Case Explained: RICHARD LEE GRAVELY v. BRADY HINCHMAN

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-17

The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s order granting a motion to dismiss and remanded the case for further proceedings. The court held that the district court erred in applying West Virginia’s one-year statute of limitations to the plaintiff’s § 1983 claims for false arrest, imprisonment, and malicious prosecution. Under the rule established in *Owens v. Okure*, when a state provides multiple statutes of limitations for personal injury actions, federal courts must borrow the general or residual statute. The court applied West Virginia’s two-year statute of limitations for personal injury actions, finding that the plaintiff’s complaint filed in October 2024 was timely because the arrest occurred in November 2022 and the malicious prosecution claim accrued in May 2023. While the appellee raised qualified immunity, the court declined to affirm on that basis given the current record and expressed no opinion on the merits of the claims or subsequent immunity assertions.

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