RYA ZOBEL, District Judge
Plaintiff wants to be a member of the Massachusetts State Police. He therefore applied to take the entrance examination in February 1998 and scored very well. He thereupon submitted an application for admission to the State Police Academy which apparently included questions about traffic violations. Plaintiff forgot about one speeding ticket and failed to note a citation for operating an unregistered off-road vehicle which he had operated on a farm. He also failed to disclose an arrest for possessing a false identification while he was in college. Nonetheless, he was invited to take the fitness test in September 1998 which he also passed. However, in January 1999 defendants informed him, without citing specifics, that as a result of a background investigation his application had been rejected. On review, his rejection, again without written explanation, was upheld and he was told that he would be given no further consideration. There the matter lay for more than three years.
In 2002 plaintiff sought to resurrect his candidacy and paid the requisite fee to take the entrance examination again. Then, apparently in response to overtures by plaintiff's counsel, Eleanor C. Sinnott, the Chief Legal Counsel of the Department of State Police, stated that he would be disqualified based on the earlier investigation, that the State Police would not waive the background check, and that the same issues that had prevented his hiring the first time, would be reviewed again. Plaintiff never sat for the second entrance examination, and, on February 26, 2003, plaintiff filed this suit. The complaint sets forth the facts just recited. Defendants moved for summary judgment which plaintiff countered with an amended complaint, a cross motion for summary judgment, and an opposition. Deeming their original motion for summary judgment to have been superseded by the amended complaint, defendants moved to dismiss the amended complaint, or, in the alternative, for summary judgment. In partial response, plaintiff agreed to dismiss voluntarily all counts based on state law, leaving for resolution only Counts 4 and 5, claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of his due process rights. Thus, the matters now before me are plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on the federal claims and defendants' motion to dismiss them or for summary judgment.
Defendants assert that Counts 4 and 5 are barred by the statute of limitations and that plaintiff cannot, in any event, establish a deprivation of either a constitutionally protected property or liberty interest. In opposition to defendants' motion and in support of his own, plaintiff, even while insisting that there are disputed issues of fact, argues that he does have protected property and liberty interests and was therefore entitled to a hearing before being rejected.
The parties agree the relevant statute of limitations is Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 260 § 2A, that provides a three-year limitations period for tort actions. The decisive question is when the cause of action arose, in 1999, when plaintiff applied and was rejected or in 2002, when he inquired about his chances as of that time. Although plaintiff contends that the events in 2002 constitute a separate rejection, his own arguments correctly focus on the alleged wrong in 1999. Apart from the fact that plaintiff was not formally rejected in 2002, as he never formally applied, it is the failure of defendants to afford him a formal hearing in 1999 that forms the crux of his complaint. As to those actions by defendants, the statute of limitations has run. Since the federal claims are time barred, it is unnecessary to review them on the merits.
Defendants' motion to dismiss is accordingly allowed; plaintiff's motion for summary judgment is denied. Counts 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7 have been voluntarily dismissed by plaintiff. Judgment may be entered dismissing counts 4 and 5 of the amended complaint.