Key Points

  • The Fourth Circuit held that the accrual rule of Heck v. Humphrey extends to at least certain tort claims brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
  • Parrish's claims over nearly three years of administrative segregation did not accrue until his incident report was expunged on January 25, 2017, at the earliest, so his April or May 2017 complaint was timely under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b).
  • The panel said there is much to say for reading § 2401(b)'s two deadlines as alternatives but did not decide the question, noting that every decision construing the statute has rejected that reading.
  • The panel declined to consider the government's new argument that Parrish's administrative claim was premature and did not reach the prison mailbox rule.
  • The court vacated the judgment and remanded for a new exhaustion analysis that accounts for the claims presented in administrative Claim 710.

A federal appeals court on Oct. 19 revived a lawsuit that Donte Parrish filed from federal prison over the nearly three years he spent in segregated confinement after officials accused him of killing another inmate. The court held that the clock on his claims did not start until the Bureau of Prisons erased the charge from his record.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated a West Virginia federal court's ruling that Parrish had sued too late under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the statute under which he sought $5 million in damages from the United States. Judge Niemeyer wrote the published opinion, and Judges Gregory and Richardson joined it. The panel ordered the district court to decide anew whether Parrish first presented each claim to the Bureau of Prisons, as the statute requires.

The decision applies to at least some tort claims against the federal government a rule the Supreme Court announced in Heck v. Humphrey in 1994 for damages suits under Section 1983. Heck held that such a claim attacking a conviction or sentence "does not accrue until the conviction or sentence has been invalidated." The panel concluded that "the Heck principle extends to at least certain tort claims brought under the FTCA."

The case began on Dec. 6, 2009, when a group of inmates at USP Hazelton in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, killed another inmate, Jimmy Lee Wilson. A prison official reviewed video of the attack and issued an incident report blaming Parrish and four other inmates for Wilson's death. The Bureau referred the matter to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office and suspended its own disciplinary process. Parrish alleges that officials held him in restrictive lockdown from December 2009 until November 2012.

In June 2015, the FBI and federal prosecutors decided against charging Parrish. A disciplinary hearing officer then found him responsible, but on June 3, 2016, a regional director ordered a rehearing. At the new hearing on Jan. 25, 2017, a hearing officer found that "[n]o prohibited act was committed," citing "insufficient evidence to make a finding," and expunged the incident report.

Before that rehearing, Parrish had filed an administrative claim with the Bureau on Sept. 23, 2016, alleging wrongful confinement and false imprisonment. The Bureau denied it on Oct. 7, 2016, and told him he could sue within six months of the letter, a window that closed on April 7, 2017. Parrish dated his complaint April 7. The prison mailed it May 1, and the court received it May 3. His amended complaint asserted false imprisonment, abuse of process, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and malicious prosecution.

Senior U.S. District Judge Irene M. Keeley ruled in January 2019 that the claims presented in that administrative filing were time-barred. She appeared to accept that Heck applied, the panel said, but she concluded that the claims accrued on June 3, 2016, the date of the regional director's remand. In March 2020 she dismissed the remaining claims as unexhausted because a narrower, earlier administrative claim did not present them.

The appeals court traced Heck to the common-law tort of malicious prosecution, which requires proof that the earlier criminal case ended in the accused's favor. "It thus appears clear to us that Heck's accrual principle applies to at least some of Parrish's tort claims," Judge Niemeyer wrote.

The panel also relied on the government's position. The opinion quoted the government's briefing as conceding that "January 25, 2017 appears to be the correct date of accrual." The government had suggested a later date, Oct. 18, 2017, when the expungement took effect. The panel held that the complaint was timely under the April 7, May 1 and May 3 dates alike, because each fell within six months of Jan. 25, 2017.

Parrish had pressed a broader argument that the panel left undecided. Section 2401(b) of Title 28 bars a tort claim against the United States unless it is presented to the agency within two years of accrual "or" unless suit is filed within six months of the agency's final denial. Parrish argued that the repeated "unless" means a claimant must meet only one deadline.

"There is much to say for his argument," Judge Niemeyer wrote, citing Judge Henderson's partial dissent in Page v. Comey, a 2025 D.C. Circuit decision. The panel added that the reading "has been rejected by every decision construing § 2401(b) and is undermined by the provision's legislative history." It acknowledged that Fourth Circuit precedent points the same way. "Indeed, we have probably joined the flock," the opinion said.

The panel declined to consider the government's new argument that Parrish filed his administrative claim too early, before his claims accrued, because the government had not raised it in the district court. The panel also did not decide whether the prison mailbox rule made April 7 the filing date.

Because the district court had measured exhaustion only against Parrish's earlier, narrower administrative claim, the panel ordered a new analysis. The opinion said some of his claims were clearly exhausted through the broader September 2016 claim, but it left the district court "to assess whether all of Parrish's claims were indeed exhausted."

The ruling is the second Fourth Circuit decision in the case. In 2023 a panel held that the court lacked jurisdiction because Parrish's notice of appeal came too late. The Supreme Court reversed in 2025, holding that the notice related forward and became timely once the district court reopened the time to appeal.

Alexa Rae Baltes of Jones Day argued for Parrish. William Rhee of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Clarksburg, West Virginia, argued for the government.

The judgment is vacated, and the case returns to the district court in Clarksburg for that exhaustion analysis and further proceedings consistent with the opinion.