A common mistake employees make in protecting their legal rights is not to timely pursue possible legal claims. The law provides that claims must be filed within certain time periods, called statutes of limitation. The limitations period generally begins to commence when a person first learns or should have learned of the unlawful act. A recent case from the federal court from Maryland is illustrative of the importance of timely filing a lawsuit. In Hill v. Hampstead Lester Morton Court Partners, where a disabled tenant filed suit claim that her landlord failed to provide reasonable accommodation. The tenant’s claim was dismissed by the Maryland federal court as untimely. In tossing out the lawsuit, the court stated:
Nor can the continuing-violation doctrine save plaintiffs’ claims from the statute of limitations. “In general, to establish a continuing violation the plaintiff must establish that the unconstitutional or illegal act was a fixed and continuing practice.” Nat’l Adver. Co. v. City of Raleigh, 947 F.2d 1158, 1166 (4th Cir. 1991) (internal modifications and quotation marks omitted). A continuing violation exists only where the plaintiff can show that the illegal act occurred “in a series of separate acts,” where “the same alleged violation was committed at the time of each act.” A Soc’y Without A Name, 655 F.3d at 348. The issue here is whether defendants’ repeated denials of Hill’s request for structural modifications constituted a continuing violation.
The answer appears to be no. “A continuing violation is occasioned by continual unlawful acts, not continual ill effects from an original violation.” Nat’l Adver. Co., 947 F.2d at 1166 (internal quotation marks omitted). Where each act relates to the exact same subject matter—e.g., regularly requesting the same structural modifications to Hill’s townhouse—an individual cannot “keep his claim . . . forever alive” by periodically renewing the request. West v. ITT Cont’l Baking Co., 683 F.2d 845, 846 (4th Cir. 1982) (“[A]ll of the wrongs relate solely to that event and [defendant’s] refusal to change its decision.”). Plaintiffs merely allege that they renewed their request for accommodations on several occasions and that those requests were regularly denied. The consistent denial of the same request made by the same individual does not constitute continuing discrimination. See A Soc’y Without A Name, 655 F.3d at 349; Jersey Heights Neighborhood Ass’n, 174 F.3d at 189; Nat’l Adver. Co., 947 F.2d at 1167. The fact that defendants could, at any time, reverse course and accommodate Hill’s request by installing a wheelchair ramp does not render their refusal to do so a continuing violation. (See Pl.’s Opp. at 9, ECF No. 35 (“Mrs. Hill would naturally have assumed that a new property manager might take a different course of action . . . .”)). Such logic would nullify the statute of limitations and subject defendants to the threat of repeated lawsuits for the same allegedly discriminatory decisions. Because the tenant did not timely file suit as measured from when the first discriminatory act occurred, she lost on her claim. The claim was not revived by asking for the same accommodations at later date. A claim arising out of a denial of a subsequent request for different accommodation may have been timely, but the issue was not presented to the Maryland federal court.
