Opinion ID: 4543064
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: D.J.S.-W. Fails to Meet Our Equitable-Tolling

Text: Standard Here, D.J.S.-W. fails to satisfy either prong of this test. She did not diligently pursue her rights because she failed to take reasonable steps to confirm Dr. Gallagher’s employment status. Nor did any circumstances, both extraordinary and outside her control, stand in her way and prevent her “from discovering Dr. Gallagher’s true affiliations.” D.J.S.-W., 2019 WL 1894707, at  (citing Menominee,136 S. Ct. at 755). D.J.S.-W. emphasizes our decision in Santos, in which we tolled the FTCA’s limitations period to rescue Santos’s untimely claim because the government had created a trap that prevented her from learning, despite her counsel’s diligent 13 investigation, that her alleged tortfeasors were federally employed. 559 F.3d at 204. Santos is similar to this case: a minor filed medical malpractice claims in state court against a healthcare facility, known as York Health, and several of its employees. Id. at 190–91. Her counsel filed her suit after the two-year limitations period had run in reliance on Pennsylvania’s tolling statute. Id. at 191. As it turned out, however, York Health was a “deemed” federal entity. Id. at 191–92. After the government substituted the United States as defendant and moved for summary judgment, Santos argued that the FTCA’s limitations period should be equitably tolled. Id. at 192. We agreed with Santos and reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the United States. Id. at 204. Santos, we said, diligently pursued her claim: she hired counsel, “who requested and reviewed her medical records, [and] visited, corresponded with, and performed a public records search on York Health.” Id. at 198. Yet, “[n]one of these inquiries, records, visits, or correspondence gave him a clue that the healthcare providers or York Health had been deemed federal employees.” Id. at 200–01. York Health’s federal status, we concluded, “if not covert, was at least oblique.” Id. at 202. Although York Health’s website indicated that it received funds from federal sources and that it was a “federally-qualified health center,” there were no “publicly available sources of information from which Santos could have learned” that York Health was in fact a federal entity. Id. at 201–03. Moreover, “even if the information had been available,” there were no circumstances that “should have led [Santos’s counsel] to inquire into York Health’s federal status” in the first place. Id. at 203. Thus, we held that “the equitable 14 tolling doctrine applie[d] . . . to toll the FTCA’s statute of limitations.” Id. at 204.8 Despite D.J.S.-W.’s arguments to the contrary, even a cursory read of Santos reveals that Santos’s counsel went to far greater lengths to confirm her alleged tortfeasors’ employment status than D.J.S.-W.’s counsel did here. While counsel in Santos performed a public records search on, corresponded with, and visited York Health as part of his investigation, D.J.S.-W.’s counsel merely assumed that Dr. Gallagher was employed by Sharon Hospital—which he knew to be a private entity—because D.J.S.-W. was born there and Dr. Gallagher was listed as a “team member” on its website. But, as D.J.S.- W.’s counsel admits, he never corresponded with, called, or visited Sharon Hospital or Dr. Gallagher to confirm this belief. 8 The Government argues that “Menominee may undermine the holding in Santos” because “Santos’s counsel’s erroneous belief that York Health was a private entity . . . was neither extraordinary nor ‘an obstacle beyond [his] control.’” Appellee’s Br. 25–26 (quoting Menominee, 136 S. Ct. at 756 & n.3). We disagree. In Santos, we concluded that the government had created a “trap” for litigants like Santos because there were no “publicly available sources of information from which Santos could have” discovered York Health’s federal status, nor were there any circumstances that should have “led her to inquire into York Health’s federal status.” 559 F.3d at 203. Despite diligent research, the opacity of York Health’s federal status was an extraordinary circumstance that stood in Santos’s way and prevented her from timely filing. Thus, our holding in Santos would not change under the clarified test we discuss today. 15 D.J.S.-W. argues that her counsel’s efforts were diligent because there was no “trigger” that would have prompted him to examine Dr. Gallagher’s true employer, Primary Health Network. Appellant’s Br. 15. This is not so. There were numerous red flags that would have caused a diligent plaintiff or her counsel to investigate Dr. Gallagher’s employment status. As the District Court observed, “[i]t ordinarily should not come as a surprise to a medical malpractice lawyer . . . that an obstetric physician’s relationship to a hospital may simply be” that he has “admitting privileges to deliver his patients’ babies.” D.J.S.-W., 2019 WL 1894707, at  (internal footnote omitted). Given that such an arrangement is not uncommon, it seems strange that counsel did not either ask D.J.S.-W.’s mother “where she normally saw Dr. Gallagher for her prenatal care” or expand the temporal scope of his record request to ensure Dr. Gallagher had not treated her at another facility. Id. There were also other triggers that should have prompted counsel to investigate Dr. Gallagher’s employment status. For example, counsel’s own law office sent record requests to Sharon Hospital and Dr. Gallagher at different addresses. Indeed, had counsel visited or searched the address to which his office sent the request to Dr. Gallagher, he would have discovered that it was a street address for Primary Health Network. In addition, two of the pages of records sent by Dr. Gallagher in response to that request contained the phrase “Primary Health Network” at the bottom of the page above Dr. Gallagher’s name and address. See id. at , . Finally, D.J.S.-W.’s counsel should have been on heightened alert given his own personal experience in litigating a malpractice case involving the substitution of the United States for a defendant physician because he was an employee of a “deemed” federal entity. 16 Had counsel taken the reasonable step of investigating these red flags, he could have easily discovered that Dr. Gallagher was employed by Primary Health Network. Had counsel then investigated Primary Health Network, he could have discovered that it was a “deemed” federal entity. Indeed, unlike counsel in Santos, who corresponded with, performed a public search on, and visited York Health, D.J.S.-W.’s counsel did not take any of these steps. Had he visited a Primary Health Network office or searched its website, he would have seen that Primary Health Network “held itself out as a ‘federally qualified health center’ via,” inter alia, “physical signs in its waiting rooms . . . and notices on its website.” Id. at . If, like in Santos, these statements were insufficient to alert counsel to Primary Health Network’s “deemed” federal status, see Santos, 559 F.3d at 201–02, he could have double checked by searching Primary Health Network in the Health Resources and Services Administration database. In sum, D.J.S.-W. did not exercise due diligence to meet our equitable-tolling standard. Rather, her effort here—or, more accurately, her counsel’s effort—was, at most, a “garden variety claim of excusable neglect,” see Irwin, 498 U.S. at 96, to which “[t]he principles of equitable tolling . . . do not extend,” Santos, 559 F.3d at 197. Because a plaintiff must meet both prongs of the equitable-tolling test, we could conclude our discussion here, having determined that D.J.S.-W. did not diligently pursue her claim. See Menominee, 136 S. Ct. at 757 n.5. We briefly note, however, that D.J.S.-W. also fails to demonstrate that any extraordinary circumstances “stood in h[er] way and prevented timely filing.” Id. at 755 (quoting Holland, 560 U.S. at 649). The plaintiff in Santos encountered extraordinary circumstances because the government had created “a potential statute of limitations trap” that prevented her from discovering 17 the defendant’s federal status. 559 F.3d at 202 (quoting Valdez, 518 F.3d at 183). The government itself ensured that “York Health’s federal status, if not covert, was at least oblique,” and there were no “publicly available sources of information from which Santos could have learned this critical fact,” nor were there any “circumstances [that] should have led her to inquire into York Health’s federal status.” Id. at 203. According to D.J.S.-W., the circumstances in her case were similarly extraordinary. She argues that Dr. Gallagher created a trap, like that in Santos, because he knew that his biography on Sharon Hospital’s website “created the illusion” that he was employed by “that private hospital,” which could, in turn, “relax the guard of even the most diligent person.” Appellant’s Br. 14. There was, however, no trap here, and Dr. Gallagher’s employment with Primary Health Network was far from “oblique.” As discussed above, had counsel discussed the issue with his client, expanded the temporal scope of his record requests, called Sharon Hospital or Dr. Gallagher, or investigated the address to which he sent one of his record requests and which appeared on some of the records he received, he would have discovered Dr. Gallagher’s true employer. As the District Court stated, “[t]he real trap that . . . [c]ounsel fell into was the assumption that a doctor who has a biographical page on a private healthcare facility’s website . . . cannot be employed by another facility or entity.” D.J.S.-W., 2019 WL 1894707, at . This miscalculation was certainly not “beyond [counsel’s] control,” and, thus, no extraordinary circumstances stood in D.J.S.-W.’s way to prevent her from timely filing her claim.9 See Menominee, 136 S. Ct. at 756. 9 D.J.S.-W. argues that Dr. Gallagher “bore responsibility to make sure that his status was unambiguous to his patients.” Appellant’s Br. 14. Accordingly, she asks us to announce a rule 18