Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-328_pm02.pdf
Page Number: 13

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ROTKISKE v. KLEMM 

Opinion of GINSBURG, J. 

from  raising  an  FDCPA  claim  challenging  Klemm’s  suit
within  the  one-year  limitations  period.    By  knowingly  ar-
ranging for service of the complaint against Rotkiske at an
address where Rotkiske no longer lived, and filing a false
affidavit  of  service,  Rotkiske  alleges,  Klemm  engaged  in
fraud.  Such fraud, I would hold, warrants application of the 
discovery rule to time Rotkiske’s FDCPA suit from the date
he learned of the default judgment against him. 

As today’s decision recognizes, see ante, at 6–7, this Court 
long  ago  “adopted  as  its  own  the  old  chancery  rule  that
where a plaintiff has been injured by fraud and remains in
ignorance of it without any fault or want of diligence or care 
on his part, the bar of the statute [of limitations] does not 
begin  to  run  until  the  fraud  is  discovered.”  Holmberg  v. 
Armbrecht,  327  U. S.  392,  397  (1946)  (internal  quotation 
marks omitted).  See also Bailey v. Glover, 21 Wall. 342, 347 
(1875)  (“[W]hen  the  object  of  the  suit  is  to  obtain  relief 
against a fraud, the bar of the statute does not commence
to run until the fraud is discovered or becomes known to the 
party injured by it.”).  Like the general discovery rule that
lower courts have “appl[ied] . . . when a statute is silent on 
the issue” of a claim’s accrual, TRW Inc., 534 U. S., at 27 
(quoting  Rotella  v.  Wood,  528  U. S.  549,  555  (2000)),  the
fraud-based  discovery  rule  operates  as  a  statutory  pre-
sumption  “read  into  every  federal  statute  of  limitation,” 
Holmberg, 327 U. S., at 397.  This circumscribed rule is dis-
tinct from the general discovery rule in that it governs only
“case[s] of fraud.”  Merck & Co. v. Reynolds, 559 U. S. 633, 
644 (2010).  Unlike the general discovery rule, there is no 
reason to believe the FDCPA displaced the fraud-based dis-
covery rule.  The Court does not hold otherwise. 

The  fraud-based  discovery  rule  has  a  thrust  different 
from equitable tolling.*  “Equitable tolling” describes a doc-
trine that pauses, or “tolls,” a statutory limitations period 

—————— 

*The two doctrines are often blended or confused.  See Klehr v. A. O.