Opinion ID: 621157
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Claims Against Fagan

Text: Weisshaus also seeks reversal of the district court’s July 15, 2010 Opinion and Order granting Fagan’s motion for summary judgment and dismissing Weisshaus’s claims with prejudice.2 Following our de novo review of the record, Miller v. Wolpoff & Abramson, L.L.P., 321 F.3d 292, 300 (2d Cir. 2003), we affirm the judgment of the District Court for substantially the same reasons stated in its careful and comprehensive opinion. See Weisshaus v. Fagan, 08 Civ. 4053 (DLC), 2010 WL 2813490 (S.D.N.Y. July 15, 2010). Again, briefly stated, the district court properly concluded that Weisshaus’s claims for breach of contract and fiduciary duty against Fagan were time-barred. Weisshaus’s assertion on appeal that the applicable statute of limitations for her claims was tolled by her filing of a RICO action against Fagan in 1999 is entirely without merit. Although the filing of a complaint marks the interposition of a claim for statute-of-limitation purposes (and thus tolls the limitations period), see N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 203(c); MacLeod v. Cnty. of Nassau, 75 A.D.3d 57, 64 (2d Dep’t 2010) (collecting cases), this provision does not support 2 In her appellate brief, Weisshaus raised no arguments concerning the district court’s dismissal of her claims against the other defendants, or her 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 claims against Fagan. Consequently, she has waived any arguments concerning these claims by purporting to raise them for the first time in her reply brief. See Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(9); JP Morgan Chase Bank v. Altos Hornos de Mexico, S.A. de C.V., 412 F.3d 418, 428 (2d Cir. 2005); LoSacco v. City of Middletown, 71 F.3d 88, 93 (2d Cir. 1995). 5 Weisshaus’s novel argument that the filing of a complaint in a previous, unrelated RICO lawsuit against a defendant tolled the limitations period for state-law claims raised in a subsequent lawsuit against the same defendant. Weisshaus alternatively asserts that her case is timely under New York’s two-year discovery rule for claims based on fraud because, while she “had suspicion that Fagan was perpetrating a fraud, . . . that is all she had until the conclusive findings of the New Jersey Office of Attorney Ethics [(NJ OAE)] in January of 2008.” Pl.’s Br. 14. This argument is also without merit. “[A] fraud-based action must be commenced within six years of the fraud or within two years from the time the plaintiff discovered the fraud or ‘could with reasonable diligence have discovered it.’” Sargiss v. Magarelli, 12 N.Y.3d 527, 532 (2009) (quoting N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 213(8)). “The inquiry as to whether a plaintiff could, with reasonable diligence, have discovered the fraud turns on whether the plaintiff was possessed of knowledge of facts from which the fraud could be reasonably inferred. Generally, knowledge of the fraudulent act is required and mere suspicion will not constitute a sufficient substitute.” Id. (internal quotation marks, citations, and brackets omitted). The district court correctly determined that Weisshaus possessed sufficient knowledge from which Fagan’s fraudulent conduct could have been inferred as early as 1998, and certainly no later than 2005. For example, it is undisputed that in 1998 Weisshaus was fully aware that Fagan had failed to turn over a portion of the escrow money despite a court order directing him to do so and had allegedly forged a document bearing her signature which gave him permission to invest the money. To claim now that she was previously unaware of facts concerning Fagan’s fraudulent conduct relating to the escrow account defies 6 credulity. Consequently, as she did not commence the present action until April 2008, the district court correctly ruled that her breach of fiduciary duty claim was time-barred even under New York’s discovery rule for claims based on fraud. We have considered Weisshaus’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is hereby AFFIRMED. FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk 7