NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

WENDY HASTINGS, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

 v. 

UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE; 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 17-56643 

D.C. No. 

3:16-cv-01259-JM-JLB 

MEMORANDUM*

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of California

Jeffrey T. Miller, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted May 14, 2019

Pasadena, California

Before: LIPEZ,** WARDLAW, and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges.

Wendy Hastings appeals the district court’s dismissal of her negligence 

claim against the United States with prejudice. We have jurisdiction under 28 

U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm.

 

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent 

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The Honorable Kermit V. Lipez, United States Circuit Judge for the 

First Circuit, sitting by designation.

FILED

MAY 30 2019

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
2 

The district court correctly concluded that Hastings’s claim was time-barred

and that her operative Second Amended Complaint did not relate back to filing of 

her original complaint. Hastings filed her original complaint within the Federal 

Tort Claims Act’s six-month statute of limitations, but amended her complaint to 

name the United States as a defendant only after the limitations period expired. 

See 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b). Unless Hastings’s Second Amended Complaint relates 

back to the filing of her original complaint, her claim against the United States is 

time-barred.

To benefit from the relation back doctrine, Hastings must demonstrate 

compliance with the government notice provision, which requires that “process 

was delivered or mailed to the United States attorney or the United States 

attorney’s designee, to the Attorney General of the United States, or to the officer 

or agency” within the limitations period. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(c)(2).1 We interpret 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c) “literally.” Miles v. Dep’t of Army, 881 F.2d 

777, 782 (9th Cir. 1989). The plain language of the government notice provision 

required Hastings to deliver or mail her original summons and complaint to one of 

the enumerated U.S. entities before the six-month limitations period expired.

However, it is undisputed that the U.S. Attorney received only court-generated 

 

1 There is no dispute that Hastings satisfied the relation back doctrine’s other 

requirements, Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(c)(1)(A), (B), and she does not claim that she 

satisfied the general notice provision, id. 15(c)(1)(C).
3 

electronic notices that Hastings filed her original summons and complaint within 

the limitations period. The electronic notices did not contain or attach Hastings’s 

original summons or complaint. Rather, the U.S. Attorney could access the 

original summons or complaint only by clicking on a link in the notice and visiting 

the court website to view the document. Because the electronic notices to the U.S. 

Attorney did not deliver, mail, or even attach Hastings’s original summons and 

complaint, the district court correctly concluded that the relation back doctrine

does not apply.

AFFIRM.