In a victory for plaintiffs across the country--and the Center for Constitutional Litigation, PC (CCL)--on April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed a South Carolina Supreme Court decision that threw plaintiffs out of state court for having filed first in federal court. Jinks v. Richland County, 538 U.S. ___, 2003 WL 1906299 (April 22, 2003).

Jinks Reply Brief | Jinks Merit Brief

The South Carolina decision declared a federal law, 28 U.S.C. § 1367(d), unconstitutional on federalism grounds because it tolled the state statute of limitations while a cause of action is pending in federal court and for 30 days after it is dismissed. The plaintiff hired the Center for Constitutional Litigation to seek U.S. Supreme Court review, which granted the petition for certiorari last fall on the question of whether the tolling provision invades state sovereignty in violation of the Tenth Amendment and the Necessary and Proper Clause.

In briefs filed earlier this year and at oral argument March 5, Center President Robert S. Peck, representing Petitioner Susan Jinks, asserted that the Constitution granted Congress jurisdiction-setting authority, which also included establishing a tolling provision, that difficulties faced by federal courts made it necessary to establish a single, uniform approach, and that invalidating the tolling provision would throw other federal tolling provisions, such as found in the Soldier and Sailors’ Relief Act and the Bankruptcy Act, into doubt.

Jinks Reply Brief | Jinks Merit Brief

The United States intervened in the case, in support of Jinks. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights also filed an amicus brief in support of Jinks.

Respondent Richland County and its amici--including the Attorneys General of 18 states and several state and local government associations--argued that § 1367(d) was facially invalid because it exceeds the enumerated powers of Congress and that it is not a "proper" exercise of Congress's Article I powers because it violates principles of state sovereignty. Respondent also maintained § 1367(d) should not be interpreted to apply to claims brought against a State's political subdivisions.

In an opinion authored by Justice Scalia and joined by all the Justices, the Court agreed with the Petitioner that § 1367(d) is necessary and proper for executing Congress's power "[t]o constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court," Art. I, §8, cl. 9, and assuring that those tribunals may fairly and efficiently exercise "the judicial power of the United States," Art. III, §1. The Court held § 1367(d) is "necessary" in that it is "conducive to the administration of justice because it provides an alternative to the unsatisfactory options that federal judges face when they decide[] whether to retain jurisdiction over supplemental state-law claims that might be time barred in state court." Jinks, slip op. at 6. Likewise, "[i]t eliminates a serious impediment to access to the federal courts on the part of plaintiffs pursuing federal- and state-law claims that 'derive from a common nucleus of operative fact[s].'" Id. at 7 (internal citations omitted).

The Court also held: "for purposes of determining whether an Act of Congress is "proper," between federal laws that regulate state-court "procedure" and laws that change the "substance" of state-law rights of action, we do not think that state-law limitations periods fall into the category of "procedure" immune from congressional regulation." Id. at 8. Finally the Court upheld its previous holding that municipalities are subject to suit as "persons" under § 1983, and, therefore, "unlike States, do not enjoy a constitutionally protected immunity from suit." Id. at 9.

The case marked the first Supreme Court argument for the Center, which has successfully opposed certiorari in other cases and represented AAJ as amicus curiae before the Court. AAJ member Brad Simpson of Suggs Kelly & Middleton in Columbia, South Carolina handled the case in the lower courts and co-counseled with Peck before the Supreme Court.