Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-91-06006/USCOURTS-ca10-91-06006-0/pdf.json

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

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PUBLISH 

FILED 

Unitsd States Co~ <?f Appeals Tenth Crrcmt 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 12 1991 

TENTH CIRCUIT ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

CLIFTON PIPKIN; BELEN PIPKIN, 

Plaintiffs-Appellants, 

v. 

UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE; 

RICHARD I. CARELTON; E.C. HUFF; 

JOHN MILLER; GARY COLLAMORE; 

LEROY SMITH; CHARLES ED PITTS; 

DON FRA2IER; J.P. TURNER; O.D. CURRY; 

MIKE COX; JOHN DOE ONE; JOHN DOE TWO; 

JOHN DOE THREE, 

Defendants-Appellees. 

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No. 91-6006 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA 

(D.C. No. CIV-90-825-W) 

Submitted on the briefs: 

Kelley L. Cornelius, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 

Plaintiffs-Appellants. 

for 

Timothy D. Leonard, United States Attorney, Robert A. Bradford, 

Assistant United States Attorney, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Jesse 

L. Butler, Assistant General Counsel, Lori J. Dym, Attorney, 

Office of Labor Law, United States Postal Service, Washington, D.C., for Defendants-Appellees. 

Appellate Case: 91-6006 Document: 01019324085 Date Filed: 12/12/1991 Page: 1 
Before SEYMOUR, EBEL, Circuit Judges, and BABCOCK,** District 

Judge. 

**Honorable Lewis T. Babcock, District 

District Court for the District of 

designation. 

Judge, United States 

Colorado, sitting by 

SEYMOUR, Circuit Judge. 

Mr. and Mrs. Pipkin appeal the district court orders 

dismissing their claims asserted under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named 

Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 u.s. 388 (1971), 

against individual United States Postal Service employees, and 

their cla~s asserted under the Federal Tort Cla~s Act (FTCA), 28 

u.s.c. §§ 1346, 2671-2680, against the United States Postal 

~ Service (USPS). 1 Plaintiffs alleged that the individual postal 

employees devised and implemented a plan to drive Mr. Pipkin from 

his postal service job and that the USPS was liable on a theory of 

respondeat superior. 

The issues presented by this appeal are whether procedural 

defects bar the FTCA claims, and whether grievance procedures 

provided by the applicable collective bargaining agreement 

preclude plaintiffs' Bivens claims. Reviewing the district 

court's orders dismissing these claims de novo, see Morgan v. City 

of Rawlins, 792 F.2d 975, 978 (lOth Cir. 1986), we affirm. 

1 After exam~n~ng the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); lOth Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

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Appellate Case: 91-6006 Document: 01019324085 Date Filed: 12/12/1991 Page: 2 
I. 

The first question is whether procedural defects bar 

plaintiffs' FTCA claims. Exhaustion of administrative claims is a 

jurisdictional prerequisite to asserting claims under the FTCA. 

28 u.s.c. § 2675; see Nero v. Cherokee Nation of Okla., 892 F.2d 

1457, 1463 (lOth Cir. 1989). Although plaintiffs failed to file 

administrative claims pursuant to USPS regulations, 39 C.F.R. 

§§ 912.1-912.14, they assert that they sufficiently exhausted 

their administrative remedies through grievances Mr. Pipkin filed 

with the USPS. 

Mrs. Pipkin, however, never asserted any administrative claim 

on her own behalf, nor did Mr. Pipkin specifically assert a loss 

of consortium claim in his USPS grievance. Thus, Mrs. Pipkin 

completely failed to exhaust her administrative remedies. See, 

Adams ex rel. Adams v. United States Dep't of Housing & Urban 

Dev., 807 F.2d 318, 319-20 (2d Cir. 1986); Cogburn v. United 

States, 717 F. Supp. 958, 963 (D. Mass. 1989); Wozniak v. United 

States, 701 F. Supp. 259, 262-63 (D. Mass. 1988). 

We elect not to decide the exhaustion issue with respect to 

Mr. Pipkin because there is another procedural bar to his claim. 

Assuming without deciding that Mr. Pipkin's administrative 

grievances sufficed to exhaust his administrative remedies, we 

address whether Mr. Pipkin commenced this FTCA action in a timely 

manner. 

A tort claim against the United States shall be 

forever barred unless it is presented in writing to the 

appropriate Federal agency within two years after such 

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Appellate Case: 91-6006 Document: 01019324085 Date Filed: 12/12/1991 Page: 3 
claim accrues or unless action is begun within six 

months after the date of mailing, by certified or 

registered mail, of notice of final denial of the claim 

by the agency to which it was presented. 

28 U.S.C. § 2401(b). Mr. Pipkin filed his last grievance related 

to these claims with the USPS on December 21, 1987. An 

arbitration panel denied that grievance on July 23, 1988. Mr. 

Pipkin asserts that because he did not receive notice of the 

denial of the grievance by "certified or registered mail," section 

2401(b)'s limitations period never began to run. Mr. Pipkin does 

not claim that he did not receive the arbitration panel's 

decision, only that notice of the decision was not sent to him in 

the manner prescribed by section 2401(b). 

Within six months of the arbitration decision, Mr. Pipkin 

commenced a previous FTCA action based upon these same claims, 

~ which was dismissed without prejudice for failure to prosecute. 

It is thus apparent that Mr. Pipkin was not prejudiced by the 

agency's failure to send the arbitration decision to him by 

registered or certified mail. Cf. Sanderford v. Prudential Ins. 

Co., 902 F.2d 897, 900-01 (11th Cir. 1990) (minor technical flaw 

in summons did not prejudice recipient and will not deprive court 

of personal jurisdiction); Datskow v. Teledyne, Inc., Continental 

Prods. Div., 899 F.2d 1298, 1302-03 (2d Cir.) (participation in 

litigation without challenging service of process waives defense 

of lack of personal jurisdiction), cert. denied, 111 s. Ct. 149 

(1990). Because Mr. Pipkin received actual notice of the denial 

of his grievance, we conclude that the lack of certification or 

registration of the mail did not prevent section 2401(b)'s 

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Appellate Case: 91-6006 Document: 01019324085 Date Filed: 12/12/1991 Page: 4 
l~itations period from running. Cf. United States ex rel. Moody 

v. American Ins. Co., 835 F.2d 745, 747-48 (lOth Cir. 1987) 

(surety's actual notice of subcontractor's claim governed by 

~ller Act, 40 u.s.c. § 270b, sufficient even though subcontractor 

failed to send notice by registered mail as required by statute); 

Kitchens v. Bryan County Nat'l Bank, 825 F.2d 248, 255-56 (lOth 

Cir. 1987) (federal courts generally take permissive attitude 

toward mechanism employed to effect service of process under 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 4, when defendant receives actual notice). 

Mr. Pipkin commenced the present action on May 2, 1990. Even 

if we could assume that the first FTCA action, filed November 12, 

1988, and dismissed May 23, 1989, tolled the limitations period, 

but see Garrett v. United States, 640 F.2d 24, 26 (6th Cir. 1981) 

(relying on Kington v. United States, 396 F.2d 9, 10 (6th Cir.), 

cert. denied, 393 u.s. 960 (1968)), Mr. Pipkin commenced the 

current FTCA action well beyond six months after the denial of the 

grievance. He argues, however, that Okla. Stat. tit. 12, § 100 

extends the FTCA limitations period. That statute provides: 

If any action is commenced within due time, and a 

judgment thereon for the plaintiff is reversed, or if 

the plaintiff fail in such action otherwise than upon 

the merits, the plaintiff . • • may commence a new 

action within one (1) year after the reversal or failure 

although the time l~it for commencing the action shall 

have expired before the new action is filed. 

Okla. Stat. tit. 12, § 100. 

We do not agree that the state tolling provision in this case 

enlarges the time provided by Congress for filing a federal tort 

claim. The general rule is that a court looks to state law to 

define the time limitation applicable to a federal claim only when 

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Appellate Case: 91-6006 Document: 01019324085 Date Filed: 12/12/1991 Page: 5 
.• 

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"Congress has failed to provide a statute of limitations for a 

federal cause of action." Lamp£, Pleva, Lipkind. Prupis & 

Petigrow v. Gilbertson, 111 s. Ct. 2773, 2778 (1991). Statute 28 

u.s.c. § 2401(b) states that an FTCA claim "shall be forever 

barred unless • • • [the] action is begun within six months after 

the date of mailing • • • of final denial of the claim by the 

agency to which it was presented." Congress has expressly stated 

the applicable limitation period for FTCA claims and reference to 

state law is therefore inappropriate. While we recognize that 

equitable considerations may permit the extension of time limits 

on federal claims, Mr. Pipkin does not fall within the narrowly 

defined class of cases in which a federal statute of limitations 

is equitably tolled. See Irwin v. Veterans Admin., 111 s. Ct. 

453, 458 (1990) (equitable tolling doctrine may be applied to 

federal claims, but doctrine does not extend to a "garden variety 

claim of excusable neglect"). 

Our holding in this respect comports with precedent 

recognizing that the FTCA represents a waiver of the sovereign 

~unity of the United States, and, as such, must be strictly 

construed. Irwin, 111 s. Ct. at 456; Soriano v. United States, 

352 U.S. 270, 276 (1957); see United States v. Kubrick, 444 u.s. 

111, 117-18 (1979). In enacting the FTCA limitations period, 28 

u.s.c. § 2401(b), as a condition of that waiver, Congress struck a 

balance between providing a reasonable time for plaintiffs to 

present tort claims against the United States and preventing 

assertion of stale claims. See Kubrick, 444 u.s. at 117. Courts 

are not free to construe section 2401(b) so as to defeat that 

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Appellate Case: 91-6006 Document: 01019324085 Date Filed: 12/12/1991 Page: 6 
~ section's purpose of encouraging prompt presentation of claims 

against the federal government. Id. The limitations period is a 

meritorious defense that is itself in the public interest. Id. 

Therefore, in construing the FTCA's statute of limitations, courts 

should not extend that waiver beyond congressional intent. See 

Kubrick, 444 u.s. at 117-18; see also Anderberg v. United States, 

718 F.2d 976, 977 (lOth Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 466 u.s. 939 

(1984); cf. Lampf, 111 s. Ct. at 2782 (statute of limitations for 

lO(b) claims under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 not subject 

to equitable tolling because the doctrine is "fundamentally 

inconsistent" with the time limitations imposed by the Act). 

We hold that the Oklahoma saving provision is not applicable 

to the FTCA limitations period. Cf. Sexton v. United States, 832 

F.2d 629, 633 n.4 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (section 2401 must be 

interpreted by reference to federal law in deter.mining when claim 

accrues); Vega-Velez v. United States, 627 F. Supp. 773, 777 

(D.P.R.), aff'd, 800 F.2d 288 (1st Cir. 1986). Because Mr. Pipkin 

failed to commence his FTCA claims in a timely manner, the 

district court's order dismissing these claims was not erroneous. 

II. 

We must next decide whether the grievance and arbitration 

procedures available to Mr. Pipkin through the applicable 

collective bargaining agreement between the USPS and its employees 

preclude plaintiffs' Bivens claims. When Congress has acted to 

create a comprehensive statutory scheme to address a particular 

class of claims, the courts will not act to create additional 

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judicial remedies, see Schweiker v. Chilicky, 487 u.s. 412, 425-29 

(1988), even where a particular litigant does not have a remedy 

available under the statutory scheme, see id. at 425; United 

States v. Fausto, 484 u.s. 439, 455 (1988). This is particularly 

true in federal employment relationships, where Congress has 

provided a comprehensive civil service scheme to address disputes. 

See Bush v. Lucas, 462 u.s. 367, 368, 381-91 (1983); see also 

Brothers v. Custis, 886 F.2d 1282, 1283-85 (lOth Cir. 1989); Hill 

v. Department of Air Force, 884 F.2d 1318, 1320-21 (lOth Cir. 

1989). 

Congress expressly authorized the USPS to adopt comprehensive 

binding arbitration provisions in its collective bargaining 

agreements between the USPS and its employees. 39 u.s.c. 

§ 1206(b). The applicable collective bargaining agreement 

provided grievance procedures, including arbitration, to address 

plaintiffs' disputes arising from the employment relationship. 

Because Congress has provided a comprehensive procedure to address 

postal employees' constitutional claims arising from their 

employment relationship with the USPS, those arbitration 

procedures preclude plaintiffs' Bivens claims. Roman v. United 

States Postal Serv., 821 F.2d 382, 386 (7th Cir. 1987); McCollum 

v. Bolger, 794 F.2d 602, 607 (11th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 479 

u.s. 1034 (1987). 

The orders of the United States District Court for the 

Western District of Oklahoma are AFFIRMED. 

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