Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-06-16665/USCOURTS-ca9-06-16665-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ALEX LUKOVSKY; MUHAMMED 

KHAN; LARRY MITCHELL; ANTONIO

HUGGINS; SAMSON ASRAT,

Plaintiffs,

and

ANATOLIY ZOLOTAREV; YEVGENIY No. 06-16665

SKURATOVSKY, individually and on D.C. No. behalf of class members,  CV-05-00389-WHA Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN

FRANCISCO; JOHN SADORRA; RENATO

SOLOMON; VERNON CRAWLEY;

MICHAEL ELLIS; DORIS LANIER,

Defendants-Appellees. 

RICHARD GLASSMAN; MORRIS 

JACOBS; MICHAEL HALL; IGNACIO

REYES,

Plaintiffs-Appellants, No. 06-16946

v. D.C. No.  CV-06-02304-WHA CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN

FRANCISCO; ELSON HAO; JIM OPINION

WACHOB; ALAN DEGUZMAN; TOM

HIDAYAT,

Defendants-Appellees. 

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of California

William H. Alsup, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

May 13, 2008—San Francisco, California

Filed August 7, 2008

Before: Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, Michael Daly Hawkins,

and M. Margaret McKeown, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Hawkins

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COUNSEL

Edith J. Benay, San Francisco, California, for the plaintiffsappellants.

Jonathan C. Rolnick, City of San Francisco, San Francisco,

California, for the defendants-appellees. 

OPINION

HAWKINS, Circuit Judge: 

These consolidated appeals involve suits against the City

and County of San Francisco, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (“MUNI”), and various individual defen10006 ZOLOTAREV v. SAN FRANCISCO

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dants (collectively, “Defendants”) for race and national origin

discrimination in violation of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, 1985

& 1986. Plaintiffs allege that Defendants discriminated

against them by giving preferential hiring treatment to Asian

and Filipino workers. We do not consider the merits of the

plaintiffs’ allegations, however, as the only issue before us is

whether their claims are barred by the statute of limitations,

as the district court found. We agree with the district court

that (1) the cause of action accrued and the statute of limitations began to run when the plaintiffs received notice they

would not be hired, and (2) equitable estoppel does not prevent the Defendants from asserting a statute of limitations

defense. Accordingly, we affirm the district court in all

respects.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Zolotarev, Appeal No. 06-16665:

In 1999 through 2000, MUNI advertised various provisional positions for electrical transit system mechanics (“7371

positions”). MUNI considered applications and writtenperformance tests, as well as some in-person interviews. In

October 2000, MUNI obtained funding to hire several permanent 7371 mechanics, and issued a job announcement for

these permanent positions. The announcement contained the

following requirement: 

Verification (proof) of all experience and/or training

needed to qualify must be submitted with the application . . . . Verification may be waived if impossible

to obtain. The applicant must submit a signed statement with the application explaining why verification cannot be obtained . . . Failure to submit the

required verification or request for waiver in a timely

manner may result in the rejection of the application.

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Two plaintiffs, Anatoliy Zolotarev and Yevgeniy Skuratovsky, filed their initial complaint in January 2005, together

with several other plaintiffs who are not a party to this appeal

(“the Lukovsky action”).1 These plaintiffs alleged that the

Defendants discriminated on the basis of race—giving preferential treatment to Asian and Filipino applicants for the provisional and permanent 7371 positions by hiring Asian and

Filipino applicants who did not meet the minimum qualifications. They also alleged Defendants failed to provide information about the 7371 openings to potential candidates who

were not Asian or Filipino. 

Plaintiff Skuratovsky applied for two provisional 7371

positions in 1999 and 2000, but was ranked below the hiring

cutoff for both. He applied for a permanent 7371 position in

October 2000, but failed to include an experience verification

or seek a waiver of the requirement. He received notice in

November 2000 that his application had been disqualified for

failure to provide the verification. 

Plaintiff Zolotarev did not apply for any of the 7371 positions in 1999 or 2000, However, he had previously applied for

a similar mechanic position in 1998, and claims to have been

informed that his application “would remain in the active file

should a vacancy occur in the Division.” He was not contacted by MUNI about any jobs in 2000 or 2001. 

The Lukovsky plaintiffs sought and were denied class certification. The court’s order, however, permitted the plaintiffs’

counsel to send letters to other individuals who could potentially have similar claims, so that all such claims might be

tried by the same judge. The district court then granted summary judgment in favor of the Defendants as to Skuratovsky

and Zolotarev on statute of limitations grounds, concluding

that these plaintiffs knew or should have known of their injury

1The remaining plaintiffs dismissed their claims with prejudice. 

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—i.e., that they had not been hired for the permanent position

—for several years before they filed their complaint. 

Glassman, Appeal No. 06-16946: 

Four plaintiffs—Richard Glassman, Morris Jacobs,

Michael Hall and Ignacio Reyes—were applicants for 7371

positions with MUNI during 2000. Glassman applied in June

2000 and was disqualified in November 2000, purportedly for

failing to provide a written verification of his prior work

experience. Jacob’s application was rejected in October 2000

on the same grounds, as was Reyes’s application in November

2000. Hall applied for a 7371 position in October 2000 and

claims he never received notification that his application was

rejected. 

These plaintiffs received letters regarding the Lukovsky

action in January-February 2006 and filed their complaint on

March 31, 2006, alleging that Defendants gave preferential

treatment to Asian and Filipino applicants who did not meet

the minimum qualifications for the job. They also contend

Defendants modified the requirements for 7371 positions in

late 2000 to purportedly make it easier to hire Asian and Filipino applicants, and that the Defendants failed to provide sufficient information about the 7371 positions to non-Asian and

non-Filipino candidates. 

The district court granted the Defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint under Rule 12 (b)(6) of Civil Procedure on

statute of limitations grounds, concluding that the plaintiffs

had notice of their injury when they received the notices

informing them they were not being hired, or, in the case of

Hall, by early 2001 (when those accepted for the position

would have reported to work). 

STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review de novo the district court’s dismissal on statute

of limitations grounds, Mann v. American Airlines, 324 F.3d

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1088, 1090 (9th Cir. 2003), and the court’s ruling on summary judgment, General Bedding Corp. v. Echevarria, 947

F.2d 1395, 1396 (9th Cir. 1991). We review for an abuse of

discretion the district court’s decision that defendants should

not be equitably estopped from asserting a statute of limitations defense. See Santa Maria v. Pac. Bell, 202 F.3d 1170,

1175 (9th Cir. 2000). 

DISCUSSION

I. When did Plaintiffs’ claims accrue? 

[1] When, as here, a federal civil rights statute does not

include its own statute of limitations, federal courts borrow

the forum state’s limitations period for personal injury torts,

which the parties agree in this case is one year under California law. Taylor v. Regents of Univ. Of Cal., 993 F.2d 710, 711

(9th Cir. 1993) (applying one-year limitations period to

claims brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983 and 1985).2

Although California law determines the length of the limitations period, federal law determines when a civil rights claim

accrues. Olsen v. Idaho State Bd. of Med., 363 F.3d 916, 926

(9th Cir. 2004) (quoting Morales v. City of Los Angeles, 214

F.3d 1151, 1153-54 (9th Cir. 2000)). Accrual is the date on

which the statute of limitations begins to run; under federal

law, a claim accrues “when the plaintiff knows or has reason

to know of the injury which is the basis of the action.” Id.

(quoting Two Rivers v. Lewis, 174 F.3d 987, 991 (9th Cir.

1999)).

Plaintiffs argue that their claims did not accrue until they

2Section 1981 was amended in 1990 to include a four-year limitations

period for certain actions; however, this period does not apply to those

actions which were cognizable under the pre-1990 version, such as plaintiffs’ failure to hire claim. See Cholla Ready Mix, Inc. v. Civish, 382 F.3d

969, 974 n.5 (9th Cir. 2004); Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S.

164, 180-82 (1989). 

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knew both that they were not being hired and of the Defendants’ alleged discriminatory intent. In other words, plaintiffs

contend that knowledge of “injury” includes both the actual

injury (failure to hire) and the legal wrong (racial discrimination). The Zolotarev plaintiffs assert they had no reason to

know of the legal injury until informed years later by a MUNI

employee that allegedly unqualified Asians and Filipinos had

been hired; the Glassman plaintiffs claim they had no reason

to know of the Defendants’ discriminatory conduct until they

received the letter informing them of the Zolotarev lawsuit. 

Plaintiffs frame their argument in terms of the “discovery

rule,” which postpones the beginning of the limitations period

from the date the plaintiff is actually injured to the date when

he discovers (or reasonably should discover) he has been

injured. See O’Connor v. Boeing North Am., Inc., 311 F.3d

1139, 1147 (9th Cir. 2002). However, this rule is already

incorporated into federal accrual law. See Cada v. Baxter

Healthcare Corp., 920 F.2d 446, 450-51 (7th Cir. 1990). The

real question, as noted above, is what do we mean by “injury,” that is, what must the plaintiffs “discover”—that there

has been an adverse action, or that the employer acted with

discriminatory intent in performing that act? 

This issue has not been expressly addressed in this circuit.

See Lyons v. England, 307 F.3d 1092, 1107 n.9 (9th Cir.

2002) (noting that prior cases dealing with accrual under Title

VII had not resolved “the more subtle question of when the

date of a plaintiff’s notice that the act was discriminatory, and

not the date of the act’s occurrence” should be the preferred

date for commencing the statute of limitations).3 Nor has the

3Although the plaintiffs’ actions in this case arise under §§ 1981, 1983,

1985, and 1986, we note that, of course, the majority of employment cases

involve private employers. We therefore consider cases arising under other

federal laws, such as Title VII or the ADEA, to be instructive. See, e.g.,

Delaware State College v. Ricks, 449 U.S. 250 (1980) (analyzing commencement of statute of limitations under both Title VII and Section

1981). 

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Supreme Court had occasion to clarify the issue. See Nat’l

R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 114 n.7

(2002); id. at 123-24 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (recognizing

that “although Supreme Court precedents seem to establish a

relatively simple ‘notice’ rule . . . , courts continue to disagree

on what the notice must be of”) (quotations omitted) (emphasis in original); but see id. at 114 (noting that discrete acts,

such as termination and refusal to hire, are easy to identify).

[2] However, numerous other circuits have explicitly

addressed this precise question in a variety of employment

contexts, and have concluded that the claim accrues upon

awareness of the actual injury, i.e., the adverse employment

action, and not when the plaintiff suspects a legal wrong. For

example, in Oshiver v. Levin, Fishbein, Sedran & Berman, 38

F.3d 1380 (3d Cir. 1994), the court explained: 

The question arises whether a plaintiff’s discovery of

the actual, as opposed to the legal, injury is sufficient

to trigger the running of the statutory period. In other

words, does the statutory period begin to run upon a

plaintiff’s learning that he or she has been discharged from employment, for example, or does it

begin to run only after a plaintiff comes to realize

that the discharge constituted a legal wrong? We

have in the past stated that a claim accrues in a federal cause of action upon awareness of the actual

injury, not upon awareness that this injury constitutes a legal wrong. 

Id. at 1386. The Sixth Circuit similarly opined in Amini v.

Oberlin College, 259 F.3d 493 (6th Cir. 2001): 

Amini learned of his injury when Oberlin informed

him that he would not be hired for its vacant statistics position. As stated, the proper focus for purposes

of determining the commencement of the [statute of]

limitations period is on the discriminatory act itself

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and when that act was communicated to the plaintiff.

Amini’s attempt to stop the running of the [ ] clock

until he discovered the facts that led him to suspect

discrimination is best addressed as a question of

equitable tolling. 

Id. at 500; see also Thelen v. Marc’s Big Boy Corp., 64 F.3d

264, 267 (7th Cir. 1995) (claim accrued upon termination,

even though plaintiff did not discover he was replaced by

younger employee until later; “[a] plaintiff’s action accrues

when he discovers that he has been injured, not when he

determines that the injury was unlawful”); Dring v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., 58 F.3d 1323, 1327-28 (8th Cir. 1995)

(limitations period runs from date discriminatory act occurs,

not when victim first perceives discriminatory motive); Hulsey v. Kmart, Inc., 43 F.3d 555, 558-59 (10th Cir. 1994)

(“notice or knowledge of discriminatory motivation is not a

prerequisite for a cause of action to accrue . . . . it is the

knowledge of the adverse employment decision itself that

triggers the running of the statute of limitations”); Hamilton

v. 1st Source Bank, 928 F.2d 86, 88-89 (4th Cir. 1990) (“To

the extent that notice enters the analysis, it is the notice of the

employer’s actions, not the notice of a discriminatory effect

or motivation, that establishes the commencement of the pertinent filing period.”); Merril v. S. Methodist Univ., 806 F.2d

600, 604-05 (5th Cir. 1986) (rejecting argument that court

should focus on the date the victim perceives a discriminatory

motive rather than the actual date of the act itself).

[3] We find these opinions persuasive. Moreover, they are

consistent with the Supreme Court’s opinion in Ricks, which

involved an action under Title VII and Section 1981, and

focused on when the plaintiff became aware of the adverse

employment decision. Ricks concluded the statute of limitations under both commenced when the adverse decision was

communicated to Ricks, even though the consequences of the

action were not fully felt at that time. 449 U.S. at 258-59,

261-62; see also Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.,

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Inc., 127 S. Ct. 2162 (2007). In this circuit, we have similarly

emphasized the plaintiff’s awareness of the adverse employment action as critical to the accrual analysis. See Olsen, 363

F.3d at 927 (section 1983 claim accrued on date when plaintiff received letter notifying her that medical board was denying her license reinstatement). 

[4] In addition, this view also seems analogous to cases in

this circuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”). For

example, we have held that an FTCA claim accrues when the

plaintiff knew or in the exercise of reasonable diligence

should have known of the injury and the cause of that injury,

but is not deferred until the plaintiff has evidence of fault.

Davis v. United States, 642 F.2d 328, 331 (9th Cir. 1981) (citing United States v. Kubrick, 444 U.S. 111 (1979)). Thus, in

Davis, we determined that the statute of limitations accrued

when plaintiff knew he had been injured and that the likely

cause was the Sabin vaccine; however, accrual was not further

deferred until plaintiff had reason to suspect governmental

negligence. Id. at 331. We noted that once a plaintiff knows

that harm has been done to him, he must “determine within

the period of limitations whether to sue or not, which is precisely the judgment that other tort claimants must make.” Id.

(internal quotation marks omitted). 

To counter this wealth of authority, plaintiffs point to language in Aronsen v. Crown Zellerbach, 662 F.2d 584, 593

(9th Cir. 1981), in which we stated that in ADEA suits, the

limitations period is activated once “the employee knows or

should know that an unlawful employment practice has been

committed.” In the context of the case, however, the clear

focus of this sentence is on when plaintiff received notice of

his termination—on the date the termination was informally

communicated to him, or when he was officially terminated

and his paychecks ceased nearly a year later. Id. at 585-86.

We went on to note in passing that receipt of “written notice

of termination would clearly shorten the inquiry concerning

the employee’s knowledge of termination date (though not

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necessarily knowledge of an unlawful employment practice).”

Id. at 593-94. We did not decide the issue presented in this

case, however, because we remanded the case for further proceedings in light of the factual debate about when Aronsen

actually knew of his termination. Id. at 594. 

Plaintiffs also attempt to rely on language in Morales v.

City of Los Angeles, in which we quoted a Second Circuit

case to say that a “claim accrues when the alleged conduct has

caused the claimant harm and the claimant knows or has reason to know of the allegedly impermissible conduct and the

resulting harm.” 214 F.3d at 1154 (quoting Veal v. Geraci, 23

F.3d 722, 724 (2d Cir. 1994)). However, the holding of Morales (and Veal for that matter) was limited to the finality of the

harm; we concluded that the plaintiffs had been injured when

they lost their lawsuits, not when the losses were subsequently

upheld on appeal. See id. Again, we had no occasion to consider or decide the question we now face. 

[5] These stray remarks in cases that did not actually confront the issue before us do not compel us to disagree with our

sister circuits that a claim accrues under federal law when the

plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the actual injury.

See, e.g., Inlandboatmens Union of Pac. v. Dutra Group, 279

F.3d 1075, 1081 (9th Cir. 2002) (later panel not bound by tangential remark made in earlier case). In this case, as the district court found, the claim accrued when the plaintiffs

received notice they would not be hired (or, in the case of

plaintiffs Zolotarev and Hall, when they should have realized

they had not been hired for the position). Cf. Grimes v. City

and County of San Francisco, 951 F.2d 236, 239 (9th Cir.

1991) (termination is discrete act that triggers running of statute of limitations); see also Morgan, 536 U.S. at 114

(“Discrete acts such as . . . refusal to hire are easy to identify.”). At this point, the plaintiffs knew they had been injured

and by whom, see Kubrick, 444 U.S. at 113, even if at that

point in time the plaintiffs did not know of the legal injury,

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i.e., that there was an allegedly discriminatory motive underlying the failure to hire.4

II. Equitable Tolling/Equitable Estoppel

Notwithstanding the foregoing, there are two doctrines

which may apply to extend the limitations period or preclude

a defendant from asserting the defense— equitable tolling and

equitable estoppel. The federal version of these doctrines is

concisely explained in Johnson v. Henderson, 314 F.3d 409

(9th Cir. 2002). “Equitable tolling” focuses on “whether there

was excusable delay by the plaintiff: If a reasonable plaintiff

would not have known of the existence of a possible claim

within the limitations period, then equitable tolling will serve

to extend the statute of limitations for filing suit until the

plaintiff can gather what information he needs.” Id. at 414

(quotation omitted). Equitable estoppel, on the other hand,

focuses primarily on actions taken by the defendant to prevent

a plaintiff from filing suit, sometimes referred to as “fraudulent concealment.” Id. (citing Cada v. Baxter Healthcare

Corp. 920 F.2d 446, 450-51 (7th Cir. 1990)). 

The plaintiffs in this case have expressly disavowed any

reliance on equitable tolling. We therefore leave for another

day the consideration of what circumstances would justify

equitable tolling of the statute of limitations in this type of case.5

4We note that various other circuits have also considered whether a reasonable plaintiff should have suspected discrimination and discovered the

legal wrong within the limitations period as relevant to the issue of equitable tolling. See Amini, 259 F.3d at 501; Thelen, 64 F.3d at 267-68 and

Dring, 58 F.3d at 1328-29. As discussed in Section II below, we are not

called upon to decide this issue today. 

5The plaintiffs’ position seems driven by California’s equitable tolling

principles. We note, however, that California tolling law only applies to

the extent it is not inconsistent with federal law. Azer v. Connell, 306 F.3d

930, 936 (9th Cir. 2002). The plaintiffs do not argue that California’s

requirements are inconsistent with federal equitable tolling principles, and

we decline to sua sponte reach issues which have not been raised. 

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However, they do argue that Defendants should be equitably

estopped from asserting a statute of limitations defense

because, they contend, the Defendants’ misrepresentations

about requiring written verification of qualifying experience

concealed that they were hiring unqualified Asian and Filipino applicants instead. 

Under California law, equitable estoppel requires that:

(1) the party to be estopped must be apprised of the

facts; (2) that party must intend that his or her conduct be acted on, or must so act that the party asserting the estoppel had a right to believe it was so

intended; (3) the party asserting the estoppel must be

ignorant of the true state of facts; and (4) the party

asserting the estoppel must reasonably rely on the

conduct to his or her injury. 

Honig v. San Francisco Planning Dep’t, 127 Cal. App. 4th

520, 529 (2005). California equitable estoppel is thus similar

to and not inconsistent with federal common law, as both

focus on actions taken by the defendant which prevent the

plaintiff from filing on time. See Santa Maria, 202 F.3d at

1176. 

[6] The primary problem with plaintiffs’ argument is that

their alleged basis for equitable estoppel is the same as their

cause of action. As we have previously explained, the plaintiff

must point to some fraudulent concealment, some active conduct by the defendant “above and beyond the wrongdoing

upon which the plaintiff’s claim is filed, to prevent the plaintiff from suing in time.” Guerrero v. Gates, 442 F.3d 697, 706

(9th Cir. 2006) (quoting Santa Maria, 202 F.3d at 1176-77)

(emphasis added). 

The Seventh Circuit persuasively explains why this rule

must be the case:

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If [defendant] had told [plaintiff] that it would not

plead the statute of limitations as a defense to any

suit for age discrimination that he might bring, this

would be a case for equitable estoppel; so also if

[defendant] had presented [plaintiff] with forged

documents purporting to negate any basis for supposing that [plaintiff’s] termination was related to

his age. [Plaintiff] tries to bring himself within the

doctrine by contending that [stated reason for termination] was a ruse to conceal the plan to fire him

because of his age. This merges the substantive

wrong with the tolling doctrine . . . . It implies that

a defendant is guilty of fraudulent concealment

unless it tells the plaintiff, “We’re firing you because

of your age.” It would eliminate the statute of limitations . . . . 

Cada, 920 F.2d at 451. 

[7] The plaintiffs in this case make a similar attempt to circumvent the requirements of equitable estoppel. They do not

point to any misrepresentation by the Defendants that concealed the composition of the applicant pool, the qualifications of those actually hired, or any promise by which the

Defendants discouraged plaintiffs from timely asserting their

rights. The district court properly denied the claim for equitable estoppel.6

CONCLUSION

The district court correctly determined that the plaintiffs’

claims accrued at the time they received notice they would not

be hired or, in the case of plaintiffs Zolotarev and Hall, when

a reasonable person would have realized he had not been

6The Zolotarev plaintiffs also argue that, if their claims were timely, the

district court abused its discretion by denying them leave to file a Third

Amended Complaint. We deny this claim as moot. 

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hired. The plaintiffs in this case have waived any claim for

equitable tolling and the district court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting the plaintiffs’ claim for equitable estoppel, as

the plaintiffs did not allege any fraudulent concealment or

misrepresentation above and beyond the actual basis for the

lawsuit.

AFFIRMED.

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