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17-1071 

Bryant v. Broad. Music Inc., et al. 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY 

ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF 

APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT=S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER 

IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN 

ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION ASUMMARY ORDER@). A PARTY CITING TO A SUMMARY 

ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL. 

 At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 

held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of 

New York, on the 9th day of May, two thousand eighteen. 

PRESENT: 

JOHN M. WALKER, JR., 

DENNIS JACOBS,

 Circuit Judges,

KATHERINE B. FORREST,*

District Judge. 

_____________________________________ 

Anne Bryant, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 17-1071 

Broadcast Music Inc., Hasbro Inc., 

DBA Starwild Music Inc., DBA Wildstar 

Music Inc., 

 Defendants-Appellees, 

John Does, 2-10, Jane Does, 2-10, 

ABC Corporations, 1-10, Thomas L Griffin, Jr., 

 

* Judge Katherine B. Forrest, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New 

York, sitting by designation.
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"Tom", William M. Dobishinski, "Bill", 

Commisioner of Social Security Admnistration, 

 Defendants. 

_____________________________________ 

FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT: Anne Bryant, pro se, Stonypoint, NY. 

FOR BROADCAST MUSIC INC.: James C. Fitzpatrick, Hughes Hubbard & Reed 

LLP, New York, NY. 

FOR HASBRO INC.: Sandra A. Crawshaw-Sparks, Russell T. Gorkin, 

Evelyn Yue Pang, Proskauer Rose LLP, New 

York, NY. 

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of 

New York (Swain, J.). 

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND 

DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED and Appellant’s motion for 

reconsideration of the denial of her request for oral argument is DENIED. 

Appellant Anne Bryant, pro se, appeals from the judgment of the District Court for the 

Southern District of New York dismissing her various tort and conspiracy claims against Broadcast 

Music Inc. (“BMI”) and Hasbro. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, 

procedural history, and issues on appeal. 

 

Bryant, a composer, has registered musical works with BMI since the 1980s, with Hasbro 

serving as her publisher. Hasbro retained William Dobishinski, a lawyer, to register Bryant’s 

works with BMI, collect her royalties, and distribute those royalties to her. Bryant’s 2014 suit 

alleges that due to a clerical error by BMI in recording her Social Security Number (“SSN”), none 

of her income was properly recorded or credited to her account between 1985 and 1992. She 

further alleges that beginning in 1990, many of her works were misattributed to other composers, 

that in 1989 Dobishinski forged a power of attorney form by which he withheld a large share of 

her royalties, and that as a result of the failure to credit her royalties to her SSN, she lost track of 

her finances and was unable to uncover the various frauds until 2013. 

Bryant alleges negligence and fraudulent concealment by BMI based on its failure to 

correct her SSN and its misattribution of her work; fraud against Hasbro for the lost royalties from 
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1985 to 1992, and conversion based on the misattribution of her work; and a conspiracy by BMI 

and Hasbro to commit those torts. The district court dismissed her claims as time-barred. 

We review de novo the dismissal of a complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), accepting all 

factual allegations as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in plaintiff’s favor. Biro v. Condé 

Nast, 807 F.3d 541, 544 (2d Cir. 2015). The complaint must plead “enough facts to state a claim 

to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007); see 

also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). Although a court must accept as true all the 

factual allegations in the complaint, that requirement is “inapplicable to legal conclusions.” Iqbal, 

556 U.S. at 678. 

 “Although the statute of limitations is ordinarily an affirmative defense that must be raised 

in the answer, a statute of limitations defense may be decided on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion if the 

defense appears on the face of the complaint.” Ellul v. Congregation of Christian Bros., 744 F.3d 

791, 798 n.12 (2d Cir. 2014). The New York state statute of limitations governs this diversity 

action. Stuart v. Am. Cyanamid Co., 158 F.3d 622, 626 (2d Cir. 1998). 

 Under New York law, negligence claims are subject to a three-year statute of limitations. 

See N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 214(5). A negligence claim accrues “when the claim becomes enforceable, 

i.e., when all elements of the tort can be truthfully alleged in a complaint,” and has historically 

been the time of the plaintiff’s injury. Snyder v. Town Insulation, Inc., 81 N.Y.2d 429, 432-33 

(1993); see Syms v. Olin Corp., 408 F.3d 95, 109 (2d Cir. 2005). It accrues notwithstanding a 

plaintiff’s ignorance of or failure to discover the injury. Kronos, Inc. v. AVX Corp., 81 N.Y.2d 

90, 94 (1993) (The date of injury, “rather than . . . discovery of the injury by the plaintiff, is the 

relevant date for marking accrual.”). Bryant’s complaint alleged that BMI’s negligent record 

keeping prevented her from collecting her full royalties from 1985 until 1992. Thus, her claim 

accrued in 1992 and became untimely no later than 1995. 

Bryant invokes the continuing wrong doctrine, arguing that she continued to be denied 

royalties for the misattributed works. Under that doctrine, a series of continuing wrongs may toll 

the period of limitations until the commission of the last wrongful act. Henry v. Bank of Am., 147 

A.D.3d 599, 601 (1st Dep’t 2017) (citing Selkirk v. State, 249 A.D.2d 818, 819 (3d Dep’t 1998)). 

However, “[t]he doctrine ‘may only be predicated on continuing unlawful acts and not on the 

continuing effects of earlier unlawful conduct. The distinction is between a single wrong that has 

continuing effects and a series of independent, distinct wrongs.’” Id. (quoting Doukas v. Ballard, 

No. 9267-11, 2013 WL 2129137 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. May 1, 2013) (unpublished)). The doctrine is 

“inapplicable where there is one tortious act complained of since the cause of action accrues in 

those cases at the time that the wrongful act first injured plaintiff and it does not change as a result 

of ‘continuing consequential damages.’” Id. (quoting Town of Oyster Bay v. Lizza Indus., Inc., 

22 N.Y.3d 1024, 1032 (2013)). Bryant’s claim is predicated on BMI’s failure to note that her 

work was misattributed in 1985, and does not assert a negligent acts after 1985. Accordingly, the 

continuing wrong doctrine is inapplicable; the claim became enforceable in 1990 when she was 

injured; and it expired three years later in 1993. 
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The New York statute of limitations for fraud claims is six years, or two years from the 

time the plaintiff discovered or could have discovered the fraud. Sargiss v. Magarelli, 12 N.Y.3d 

527, 532 (2009). Bryant argues that BMI fraudulently concealed the fact that it had been using 

an incorrect SSN, and that Dobishinski defrauded her by accepting royalties credited to an 

incorrect SSN. Her claims thus arose solely out of the use of an incorrect SSN for her royalties 

from 1985 until 1992. Bryant argues that the statute of limitations was tolled because, even with 

due diligence, she could not have identified the fraud before 2013. But Bryant also alleges that 

she received a letter from BMI explaining that her SSN in its records was incorrect in 1991. She 

was therefore on notice of the wrong, and able to identify the alleged tortious conduct, as of that 

date. In addition, her complaint alleged that she was able to determine the withholding of her 

royalties by examining a tax assessment from 1992. No reason appears why she was unable to 

review this document and reach this conclusion until 2013. Accordingly, her fraudulent 

concealment and fraud claims based on the SSN error are barred by the statute of limitations. 

 

Bryant also asserts a claim of fraudulent concealment against BMI for its failure to disclose 

the misattribution of her work. However, her second amended complaint alleges that she stopped 

receiving certain royalties in 1990. She was thus on notice of this claim at that time. In any 

event, state court records attached to Bryant’s complaint reveal she was aware of the misattribution 

in 2001. The statute of limitations therefore expired well before she commenced this action. 

Because the underlying fraudulent concealment claims are meritless, Bryant’s conspiracy claims 

premised on the substantive tort of fraudulent concealment also fail. See Schlotthauer v. Sanders, 

153 A.D.2d 731, 732 (2d Dep’t 1989) (“[C]onspiracy is not an independent tort, and is time barred 

when the substantive tort underlying it is time-barred.”). 

Bryant’s conversion claim concerning Dobishinki’s retention of her royalties and her 

“copyright as conversion” claim regarding the misattribution of her work are also time-barred. 

Under New York law, the statute of limitations for a claim of conversion is three years. See N.Y. 

C.P.L.R. § 214(3). The period begins to run from the time of the tort, rather than from the time 

of discovery. Vigilant Ins. Co. of Am. v. Housing Auth. of City of El Paso, Tex., 87 N.Y.2d 36, 

44 (1995). Bryant’s conversion claim based on unpaid royalties accrued in 1992 because she 

alleged no additional tortious conduct by Dobishinski after that year. Her conversion claim based 

on Dobishinski’s misattribution of her work accrued in 1990, when she stopped receiving royalties 

due to the misattribution. As discussed above, the continuing wrong doctrine is inapplicable in 

the case of a single tortious act, even one that produces continuing damages. See Henry, 147 

A.D.3d at 601. The statute of limitations for Bryant’s conversion claims against Hasbro for 

misattribution and retention of royalties therefore expired in 1993 and 1995, respectively. 

Lastly, Bryant’s motion for reconsideration of the denial of oral argument is meritless. 

We may decline to hear oral argument after reviewing the record and the parties’ briefs, and our 

decision to do so here was appropriate. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). 
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We have considered Bryant’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. 

Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court and DENY Appellant’s motion for 

reconsideration of the denial of her request for oral argument. 

FOR THE COURT: 

Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court