Vasquez-Garcia v. Centurion, LLC.
No. 25-2007. 4/15/2026. D.N.M. Judge Federico. Inmate Medical Care—Eighth Amendment—Statute of Limitations—Motion to Dismiss—Continuing Violations Doctrine.
April 15, 2026
Vasquez-Garcia was a prisoner at the Western New Mexico Correctional Facility from 2017 until 2021. When she was initially incarcerated, she had been diagnosed with diabetes, asthma, thyroid disorder, and blood pressure problems. During her incarceration, she was diagnosed with kidney disease, various eye problems, and congestive heart failure. Various state officials and government contractors oversaw her care, but her kidney and eye problems progressed while she was in custody, and when she was released, she was diagnosed with stage five renal failure. Vasquez-Garcia sued the correctional facility officials and contractors, arguing that they were deliberately indifferent to her serious medical needs in violation of her Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, and requesting compensatory and punitive damages under 42 USC § 1983. The properly served defendants moved to dismiss under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The district court found that three years was the statute of limitations period for Vasquez-Garcia’s claim, and it granted the motion and dismissed all claims against all defendants (including those not served) as untimely and barred by the statute of limitations.
On appeal, Vasquez-Garcia argued that she didn’t know and couldn’t reasonably have known the facts underlying her legal claim until after she was released from prison and diagnosed with stage five renal failure. Under N.M. Stat. Ann. § 37-1-8, the statute of limitations for personal injury actions is three years from the point of accrual. A civil rights claim accrues when the facts necessary for each element of the claim are known or reasonably knowable to the plaintiff. As relevant here, the facts linking a medical injury to a legal harm must also be known or knowable. And to be awarded relief for an Eighth Amendment violation, a plaintiff must allege and prove that (1) they faced a substantial risk of objective harm and (2) the defendant acted with deliberate indifference. Here, no facts alleged in the complaint support the inference that Vasquez-Garcia knew or reasonably should have known the subjective component of her deliberate indifference claim outside the statute of limitations period. Taking the complaint’s factual allegations as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in Vasquez-Garcia’s favor, she plausibly alleges that her injury was not known or knowable until after she was released from custody. Accordingly, the district court erroneously dismissed the complaint as untimely.
Alternatively, Vasquez-Garcia contended that the defendants’ conduct was a continuing violation that was ongoing until she was released, exactly three years before she filed her complaint. First, the district court erroneously concluded that the Tenth Circuit has not held that the continuing violations doctrine applies to § 1983 cases, so it failed to apply the continuing violations doctrine. Here, Vasquez-Garcia’s complaint alleges that she had a chronic condition requiring continuous monitoring and treatment, so it follows that the failure to provide such monitoring and treatment is itself a continuous violation. The Tenth Circuit held that where, as here, a plaintiff alleges that defendants observed but continually failed to properly treat the plaintiff’s chronic health conditions, such plaintiff may rely on the continuing violations doctrine to survive a statute of limitations defense.
The Tenth Circuit also held that the district court erred in addressing and dismissing with prejudice the claims against the unserved defendants.
The judgment was reversed and the case was remanded for further proceedings.