Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-328_pm02.pdf
Page Number: 17.0

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ROTKISKE v. KLEMM 

Opinion of GINSBURG, J. 

complaint, the Government observes, for his claim is prem-
ised on the assertion that Klemm’s debt-collection suit was 
time barred. 

I  do  not  view  the  fraud-based  discovery  rule  as  so  con-
fined and would hold that the rule governs if either the con-
duct giving rise to the claim is fraudulent, or if fraud infects
the manner in which the claim is presented.  That under-
standing  of  the  rule  is  consistent  with  its  equitable  roots
and  historic  rationale.  Nearly  two  centuries  ago,  Justice 
Story explained the rule this way: “[E]very statute is to be
expounded reasonably, so as to suppress, and not to extend, 
the mischief[s ] which it was designed to cure.”  Sherwood 
v. Sutton, 21 F. Cas. 1303, 1307 (No. 12,782) (CC NH 1828). 
Because  statutes  of  limitations  “preven[t]  fraudulent  and
unjust claims from starting up at great distances of time,” 
a limitations provision “ought not . . . be so construed, as to 
become  an  instrument  to  encourage  fraud,  if  it  admits  of 
any  other  reasonable  interpretation.”    Ibid.  “[C]ases  of
fraud, therefore, form an implied exception [to a limitations
prescription],” so as not to “permi[t] the defendant to avail 
himself of his own fraud.”  Ibid.  This Court expressed the 
same  understanding  of  the  fraud-based  discovery  rule  in 
Bailey.  There, the Court stated: “To hold that by concealing 
a fraud, or by committing a fraud in a manner that it con-
cealed  itself  until  such  time  as  the  party  committing  the 
fraud could plead the statute of limitations to protect it, is 
to make the law which was designed to prevent fraud the
means by which it is made successful and secure.”  21 Wall., 
at 349. 

Klemm  allegedly  employed  fraudulent  service  to  obtain 
and  conceal  the  default  judgment  that  precipitated  Rot-
kiske’s  FDCPA  claim.    That  allegation,  if  proved,  should 
suffice, under the fraud-based discovery rule, to permit ad-
judication of Rotkiske’s claim on its merits. 

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