PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

_____________

No. 12-2646

_____________

ROBERT LASSITER,

 Appellant

v.

CITY OF PHILADELPHIA; THOMAS PRESS, 

Managing Investigator of the City of Philadelphia 

First Judicial District of Pennsylvania (FJDP) Warrant Unit; 

POLICE OFFICER EDWARD OLEYN, Badge #2621; 

POLICE OFFICER NICK COCO, Badge #4464

 

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

(D. C. No. 2-11-cv-03397)

District Judge: Honorable Stewart Dalzell

Submitted under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

on March 7, 2013
2

Before: SCIRICA, JORDAN and ROTH, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed May 15, 2013)

Alan E. Denenberg, Esq.

Abramson & Denenberg

1315 Walnut Street

12th Floor

Philadelphia, PA 19107,

Counsel for Appellant

Eleanor N. Ewing

City of Philadelphia Law Department

1515 Arch Street, 17th Floor

Philadelphia, PA 19102,

Counsel for Appellees

O P I N I O N 

ROTH, Circuit Judge:

Robert Lassiter appeals the District Court’s grant of 

defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings under 
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Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c). For the reasons that 

follow, we will affirm the order of the District Court.

I. Background

On May 25, 2011, Lassiter filed a complaint alleging, 

inter alia, Fourth Amendment violations for excessive force 

and false arrest. The complaint stated that the incident giving 

rise to Lassiter’s cause of action took place on May 22, 2009. 

On August 2, 2011, defendants filed an answer asserting six 

affirmative defenses. However, defendants did not raise the

two-year statute of limitations as a defense. 

The parties appeared before the District Court for a 

Rule 16 pretrial conference on September 20, 2011. During 

the conference, without being prompted by either party, the 

District Court observed that the statute of limitations 

appeared to have expired but that defendants failed to raise 

the issue in their answer. Defendants’ counsel acknowledged 

that they had missed this issue. The District Court then 

suggested that defendants could amend their answer and, in a 

scheduling order, invited defendants to advise the court as to 

“how this matter should proceed.”

After the pretrial conference, defendants sought leave 

to file an amended answer. On February 23, 2012, the 

District Court granted the motion over Lassiter’s opposition. 

Defendants then filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, 

seeking dismissal of the complaint due to the expiration of the 

statute of limitations. On May 29, 2012, the District Court 

granted defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings 

and dismissed the complaint as time barred. Lassiter 

appealed.
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II. Discussion1

Lassiter raises three issues on appeal. First, he argues 

that the District Court improperly raised the statute of 

limitations issue sua sponte at the Rule 16 conference. His 

second claim of error is that, because the statute of limitations 

issue was raised improperly, the District Court erroneously 

granted defendants leave to file the amended answer. Third, 

Lassiter posits that, given these two errors, the District Court 

should not have granted defendants’ motion for judgment on 

the pleadings. Because we hold that the District Court had 

the authority to raise the statute of limitations issue during the 

Rule 16 conference, we need not address Lassiter’s second 

and third arguments.

Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 

contemplates that a trial court should assume an “active 

managerial role” in the litigation process to expedite the 

efficient disposition of a case. Phillips v. Allegheny Cnty., 

869 F.2d 234, 239 (3d Cir. 1989). At a Rule 16 conference, a 

district court “may consider and take appropriate action” on a 

broad variety of topics, including “formulating and 

simplifying the issues, and eliminating frivolous claims or 

defenses[.]” Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(c)(2)(A). Indeed, the notes to 

Rule 16(c) state that the rule was drafted to “clarify and 

 

1 Questions of law—including the scope of a district court’s 

authority under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure—are 

subject to plenary review. Pfizer Inc. v. Uprichard, 422 F.3d 

124, 129 (3d Cir. 2005). The District Court had subject 

matter jurisdiction over this case under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and

42 U.S.C. § 1983. We have appellate jurisdiction under 28 

U.S.C. § 1291.
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confirm the court’s power to identify the litigable issues . . . in 

the hope of promoting efficiency and conserving judicial 

resources by identifying the real issues prior to trial, thereby 

saving time and expense for everyone.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 16 

Advisory Comm. Notes to 1983 Amendment, Subdivision (c) 

(emphasis added) (citing Meadow Gold Prods. Co v. Wright, 

278 F.2d 867 (D.C. Cir. 1960)). 

Consistent with the text and the Advisory Committee 

Notes, we have interpreted Rule 16 as vesting a trial court

with “wide discretion and power to advance causes and 

simplify procedure before presentation of cases to juries.” 

Buffington v. Wood, 351 F.2d 292, 298 (3d Cir. 1965). Thus, 

Rule 16 authorizes a trial judge to “supervise the pretrial 

phase of litigation . . . [by] sifting the issues and reducing the 

delays and expense of trial so that a suit will go to trial only 

on questions as to which there is an honest dispute of fact or 

law.” Delta Theatres, Inc. v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 398 

F.2d 323, 324 (5th Cir. 1968) (citation and internal quotation 

marks omitted); see also Brinn v. Bull Insular Lines, Inc., 28 

F.R.D. 578, 579 (E.D. Pa. 1961) (affirming the district court’s 

limitation of theories upon which the plaintiff could seek 

liability during a Rule 16 conference). 

Here, the District Court acted within the scope of its 

authority by raising the statute of limitations issue—an 

important issue on which there was no dispute of fact or 

law—at an early stage (less than two months after the answer 

was filed) to prevent the needless waste of judicial resources. 

Because defendants could have amended the answer to 

include the statute of limitations defense and because the 

untimeliness of the complaint was obvious, it would have 

been pointless for the District Court to allow this case to
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continue to occupy space on the docket.2 The prompt

identification and efficient resolution of simple issues like the 

one at bar today is precisely the reason why Rule 16 exists. 

Therefore, we conclude that the District Court did not err in 

raising the statute of limitations issue at the Rule 16 

conference and in inviting the parties to brief the issue.

Lassiter relies heavily on two cases from other circuits 

for the proposition that a district court may not raise a statute 

of limitations defense sua sponte. See Eriline Co. S.A. v. 

Johnson, 440 F.3d 648, 655-57 (4th Cir. 2006) (“[T]he 

district court should have refrained from raising and 

considering the statute of limitations defense sua sponte.”); 

Haskell v. Wash. Twp., 864 F.2d 1266, 1273 (6th Cir. 1988) 

(“Since it is a waivable defense, it ordinarily is error for a 

district court to raise the [statute of limitations] sua sponte.”). 

These cases are inapposite. In both cases, the parties had 

engaged in protracted litigation before the trial judges raised 

the statute of limitations issue. See Eriline, 440 F.3d at 650-

51 (eighteen months); Haskell, 894 F.2d at 1273 (three years). 

 

2 As noted by the District Court, defendants did not waive the 

statute of limitations defense at the time of the Rule 16 

conference because the answer could still have been amended 

to include a statue of limitations defense. See Charpentier v. 

Godsil, 937 F.2d 859, 863-64 (3d Cir. 1991) (holding that 

failure to raise an affirmative defense in an answer does not 

automatically result in waiver, and that the defense may be 

asserted in an amended pleading, so long as the plaintiff 

suffers no prejudice); see also Robinson v. Johnson, 313 F.3d 

128, 135 & n.3 (3d Cir. 2002) (noting that defendants should 

be afforded broad latitude to amend an answer to assert a 

statute of limitations defense). 
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Because of the length of time and extensive litigation in those 

cases, the courts determined that the statute of limitations 

defense had been waived under Rule 8(c); consequently, it 

was improper for the district courts to have raised the statute 

of limitations question sua sponte. See Eriline, 440 F.3d at 

653-54; Haskell, 864 F.2d at 1273. Furthermore, in both 

cases, the district court not only raised the statute of 

limitations defense, it also issued a sua sponte ruling on it. 

See Eriline, 440 F.3d at 651 (sua sponte dismissal of “the 

Complaint in its entirety”); Haskell, 864 F.2d at 1272 (sua 

sponte grant of leave to file an amended answer). Here, 

although the District Court raised the statute of limitations 

problem during the Rule 16 conference, it acted only in 

response to appropriate motions by the defendant. In light of 

these distinctions, we find Eriline and Haskell to be

unpersuasive.

Lassiter also argues that, in raising the statute of 

limitations issue sua sponte, the District Court upset the 

principle of parity and the purpose of the adversarial system 

by essentially acting as counsel for defendants. This concern 

is overblown. First of all, we question whether the District 

Court’s act of calling attention to the statute of limitations can 

be properly characterized as raising that defense sua sponte, 

given that the Court then waited for defendants to raise it—

and for Lassiter to respond to it—before ruling on the issue. 

In any event, our precedent suggests that a district court is 

well within its rights to independently raise a statute of 

limitations defense in such a manner. We have concluded 

that “a district court may sua sponte raise the issue of the 

deficiency of a complaint . . . so long as the plaintiff is 

accorded an opportunity to respond.” Travelers Indem. Co. v. 

Dammann & Co., Inc., 594 F.3d 238, 256 n.14 (3d Cir. 2010) 
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(discussing defenses to a dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6)) 

(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). For example, 

in a pretrial conference just three weeks before trial, we have 

approved of a district court sua sponte raising an affirmative 

defense that otherwise might have been waived. Pediatrix 

Screening, Inc. v. Telechem Int’l, Inc., 602 F.3d 541, 544, 550 

(3d Cir. 2010). We have also held that judges have the power 

to sua sponte raise equitable defenses like the doctrine of 

unclean hands. Highmark, Inc. v. UPMC Health Plan, Inc., 

276 F.3d 160, 174 (3d Cir. 2001). These cases confirm that it 

was plainly within the power of the District Court here to 

raise the statute of limitations defense on its own initiative

during the first pretrial conference. 

In sum, because the District Court has broad pretrial 

management authority under Rule 16 and because Lassiter 

was given the opportunity to respond to the issue presented,

we reject Lassiter’s contention that the District Court 

improperly raised its concern about the statute of limitations 

during the initial pretrial conference.

3

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the judgment 

of the District Court.

 

3 Because we hold that the District Court had the authority to 

raise the statute of limitations issue during the Rule 16 

conference, Lassiter’s subsidiary arguments that the District 

Court should not have granted leave to amend and that the 

District Court should not have considered the statute of 

limitations issue in defendants’ Rule 12(c) motion necessarily 

fail.