United States Court of Appeals 

for the Fifth Circuit ____________ 

No. 23-40379 

____________ 

Robbie Reynolds, 

Plaintiff—Appellant, 

versus

United States of America, 

Defendant—Appellee. 

______________________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Texas 

USDC No. 1:22-CV-553 

______________________________ 

Before Jones, Southwick, and Ho, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam:*

Plaintiff Robbie Reynolds appeals the district court’s grant of 

summary judgment to the United States on her Federal Tort Claims Act 

(“FTCA”) claims. Finding no error, we AFFIRM. 

Reynolds claims that she was involved in a motor vehicle accident with 

a United States Postal Service (“USPS”) driver on September 19, 2020. In 

_____________________ 

*

Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion 

should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set 

forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4. 

United States Court of Appeals 

Fifth Circuit 

FILED 

March 8, 2024 

Lyle W. Cayce 

Clerk 

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No. 23-40379 

2 

November 2020, Reynolds submitted an administrative tort claim to the 

USPS, which the Postal Service denied on November 23, 2021. But 

Reynolds did not file her complaint for damages under the FTCA, 28 U.S.C. 

§§ 1346(b), 2671-2680 et seq., in federal court until September 13, 2022. 

After further filings, the district court considered all pleadings and granted 

the United States’s motion for summary judgment on May 25, 2023. 

Reynolds now appeals, claiming that the district court erred in 

refusing to apply the equitable tolling doctrine to extend the statute of 

limitations on her FTCA claim. She also asserts that the district court 

violated her due process rights because she lacked sufficient notice of the 

United States’s motion for summary judgment to be able to adequately 

respond by the district court’s extended deadline of March 9. 

“This court reviews a district court's grant of summary judgment de 

novo, applying the same legal standards as the district court.” Condrey v. 

SunTrust Bank of Ga., 429 F.3d 556, 562 (5th Cir. 2005). “Summary 

judgment is appropriate when ‘the movant shows that there is no genuine 

dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a 

matter of law.’” United States v. Nature's Way Marine, L.L.C., 904 F.3d 416, 

419 (5th Cir. 2018) (quoting FED. R.CIV. P. 56(a)). Where the application of 

equitable tolling turns on “fact-specific, discretionary matter[s], the 

appropriate standard of review is abuse of discretion.” Granger v. Aaron's, 

Inc., 636 F.3d 708, 712 (5th Cir. 2011). 

Under the FTCA: 

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 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. 

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3 

28 U.S.C. § 2401. “It is well-settled that these limitation periods are 

jurisdictional.” Flory v. United States, 138 F.3d 157, 159 (5th Cir. 1998). 

Here, Reynolds’s claims accrued on September 19, 2020—the date of the 

accident. Reynolds then timely presented and exhausted her administrative 

claims. But she failed to file her federal lawsuit by May 23, 2021—six months 

after she received her final denial from USPS on November 23, 2022. Thus, 

no federal court would have jurisdiction over Reynolds’s claims unless 

equitable tolling is applied. 

“Equitable tolling applies only in rare and exceptional 

circumstances.” Teemac v. Henderson, 298 F.3d 452, 457 (5th Cir. 2002) 

(quotation marks and citation omitted). “Courts have typically extended 

equitable tolling where the claimant has actively pursued his judicial 

remedies by filing a defective pleading during the statutory period, or where 

complainant has been induced or tricked by his adversary's misconduct into 

allowing the filing deadline to pass.” Harris v. Boyd Tunica, Inc., 628 F.3d 

237, 239 (5th Cir. 2010) (quotation marks and citation omitted). 

Our review of the pleadings and record confirms that the district court 

did not abuse its discretion in refusing to grant Reynolds the equitable tolling 

she claims to be entitled to because her initial attorney left her law firm and 

Reynolds’s case then got lost in the administrative chaos. Reynolds disputes 

that her case amounts to “a garden variety claim of excusable neglect” in 

which courts are less likely to apply the principles of equitable tolling. Irwin 

v. Dep't of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89, 96, 111 S. Ct. 453, 458 (1990). We 

disagree and do not believe that the district court abused its discretion in 

coming to that conclusion. Reynolds insists that she was subject to 

administrative turnover beyond her control. But as we held in Harris, 

“negligence. . . on the part of [an] attorney and his staff does not entitle [a 

litigant] to equitable tolling—a party is bound by the acts of her lawyer.” 

628 F.3d at 240. 

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Concurrently, we do not agree that the district court violated 

Reynold’s due process rights by only granting her a one-week extension. 

Reynolds claims that lack of notice stemmed from her attorney e-filing the 

documents under a fellow attorney’s information because her attorney lacked 

the appropriate credentials to e-file in the Eastern District of Texas. Thus, 

she claims her attorney did not receive the proper notification when the 

United States filed its motion for summary judgment, and further that the 

United States did not make her attorney aware of its motion despite being 

aware of the situation described above. Reynolds claims that although the 

district was made aware of this at the status conference, she was still given 

only a six-day extension to file her response to the summary judgment 

motion. Although the parties dispute whether Reynolds preserved this issue 

by timely and properly objecting to the district court, it is irrelevant to the 

outcome. Because the electronic filing system provided notice to the 

Reynolds’s attorney of record as listed on the docket sheet, the United States 

properly gave notice that was “reasonably calculated, under all the 

circumstances. Mullane v. Hannover Bank and Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 314, 

70 S. Ct. 652, 657 (1950); see also FED. R. CIV. P. 5(b)(2)(E). 

In light of the above, we AFFIRM.

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