.

As set forth below, we have repeatedly approved—sometimes even required—evidentiary hearings to resolve equitable tolling claims. Relatedly, equitable tolling is an issue that is generally appropriate for a court, rather than a jury, to resolve, so long as the court's factual findings do not deprive plaintiffs of their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial on any legal claims.

Here, the district court did not err by holding an evidentiary hearing and gauging the credibility of Clark's testimony in concluding that she was not entitled to equitable tolling. And because the court's factual findings relate squarely to her equitable tolling claim, without intruding upon the merits of her legal claims, the court did not flout Clark's Seventh Amendment rights. Nor was it an abuse of discretion for the district court to hold on the record before it that Clark failed to carry her burden to show circumstances that warrant equitable tolling. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's judgment of dismissal.

BACKGROUND

I. Factual Background⁴

A. Hanley's Sexual Assault of Clark

In November 2007, Clark was incarcerated at the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution ("MacDougall-Walker") in Suffield, Connecticut, where she was serving a 75-year term of imprisonment based on her conviction earlier that year, pursuant to a guilty plea, on charges of murder, assault, and burglary. Based on her prior experience as an electrician, the facility assigned Clark to assist with various electrical projects in the facility's general maintenance department, placing her under the supervision of Hanley, MacDougall-Walker's General Maintenance Officer.

As set forth in the Second Amended Complaint, Hanley was running a smuggling ring at MacDougall-Walker at the time, supplying inmates with contraband, such as illegal narcotics and alcohol, in exchange for payment. Tipped off to Hanley's illicit scheme, the Connecticut Department of Correction ("DOC") initiated a formal investigation into Hanley in 2010 that uncovered not only his smuggling activities, but also his pattern of propositioning inmates with sexual behavior. Clark alleges that several high-ranking officials at MacDougall-Walker—including Defendants-Appellees Warden Peter Murphy, Director of Security Kimberly Weir, and Intelligence and Security Unit Captains Kevin Manley ("Manley"), and Roberto Quiros (collectively, the "MacDougall-Walker Defendants")—knew of Hanley's abusive tendencies yet did nothing to address them. Clark further contends that MacDougall-Walker maintained policies that facilitated her abuse by allowing Hanley and other staff to isolate inmates from the general prison population free from oversight and outside the purview of any video surveillance or inmate tracking systems.

On at least five occasions spanning the spring and summer of 2011, Hanley sexually assaulted Clark, leveraging his authority to coerce her into performing sexual acts. Hanley's initial physical encounter with Clark occurred in April 2011 and escalated over the ensuing days and weeks to include oral sex on one occasion and mutual masturbation on four occasions. Typically, Hanley would isolate Clark from other inmates under the pretext of needing assistance on a maintenance project. According to Clark, none of the incidents involved the use of physical force or threats of force: "Hanley did not threaten me to perform any sexual acts but said he would take [care] of me by feeding me well. I kind of felt obligated into engaging in the sexual acts with Hanley." App'x 139. The assaults occurred outside the view of security cameras.

Apprised of his conduct, the DOC placed Hanley on leave in August 2011, and he resigned shortly thereafter. Hanley was arrested in connection with his assaults on Clark in December 2011 and eventually pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual assault in the fourth degree.

B. The Aftermath of the Assaults

The Second Amended Complaint sets forth Clark's claims regarding the aftermath of the assaults in fourteen paragraphs. Clark alleges that the string of sexual assaults "deeply and profoundly scarred" her, making it "difficult for her to carry out ordinary functions, let alone process her assaults and attempt to secure justice while incarcerated." App'x 123. She was initially reluctant to participate in the DOC's investigation of Hanley but in August 2011 provided Connecticut state police with a statement detailing Hanley's sexual assaults.⁵ Clark requested transfer to another facility.

The DOC first transferred Clark from MacDougall-Walker to Corrigan Correctional Center ("Corrigan") around September 2011. Clark alleges that she suffered physical and mental abuse at the hands of a cellmate at Corrigan, causing her to initiate a hunger strike to bring about transfer to another facility. The DOC transferred Clark in early 2012, but back to MacDougall-Walker, further stoking her trauma. Clark alleges that on her return to MacDougall-Walker, corrections officers taunted her for being the victim of Hanley's sex crimes and told her she was "gross," "nasty," and "disgusting." Clark again went on hunger strike and told one of her physicians that she would kill herself if she were not transferred out of MacDougall-Walker. She was then transferred to the Garner Correctional Facility ("Garner"), an inpatient psychiatric facility, where she "was placed on suicide watch and carefully evaluated." App'x 124. About two weeks later, still in early 2012, she was discharged from the inpatient facility and transferred to the Cheshire Correctional Institution ("Cheshire"), where she remained for the next four and a half years, until mid-2016.

The Second Amended Complaint alleges, without specification as to the dates or frequency of such events, that Clark encountered corrections officers at Cheshire who were at MacDougall-Walker around the time of the assaults in 2011, and that inmates at Cheshire openly mocked and diminished the abuse she suffered at the hands of Hanley as "gay stuff." App'x 124. Clark also alleges that Cheshire officials repeatedly denied her treatment for gender dysphoria, resulting in a crisis in July 2016 when she attempted to castrate herself with a pair of nail clippers.⁶ Clark alleges that she received outpatient treatment at a medical facility in the aftermath of this incident and was then sent briefly to the infirmary at MacDougall-Walker, where she was...