PI limitations period applies to Title IX claims

In agreement with sister circuits, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has applied the statute of limitations from South Carolina’s personal injury cause of action to analyze whether an appellant’s Title IX claims were timely filed.

Persuaded by the Beaufort County School District’s insistence that it should take a case by case approach and apply the two-year statute of limitations from the South Carolina Tort Claims Act, or SCTCA, the district court dismissed the claim as untimely.

But U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanie D. Thacker found that “rather than taking a case by case approach, ‘every circuit to consider [this] issue has held that Title IX . . . borrows the relevant state’s statute of limitations for personal injury.’”

“Instead, in order to promote the ‘federal interests in uniformity, certainty, and the minimization of unnecessary litigation,’ we conclude that courts considering Title IX claims should borrow the statute of limitations applicable to general personal injury claims,” she said.

Joined by Chief Judge Albert Diaz and Judge James Andrew Wynn, Thacker vacated and remanded E.R. v. Beaufort County School District (VLW 025-2-211).

Attorneys for the parties did not respond to requests for comment.

Dismissed claims

The student, known as E.R., asserted claims against the school district under Title IX, as well as state law for negligence and gross negligence. E.R. also alleged that the school failed to appropriately respond to their reports of sexual abuse and harassment.

The school district moved to dismiss the claims as untimely pursuant to the South Carolina Tort Claims Act, or SCTCA, which provides that a claim must be filed two years after the claimant turns 18.

E.R. conceded that the SCTCA applied to their state law claims but maintained that South Carolina’s general personal injury and sexual abuse actions were the most analogous statutes to be borrowed for their three-year limitations period.

The district court determined that the SCTCA provided the appropriate statute of limitations and dismissed E.R.’s Title IX claim because it was filed more than two years after they turned 18.

E.R. appealed.

‘Not that complicated’

Whereas Title IX does not contain a statute of limitations, Thacker said that “courts borrow the statute of limitations from the most analogous state-law cause of action.”

In Burnett v. Grattan, the U.S. Supreme Court explained that “[a]n appropriate limitations period must be responsive to the[] characteristics of litigation under the federal statutes. A state law is not ‘appropriate’ if it fails to take into account practicalities that are involved in litigating federal civil rights claims and policies that are analogous to the goals of the Civil Rights Act.”

“And, importantly, ‘courts are to apply state law only if it is not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States,’” Thacker pointed out.

In this case, the district court here determined that the most analogous cause of action to E.R.’s Title IX claim was the South Carolina tort of negligent supervision, while the SCTCA’s two-year statute of limitations applied to the tort claim against the school.

Looking to Wilson v. Garcia, the panel disagreed that “such an expansive case by case analysis” was warranted by case law. “The analysis is not that complicated,” Thacker noted.

“Because § 1983 created a ‘uniquely federal remedy’ that could ‘have no precise counterpart in state law,’ the [Wilson] Court determined that ‘§ 1983 claims are best characterized as personal injury actions,’” the judge wrote.

No state counterpart

The Wilson opinion was “instructive here because Title IX has the same borrowing provision and serves federal interests similar to § 1983,” Thacker said, adding that “‘[t]he federal interests in uniformity, certainty, and the minimization of unnecessary litigation all support’ the use of a single statute of limitations within each state for Title IX claims.”

“As we have previously recognized, rather than taking a case by case approach, ‘every circuit to consider [this] issue has held that Title IX . . . borrows the relevant state’s statute of limitations for personal injury,’” she pointed out.

Rather than taking a case by case approach, the 4th Circuit recognized in 2024’s Reid v. James Madison Univ. that “every circuit to consider [this] issue has held that Title IX . . . borrows the relevant state’s statute of limitations for personal injury.”

“We agree with our sister circuits and hold that Title IX claims in this circuit borrow the statute of limitations from a state’s personal injury cause of action,” Thacker said.

The school relied on cases in the context of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 for the proposition that the 4th Circuit had established a different rule and taken a case by case approach.

But the panel said those cases were inapposite here because “we have made clear that ‘an exact state law counterpart’ exists when the state statute ‘was enacted with the same legislative purpose[,] … reflect[s] that purpose by tracking the language of the [federal statute,] and provid[es] for similar protections.’”

“That is, while the state law counterpart need not ‘be identical,’ it must provide ‘substantially the same rights and remedies’ as the federal statute in order to supply the relevant statute of limitations,” Thacker said.

And where there is no exact state counterpart, the panel said a state’s general personal injury or general civil action statute of limitations applies. Neither the parties nor the court could identify an exact South Carolina counterpart to Title IX.

“Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine a state law counterpart to Title IX, given that Title IX is ‘a specific federal statute designed primarily to prevent recipients of federal financial assistance from using the funds in a discriminatory manner,’” Thacker opined.

Thus, the 4th Circuit looked to South Carolina’s personal injury statute of limitations, which provided two variations: a two-year limitations period under the SCTCA and a three-year limitations period under the general personal injury statute.

Preferred statutes

The school preferred the SCTCA statute of limitations, while E.R. preferred the general personal injury statute and the cause of action for personal injury arising out of an act of sexual abuse.

“After Wilson, the Court recognized that it had ‘not completely eliminated the confusion over the appropriate limitations period for § 1983 claims’ because some states have ‘multiple statutes of limitations for personal injury actions,’” Thacker said, citing Owens v. Okure.

According to the Owens court, “where state provides multiple statutes of limitations for personal injury actions, courts considering § 1983 claims should borrow the general or residual statute for personal injury actions.”

The panel saw “no principled reason why the same rule should not apply here.”

“Instead, in order to promote the ‘federal interests in uniformity, certainty, and the minimization of unnecessary litigation,’ we conclude that courts considering Title IX claims should borrow the statute of limitations applicable to general personal injury claims,” Thacker said.

And because neither party disputed that E.R.’s claim was timely pursuant to South Carolina’s three-year statute of limitations for general personal injury claims, the panel vacated the district court’s dismissal and remanded the case for further proceedings.