Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca1-16-01402/USCOURTS-ca1-16-01402-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Errol Holloway
Appellant
United States
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

No. 16-1402 

ERROL HOLLOWAY, 

Plaintiff, Appellant, 

v. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Defendant, Appellee. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS 

[Hon. Mark G. Mastroianni, U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Lynch, Selya, and Thompson, 

Circuit Judges. 

Thomas M. Libbos, Katherine L. Lamondia-Wrinkle, and Thomas 

M. Libbos PC on brief for appellant. 

Carmen M. Ortiz, United States Attorney, and Karen L. Goodwin, 

Assistant United States Attorney, on brief for appellee. 

January 11, 2017 

Case: 16-1402 Document: 00117103300 Page: 1 Date Filed: 01/11/2017 Entry ID: 6061014
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THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. 

Preface

Errol Holloway appeals the grant of summary judgment to 

the United States in this action under the Federal Tort Claims Act 

("FTCA"). Spying no reversible error, we affirm. 

How the Case Got Here1

We reconstruct the chronology of events giving rise to 

this litigation: 

 June 22, 2012. Holloway is injured while receiving treatment 

at Caring Health Center, Inc., a federally funded healthcare 

facility in Springfield, Massachusetts. 

 April 8, 2014. Holloway — through his lawyer — files an 

administrative claim with the Department of Health and Human 

Services ("HHS"), using a Standard Form 95 ("SF 95"). But he 

fails to fill out the box for a sum certain. Text in that 

box warns that "[f]ailure to specify may cause forfeiture of 

your rights." Elsewhere the form — occasionally using 

boldface, underlining, and capitalized text — says that he 

had to provide a sum certain for the claim to be considered 

"presented," that he had "two years" to present the claim, 

 1 We summarize the background facts in the light most 

agreeable to Holloway, as required on de novo review of a summaryjudgment ruling. See Baltodano v. Merck, Sharp, & Dohme (I.A.) 

Corp., 637 F.3d 38, 41 (1st Cir. 2011). 

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and that "[f]ailure to completely execute this form or to 

supply the requested material within two years from the date 

the claim accrued may render your claim invalid." 

 April 17, 2014. HHS acknowledges receiving Holloway's SF 95 

and requests medical records, itemized bills, evidence of 

lost wages, and the like. 

 June 25, 2014. More than two years after the incident at 

Caring Health Center, Holloway's lawyer submits medical 

bills, employment records, and other documents. 

 August 14, 2014. A paralegal in the HHS general counsel's 

office calls Holloway's attorney, mentions the missing sum 

certain, and asks counsel to submit an amended SF 95 with the 

required sum certain. HHS then gets an amended form 

requesting a sum certain in the amount of $3,000,000 for 

personal injuries. 

 August 21, 2014. HHS denies Holloway's claim, saying "[t]he 

evidence fails to establish that the alleged injuries were 

due to the negligent or wrongful act or omission of a federal 

employee acting within the scope of employment." 

An unhappy Holloway sued the United States in federal 

court in February 2015, seeking damages under the FTCA. Convinced 

that Holloway's failure to provide a timely sum-certain demand 

deprived the court of jurisdiction, the United States moved to 

dismiss the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Holloway 

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responded with a double-pronged argument: first, that he timely 

presented his claim because his submissions satisfied HHS's 

investigatory needs; second, and alternatively, that the 

limitations period should be tolled. The district judge referred 

the motion to a magistrate judge. 

After noting that the Supreme Court had recently held 

that the FTCA's limitations period is nonjurisdictional and 

subject to equitable tolling, see United States v. Kwai Fun Wong, 

135 S. Ct. 1625, 1638 (2015), the magistrate judge treated the 

motion as one for summary judgment and recommended that judgment 

enter for the United States. Her reasoning ran this way. For 

starters, she concluded that Holloway had neither timely specified 

a sum certain nor timely provided documents from which "such a sum 

could be ascertained" and so had not properly presented his claim 

to HHS. And then she found that nothing that took place here 

qualified as extraordinary circumstances meriting equitable 

tolling, particularly since Holloway conceded that he did have 

constructive or actual knowledge of the filing requirements. 

Holloway objected, attacking only the magistrate judge's 

untimeliness conclusion. Agreeing that Holloway "did not timely 

satisfy" the FTCA's requirements, the district judge later adopted 

the magistrate judge's recommendation on de novo review. 

Which brings us to today, with Holloway asking us to 

reverse and send the matter to trial. But before tackling his 

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many arguments, we pause to give a quick tutorial on the relevant 

aspects of the FTCA. 

The FTCA 

The FTCA waives sovereign immunity for certain tortious 

acts and omissions of federal employees. See 28 U.S.C. 

§§ 1346(b)(1), 2674. And like other sovereign-immunity waivers, 

the FTCA gets a strict reading. See, e.g., Donahue v. United 

States, 634 F.3d 615, 622 (1st Cir. 2011). What that means is 

that judges "must faithfully enforce" the FTCA's "requirements, 

neither 'extend[ing] the waiver beyond that which Congress 

intended [nor assuming] authority to narrow the waiver.'" Id. 

(quoting United States v. Kubrick, 444 U.S. 111, 118 (1979)). 

A key FTCA requirement is that a person cannot sue under 

it unless he first presents his "claim" to the relevant 

administrative agency "within two years after such claim accrues" 

— failure to present a claim within that period "forever bar[s]" 

the claim. 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b). An essential element of a claim 

is "notification of the incident," via "an executed" SF 95 or 

"other written" document, "accompanied by" a demand "for money 

damages in a sum certain." See 28 C.F.R. § 14.2(a) (emphasis 

added). The purpose behind the sum-certain requirement is to tip 

the government off as to its "possible liability" so that it can 

"'investigate the alleged negligent episode'" to see "'if 

settlement would be in the best interests of all.'" Coska v. 

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United States, 114 F.3d 319, 322 (1st Cir. 1997) (quoting CorteReal v. United States, 949 F.2d 484, 486 (1st Cir. 1991), in turn 

quoting Lopez v. United States, 758 F.2d 806, 809 (1st Cir. 1985)); 

see also Reilly v. United States, 863 F.2d 149, 173 (1st Cir. 1988) 

(noting that "[t]he goal of the administrative claim requirement 

is to let the government know what it is likely up against: 

mandating that a claimant propound a definite monetary demand 

ensures that '[t]he government will at all relevant times be aware 

of its maximum possible exposure to liability and will be in a 

position to make intelligent settlement decisions'" (quoting 

Martinez v. United States, 780 F.2d 525, 530 (5th Cir. 1986))). 

And because the FTCA ties "both the authority to settle a claim 

and the source of settlement funds to the amount of the underlying 

claim,"2 not having a sum certain obviously makes it harder for 

the government to determine the claim's value and to "handl[e]" 

the claim "efficiently." Kokotis, 223 F.3d at 279. 

Having said all this, we must acknowledge that we 

"approach[] the notice requirement leniently, 'recognizing that 

 2 "[C]laims of $2,500 or less," for example, "can be settled 

on the authority of '[t]he head of each Federal agency or his 

designee' and are paid 'out of appropriations available to that 

agency'"; "[c]laims of between $2,500 and $25,000 can be settled 

on the same authority, but are paid out of a separate 

appropriation"; and "claims in excess of $25,000 can only be 

settled 'with the prior written approval of the Attorney General 

or his designee.'" Kokotis v. USPS, 223 F.3d 275, 279 (4th Cir. 

2000) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2672). 

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individuals wishing to sue the government must comply with the 

details of the law, but also keeping in mind that the law was not 

intended to put up a barrier of technicalities to defeat their 

claims.'" Santiago–Ramírez v. Sec'y of Dept. of Def., 984 F.2d 

16, 19 (1st Cir. 1993) (quoting Lopez, 758 F.2d at 809). Perhaps 

that is why our cases suggest that the failure to specify a sum 

certain on the SF 95 may not be fatal if the claimant provides 

documents (e.g., medical bills) that "lend" themselves "to 

determination of a sum certain or even an approximate total of 

damages claimed." See Kokaras v. United States, 980 F.2d 20, 22 

(1st Cir. 1992); see also Coska, 114 F.3d at 323 (noting that "[i]t 

is the information available rather than the form in which it is 

presented that is crucial," but finding dismissal of plaintiff's 

claim appropriate where (among other things) "there was essential 

information missing from the packet and the letters" submitted 

there, "namely, the amount of damages being sought from the United 

States"). 

With this legal primer in place, we turn to the 

particulars of Holloway's challenges. 

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Arguments and Analysis3

Conceding — as he must — that his SF 95 did not include 

a sum certain, Holloway raises several arguments for reversal. 

None has merit, as the United States is quick to point out. 

Quoting Santiago–Ramírez's language about our taking a 

"lenient" view of the FTCA's claim-presentment requirements, 

Holloway argues first that we should reverse the lower court's 

untimeliness ruling because his sum-certain omission was (emphasis 

his) "inadvertent": as he sees things, an inadvertent omission — 

in and of itself — excuses him from having to satisfy the sumcertain requirement. But the cases of ours that he talks about — 

Kokaras and Corte-Real, for example — do not support his argument. 

The Kokaras plaintiffs filed an SF 95 with the United 

States Post Office following a collision with a mail truck. See 

980 F.2d at 21. In box A of the form, labeled "Property Damage," 

plaintiffs wrote "$2,906.61" and in box B, labeled "Personal 

Injury," they wrote "to be determined." Id. They left box C, 

labeled "Total," blank. Id. Later — but still within the two-

 3 Keep in mind, please, that we give fresh review to the grant 

of summary judgment, affirming if — after giving Holloway the 

benefit of all reasonable inferences in the record — there is no 

"genuine dispute" of "material fact" and the United States "is 

entitled to judgment as a matter of law." See Fed. R. Civ. P. 

56(a); Tutor Perini Corp. v. Banc Am. Sec. LLC, 842 F.3d 71, 84 

(1st Cir. 2016). 

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year statute of limitations — they hired a lawyer who, during 

unsuccessful settlement talks, handed over medical records and 

bills. Id. Ultimately, we upheld the dismissal of the personalinjury claim, holding that plaintiffs did not timely state a sum 

certain — "[n]owhere on form SF 95 is a sum certain for the personal 

injuries stated," we wrote. Id. at 22-23. We also held that they 

did not timely provide the agency with documents with enough info 

to otherwise satisfy the sum-certain requirement (we did let the 

property-damages claim proceed because their SF 95 did specify a 

sum certain). Id. 

The Corte-Real plaintiff filed an SF 95 that had 

"$100,000 plus because still treating and out of work" written in 

the box requiring him to state the dollar amount attributable to 

his personal injury. See 949 F.2d at 485. But he wrote "$100,000" 

— without any qualifying language — in the box requiring him to 

list the total dollar amount of his claims. Id. Emphasizing "the 

importance and absolute necessity of adher[ing] to the sum certain 

requirement," we said: 

Where as here a claim clearly states a specific sum and 

meets the sum certain requirement in all respects but 

for concern over the possible detraction of improper 

surplusage of this insubstantial variety, we see no 

reason not to strike the surplusage rather than the claim 

itself. 

Id. at 486-87. 

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From all of this it is clear that Holloway's talk about 

inadvertent omissions is a distraction: Kokaras and Corte-Real 

whisper no hint of a suggestion that their outcomes turned on 

whether the plaintiffs accidently or intentionally failed to fill 

in the sum-certain box. As always in this type of case — given 

the FTCA's goal of efficiently handling claims and our desire not 

to promote "bureaucratic overkill," see Corte-Real, 949 F.2d at 

486 — what matters is whether the plaintiff timely specified a sum 

certain on the SF 95 or otherwise timely provided documents from 

which a sum certain could be ascertained. And keeping our eyes 

firmly fixed on that standard, we trudge on.4

Perhaps sensing the grave problem with his inadvertentomission argument, Holloway fashions a fallback position — namely, 

that despite his accidently omitting a sum certain from his SF 95, 

HHS's "investigatory needs were satisfied" in the end and so 

dismissal on timeliness grounds was not called for. To give his 

position a patina of plausibility, he contends that the documents 

he provided in response to HHS's request disclosed "enough" 

information to satisfy the sum-certain requirement and thus he 

 4 After marching us through our caselaw, Holloway insists that 

other "circuit courts" have "refused to order dismissal" in 

"factually analogous situations." But he does not point to a 

single case from another circuit court to back up his statement. 

So we consider his other-circuits-support-my-position argument 

waived for lack of development. See United States v. Zannino, 895 

F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990). 

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should be deemed to have fully complied with his FTCA obligations. 

More, he believes that HHS's rejection of his FTCA claim "on the 

merits" shows that he in no way crippled "the agency's 

investigatory purpose." Call us unconvinced. 

As for the "documents" facet of Holloway's argument, we 

see two problems. One is that he submitted those papers after the 

limitations period had run. The other is that those documents — 

like the documents considered insufficient in Coska and Kokotis — 

lack the necessary info to calculate a sum certain. The magistrate 

judge here did a fine job of listing the documents' shortcomings. 

"Plaintiff's medical bills," she wrote (as a for-instance), "d[o] 

not consistently identify the service provided, the total cost of 

the service, the amount of the cost covered by insurance, or the 

amount of the cost covered by Plaintiff," and "the employment 

records" contain no "indication as to the amount in lost wages 

Plaintiff might be claiming." Our own review of the records leads 

us to the same conclusion. If more were needed — and it plainly 

is not — Holloway's brief spends no time trying to explain away 

the flaws spotlighted below. And we will not do counsel's work 

for them. See Ondine Shipping Corp. v. Cataldo, 24 F.3d 353, 356 

(1st Cir. 1994). 

As for the "merits" facet of Holloway's argument, we 

note that even if HHS had enough info to conclude that a federal 

employee's negligence did not cause his injuries, all of HHS's 

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investigatory needs were not satisfied without a sum certain. 

Remember, a sum certain helps the appropriate decisionmakers to 

decide whether settlement is the best option and, if it is, to 

also determine where to get the settlement funds from. See, e.g., 

Coska, 114 F.3d at 322; Reilly, 863 F.2d at 173. Holloway's brief 

does not say anything about these important needs. 

Taking a different tack, Holloway argues that, if 

nothing else, HHS misled him into thinking that its investigatory 

needs were satisfied and so the United States should not have been 

allowed to seek dismissal on timeliness grounds. But this argument 

has no oomph. Recall how the SF 95 let him know — as plain as day 

— that he had two years to present his claim, that for a claim to 

be considered presented a sum-certain dollar amount had to be 

included, and that he may forfeit his rights by failing to comply. 

Recall too how our caselaw highlights how important a timelystated sum certain is. Well, Holloway makes no effort to explain 

how his theory about being misled can fly given the clarity of the 

SF 95 and our caselaw. Cf. United States v. Dwyer, 843 F.2d 60, 

64 (1st Cir. 1988) (emphasizing that courts "publish" opinions "so 

that future lawyers" will "know the law"). Also and critically, 

because (as we just said) he does not address all of the agency's 

important investigatory needs, he never explains how any HHS action 

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implied that these needs had been met here — which further 

undermines his I-was-misled argument.5

 In a parting shot, Holloway argues that he is entitled 

to equitable tolling of the FTCA's limitations period. But he did 

not raise this argument in his objection to the magistrate judge's 

recommended decision. And our waiver rule bars any consideration 

of this issue. See Sch. Union No. 37 v. United Nat'l Ins. Co., 

617 F.3d 554, 564 (1st Cir. 2010). 

Conclusion 

For the reasons expressed above, we affirm the judgment 

entered below. 

 5 Holloway's argument kind of sort of has a whiff of equitable 

estoppel — a "doctrine . . . used sparingly against the 

government." United States v. Ledée, 772 F.3d 21, 29 (1st Cir. 

2014); see also Nagle v. Acton–Boxborough Reg'l Sch. Dist., 576 

F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 2009) (explaining that "under federal 

precedent, governments in the past have not been subject to 

estoppel or, more recently, have been held not subject to estoppel, 

save [in] exceptional situations that we have called 'hen's-teeth 

rare'" (quoting Costa v. INS, 233 F.3d 31, 38 (1st Cir. 2000))). 

But he does not develop the equitable-estoppel point, meaning any 

such argument is waived. See Zannino, 895 F.2d at 17. 

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