Plaintiff brings a wrongful termination claim against state actors, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983. Since plaintiff’s claim arises from post-contract-formation conduct, the claim was made possible by the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1658, any claims arising under any act of Congress that was enacted after December 1, 1990, is subject to a four-year statute of limitations. Consequently, the district erred when it applied North Carolina’s three-year personal injury statute of limitations in bar of plaintiff’s claim.
We affirm the uncontested dismissal of the North Carolina Department of Justice and the uncontested dismissal of the official-capacity claims against the individual defendants for money damages. But because the statute of limitations for the remaining claims is four years, we vacate the district court’s grant of the motion to dismiss the individual defendants.
Plaintiff filed this action just shy of four years after her termination.
Neither § 1981 nor § 1983 carries an explicit statute of limitations. Typically, in such cases, federal courts should select the most appropriate or analogous state statute of limitations. For § 1983 suits, that analogous cause of action is a personal-injury suit. That is apparently why the district court applied North Carolina’s three-year limitations period for personal-injury claims, under which it determined that plaintiff’s complaint was untimely.
But in 1990 Congress enacted 28 U.S.C. § 1658, which...
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