United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ____________ United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit

No. 22-30691 FILED February 19, 2024 ____________ Lyle W. Cayce Jarius Brown, Clerk

Plaintiff—Appellant,

versus Javarrea Pouncy; John Doe #1; John Doe #2,

Defendants—Appellees. ______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana USDC No. 5:21-CV-3415 ______________________________ Before Graves, Higginson, and Ho, Circuit Judges. Stephen A. Higginson, Circuit Judge: Congress did not provide a statute of limitations for claims brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The Supreme Court held in Owens v. Okure that a forum state’s general or residual statute of limitations for personal injury claims applies to Section 1983 claims. 488 U.S. 235, 249–50 (1989). In Louisiana, that period is one year. La. Civ. Code art. 3492. 1 Appellant Jarius Brown argues that this one-year period should not apply to police _____________________ 1 And, in Louisiana, the state legislature sets “prescriptive periods” rather than “statutes of limitations.” Case: 22-30691 Document: 119-1 Page: 2 Date Filed: 02/19/2024

No. 22-30691

brutality claims brought under Section 1983 and seeks reversal of the district court’s dismissal of his claims as untimely. He contends that the one-year period both impermissibly discriminates against Section 1983 police brutality claims and practically frustrates litigants’ ability to bring such claims. Our review is de novo. See United States v. Irby, 703 F.3d 280, 282–83 (5th Cir. 2012). We conclude that precedent requires us to AFFIRM. I. Brown alleges that officers from the DeSoto Parish Sheriff’s Office attacked him without provocation, leaving him to languish in a jail cell with a broken nose and eye socket. Nearly two years later, Brown sued appellee Javarrea Pouncy and two unidentified officers in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, seeking relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for unreasonable force applied in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and under Louisiana state law for battery, La. Civ. Code art. 3493.1. Pouncy moved to dismiss the Section 1983 claim as prescribed (time-barred) under Louisiana’s one-year, residual prescriptive period for personal injury claims. The district court dismissed with prejudice the Section 1983 claim and dismissed without prejudice the state law claim over which it had exercised supplemental jurisdiction. Brown appealed. Two subsequent developments, noticed to our court by the parties, provide additional context. First, Brown refiled his state law claim in state court, which dismissed the suit as untimely. Brown v. Pouncy, 2023 WL 3859923 (La. Dist. Ct. May 23, 2023). That court rejected Brown’s contention that the claim should be governed by the two-year period for “actions which arise due to damages sustained as a result of an act defined as a crime of violence under Chapter 1 of Title 14 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1950,” La. Civ. Code art.