Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_09-cv-02634/USCOURTS-caed-2_09-cv-02634-3/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 480
Nature of Suit: Consumer Credit
Cause of Action: 15:1601 Truth in Lending

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

PAMELA PFITZER also known as No. 2:09-cv-02634-MCE-GGH

PAMELA EBERT,

Plaintiff,

v. MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

BENEFICIAL CALIFORNIA, INC.,

MANN BRACKEN, LLP; and Does 1-

10 inclusive

Defendants.

----oo0oo----

Through this action Plaintiff Pamela Pfitzer (“Plaintiff”)

sought monetary relief from Defendant Beneficial California, Inc.

(“Defendant”) for alleged violations of the federal Truth in

Lending Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq. On June 10, 2010, this

Court issued an Order (Docket No. 36) granting Defendant’s Motion

to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Second Amended Complaint without leave to

amend. Defendant was thereby terminated from the case.

Presently before the Court is Plaintiff’s Motion for

Reconsideration of the Court’s June 10, 2010 Order. For the

reasons set forth below, Plaintiff’s Motion is denied.

Case 2:09-cv-02634-MCE-AC Document 39 Filed 08/13/10 Page 1 of 8
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 The factual assertions in this section are based on the 1

allegations in Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint unless

otherwise specified.

2

BACKGROUND1

On August 21, 2006, Defendant mailed to Plaintiff a prescreened credit line offer of $8,000.00 with an initial check of

$7,000.00. Plaintiff entered into contract with Defendant, and

by 2008 the balance due on the credit line, including fees and

interest, was $9,551.53. 

Plaintiff alleges that Defendant failed to provide required

disclosures prior to the consummation of the transaction in

violation of the federal Truth in Lending Act (“TILA”), 15 U.S.C.

§ 1638(b). Specifically, Plaintiff alleges that Defendant failed

to provide such disclosures clearly and conspicuously in writing

as mandated by 15 U.S.C. § 1632(a), Defendant failed to properly

identify property subject to a security interest as mandated by

15 U.S.C. § 1638(a)(9), and that Defendant failed to advise

Plaintiff that in the event of a default, Defendant would record

a judgment against any property owned by Plaintiff. 

On March 19, 2010 this Court granted Defendant’s Motion to

Dismiss Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint (Docket No. 25) on

the grounds that Plaintiff’s TILA claim was time-barred and

Plaintiff had failed to demonstrate the due diligence necessary

to warrant an application of the equitable tolling doctrine. On

June 10, 2010, the Court granted Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss

Plaintiff’s Second Amended Complaint (Docket No. 36) on the

grounds that Plaintiff had again failed to exhibit due diligence. 

Case 2:09-cv-02634-MCE-AC Document 39 Filed 08/13/10 Page 2 of 8
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3

As it was Plaintiff’s third unsuccessful attempt to state a claim

against Defendant, the Court did not permit leave to amend and

directed the Clerk to terminate Defendant.

STANDARD

Motions for relief from judgment pursuant to Rule 60(b) are

addressed to the sound discretion of the district court. Casey

v. Albertson's Inc., 362 F.3d 1254, 1257 (9th Cir. 2004). A

court should be loathe to revisit its own decisions unless

extraordinary circumstances show that its prior decision was

clearly erroneous. Christianson v. Colt Indus. Operating Corp.,

486 U.S. 800, 816, 108 S. Ct. 2166 (1988). This principle is

generally embodied in the law of the case doctrine. That

doctrine counsels against reopening questions once resolved in

ongoing litigation. Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe of Indians v.

Hodel, 882 F.2d 364, 369 (9th Cir. 1989). Nonetheless, under

certain limited circumstances, the court has discretion to

reconsider its prior decisions. 

Pursuant to Local Rules, a motion for reconsideration must

set forth the material facts and circumstances surrounding the

motion, including: (1) what new or different facts or

circumstances are claimed to exist which did not exist or were

not shown upon such prior motion, or what other grounds exist for

the motion and (2) why the facts or circumstances were not shown

at the time of the prior motion. E.D. Cal. L.R. 230(j).

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Case 2:09-cv-02634-MCE-AC Document 39 Filed 08/13/10 Page 3 of 8
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4

A motion for reconsideration is treated as a Rule 59(e)

motion if filed within ten days of entry of judgment, but as a

Rule 60(b) motion if filed more than ten days after judgment. 

See Am. Ironworks & Erectors Inc. v. N. Am. Constr. Corp.,

248 F.3d 892, 898-99 (9th Cir. 2001). Since this motion is

seeking reconsideration of a final disposition of claims against

Defendant and was filed more than ten days after final

disposition, the Court will treat it as a Rule 60(b) motion.

Rule 60(b) enumerates the grounds upon which a motion for

relief from an order or judgment may be made. It specifies that:

On motion and upon such terms as are just, the

court may relieve a party or a party’s legal

representative from a final judgment, order, or

proceeding for the following reasons: (1) mistake,

inadvertence, surprise or excusable neglect; (2) newly

discovered evidence which by due diligence could not

have been discovered before the court’s decision; (3)

fraud by the adverse party; (4) the judgment is void;

(5) the judgment has been satisfied; or (6) any other

reason justifying relief.

Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 60(b). Mere dissatisfaction with the court's

order, or belief that the court is wrong in its decision, are not

grounds for relief under Rule 60(b).

ANALYSIS

Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration fails to identify any

newly discovered evidence or intervening case law to warrant

reconsideration by the Court. 

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5

Rather, Plaintiff stands on the same failed grounds as her

oppositions to the prior two motions to dismiss, arguing that the

Court’s holding would require her to be “psychic” in order to

discover Defendant’s non-disclosures within the statute of

limitations and without the application of equitable tolling. 

Plaintiff complains that “[u]sing the Court’s logic, [Plaintiff]

would have needed to file her lawsuit at a relatively short

period of time in which the contract took place even though there

had been no breach, therefore no damages in the case, and prior

to the discovery of any wrongfulness by [Defendant].”

If Plaintiff takes issue with time allotted to bring a claim

for damages under TILA, then her redress is not with the courts

but with the Congress. Pursuant to TILA, 15 U.S.C. § 1640(e), a

plaintiff may only file suit for damages under TILA “within one

year from the date of the occurrence of the violation.” The

“date of occurrence” is the date the transaction is consummated. 

See Walker v. Washington Mutual Bank FA, 63 F. App'x. 316, 317

(9th Cir. 2003). Here, Plaintiff entered into contract with

Defendant on about August 21, 2006, but did not file suit until

August 7, 2009, almost three years later. By definition,

Plaintiff’s claim falls outside of time constraints set forth by

Congress.

As a limited and extraordinary exception to this statutory

mandate, the Ninth Circuit has held that the doctrine of

equitable tolling may, in appropriate situations, be applied to

suspend the limitations period in a TILA action if doing so would 

effectuate the congressional purpose of the Truth-in-Lending Act. 

King v. State of California, 784 F.2d 910, 915 (1986). 

Case 2:09-cv-02634-MCE-AC Document 39 Filed 08/13/10 Page 5 of 8
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6

In determining justifiable application of the equitable tolling

doctrine, a court “focuses on excusable delay by the plaintiff,” 

Johnson v. Henderson, 314 F.3d 409, 414 (9th Cir. 2002), which is

limited to circumstances in which a Plaintiff has shown

“fraudulent conduct by the defendant resulting in concealment of

the operative facts, failure of the plaintiff to discover the

operative facts that are the basis of its cause of action within

the limitations period, and due diligence by the plaintiff until

discovery of those facts.” Federal Election Com'n v. Williams,

104 F.3d 237, 240-41 (9th Cir. 1996).

The Court has now twice indicated to Plaintiff that the

facts, as alleged, have failed to meet this specified standard.

The Ninth Circuit has denied application of the equitable tolling

doctrine where “nothing prevented [the plaintiff] from comparing

the loan contract, [the lender’s] initial disclosure, and TILA’s

statutory and regulatory requirements.” Hubbard v. Fidelity

Federal Bank, 91 F.3d 75, 79 (1996). As in Hubbard, Plaintiff

could have readily compared her loan contract with TILA

requirements within the applicable statute of limitations. The

fact that Plaintiff may not have been aware of the relevant TILA

provisions is non-dispositive; rather, the touchstone is whether

Plaintiff made some cognizable attempt to inquire into the

details of her loan and whether Defendant actively rebuffed her

efforts through fraudulent concealment of facts. Here, Plaintiff

has repeatedly failed to indicate what circumstances, if any,

prevented her from discovering the nondisclosures within the oneyear statute of limitations period granted by Congress. 

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Case 2:09-cv-02634-MCE-AC Document 39 Filed 08/13/10 Page 6 of 8
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7

Nothing in Plaintiff’s Motion presents new facts as to

warrant the rarely granted relief requested. Nor has Plaintiff

presented any new case law which would suggest that the burden

Plaintiff was required to meet is any less stringent than as

applied here. 

Plaintiff’s Motion also challenges the Court striking her

Surreply which she filed without leave of Court in response to

Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Second Amended

Complaint. She states, “[i]f the only issue is seeking

permission, Plaintiff now seeks permission.” Plaintiff

additionally argues that any claims against Defendant should have

been stayed until the case was resolved as to co-defendant Mann

Bracken. As the debt collector in this case, Plaintiff argues

that Mann Bracken served as Defendant’s agent and therefore

parties might share in certain liabilities.

However, if Plaintiff wished to file a surreply or stay the

case, it was incumbent upon her to do so in compliance with Local

Rules and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Both of these

actions required proper procedure to be initiated by Plaintiff,

not by the Court.

Finally, Plaintiff’s Motion concludes by blaming the

shortcomings of Plaintiff’s pleadings on the “young and new

attorney supervised by a senior paralegal” who apparently drafted

the original documents. According to Plaintiff the “young man

who made the error no longer is employed with the firm.” 

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8

While Plaintiff’s Counsel does acknowledge that “the buck stops

with the person signing the complaint,” Counsel still asks that

the Court reconsider its refusal to grant leave to amend in light

of the mistakes previously made.

The Court does not lokk favorably upon Counsel’s use of his

staff as a scapegoat for the pitfalls of Plaintiff’s Complaint. 

Regardless of who may pen a document, the signing attorney is the

one responsible for the work product submitted to the Court and

no allowances will be made for drafting decisions made

internally. Plaintiff’s excuses not only fail to warrant

equitable tolling, and fail to warrant reconsideration, but also

fail to exhibit the requisite professionalism expected by this

Court.

Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration (Docket No. 37) is

hereby DENIED.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: August 12, 2010

_____________________________

MORRISON C. ENGLAND, JR.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Case 2:09-cv-02634-MCE-AC Document 39 Filed 08/13/10 Page 8 of 8