Larry Botts v. Shelly Marie West, Individually

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 22-1342
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Larry Botts
lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellant
v.
Shelly Marie West, Individually and in her Official Capacity as a Correctional
Officer for the North Central Correctional Facility; Kris Weitzell, Individually and
in her Official Capacity as Warden of the North Central Correctional Facility;
Robert Johnson, Individually and in his Official Capacity as a Warden of the
North Central Correctional Facility; Beth Skinner, Individually and in her capacity
as Director of the Iowa Department of Corrections; John Lamb, Individually and
in his Official Capacity as a Warden of the North Central Correctional Facility
lllllllllllllllllllllDefendants - Appellees
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Northern District of Iowa - Central
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Submitted: March 16, 2023
Filed: June 6, 2023
[Unpublished]
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Before COLLOTON, MELLOY, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM.
Larry Botts filed the present action against several corrections officers and
officials alleging he was unconstitutionally subjected to sexual misconduct and sexual
harassment while incarcerated. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court1 dismissed
his action as untimely. Reviewing this matter de novo, we affirm. DeVries v.
Driesen, 766 F.3d 922, 923 (8th Cir. 2014).
Mr. Botts was released from incarceration in March 2017. He agrees his
federal claim accrued no later than his release and the statute of limitations applicable
to his claim is two years. As such, barring a tolling of the statute of limitations, his
federal complaint as filed on July 28, 2021, was untimely.
Mr. Botts asserts tolling applies because he filed a complaint with the Iowa
State Appeal Board on August 18, 2018, to obtain a right-to-sue letter pursuant to the
Iowa Tort Claims Act. See Iowa Code § 669.13. He received a letter from that Board
on March 1, 2021, indicating he had an additional six months to file suit. He filed his
present federal complaint within that time period. Mr. Botts characterizes the process
with the Iowa State Appeal Board pursuant to the Iowa Tort Claims Act as the final
step in his exhaustion of administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation
Reform Act. See 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a).
This matter is directly controlled by DeVries, 766 F.3d at 924. There we held
Iowa’s two-year statute of limitations for personal injury torts applies to § 1983 cases.
Id. We also held a right-to-sue letter from the Iowa State Appeal Board was not
required, and no related tolling applied, because “§ 1983 creates a ‘uniquely federal
1The Honorable Kelly K.E. Mahoney, Chief Magistrate Judge for the United
States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, presiding by the consent of the
parties pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c).
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remedy’” rather than a mere state tort remedy subject to Iowa’s conditional waiver of
sovereign immunity as found in the Iowa Tort Claims Act. Id. Because Mr. Botts’s
case is indistinguishable from DeVries, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
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