The Fletcher Appeals court had to decide if the 42 U.S.C. § 1981 – Equal Rights under the law provision had a federal four-year statute of limitations or a California state two years. The sign § is read as ‘Section”, so 42 U.S.C. § 1981 is read as 42 U.S.C. Section 1981. Basically, 42 U.S.C. § 1981 was a recodification of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which I read had a four-year statute of limitations. I was claiming that when Lucent Technologies stopped my disability payments in 2006, it continued the retaliation and emotional distress that started in 1986 when AT&T forced me on mental disability and then refused to pay disability payments. Depending on how you do the math, I was either within the two years statute of limitations or fell outside of it. These dates would determine when I experienced Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED). If you used the date that Lucent first petitioned the Pennsylvania 3rd District Court to stop disability payments, I filed the current case after the two-year statute of limitations. If you used the dates of when the Pennsylvania court approved stopping disability payments or when Lucent stopped disability payments, then I was within the two-year California state statute of limitations. On the other hand, if the 1866 Civil Rights Act worked as a four-year statute of limitations as I read it, my case was timely on all of the above dates. Lucent wanted to use the date that Lucent petitioned the Pennsylvania 3rd District Court to stop disability payments and the two-year statute of limitations, so my case could be dismissed as untimely.
This got confusing and was complicated because the 1866 Civil Rights Act under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 went through some changes that first removed the four years statute of limitations and then later reinstated it in an enactment of Congress approved on Dec. 1, 1990. The appeals court says that it has jurisdiction under “28 U.S. Code § 1291 – Final decisions of district courts” and then says that the case is timely and remands it back to the district court for trial.
The court gives some background under section 1, “Employment Relationship and Prior Litigation,” by first saying that I worked for AT&T before 1986, took mental disability in 1986, and was fired in 1987. In 1989 I sued Pro Se for disability benefits and won, and AT&T wanted me to see one of three psychiatrists AT&T recommended. I think these were doctors were approved by AT&T because they would continue the abuse under the AT&T disability plan. I also feel that AT&T weaponized its disability plan. AT&T wanted me to provide monthly proof that I was under the ‘care’ of one of those three psychiatrists/torturers. The footnote says that for now on, my employer in the court case would be referred to as Lucent, no matter if it was AT&T or another spin-off of AT&T.
