Opinion ID: 222565
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Wade v. Danek Medical, Inc

Text: As the District Court correctly observed, 694 F.Supp.2d at 258, the Supreme Court of Virginia has never addressed the precise question of whether Virginia law would allow for a cross-jurisdictional tolling rule  either equitable or statutory. The Fourth Circuit, however, provided some guidance over a decade ago in Wade. Under Factors, our analysis of Virginia law starts, therefore, with Wade, which held that the Supreme Court of Virginia would not adopt an equitable rule of cross-jurisdictional tolling for federal class actions. Jeannette Wade initiated a products liability action against the manufacturer of a spinal fixation device that doctors implanted in Wade's back to ease her back pain. The device caused Wade to develop arachnoiditis and incontinence in April 1993, and she had the device removed in April 1995. 182 F.3d at 284. Meanwhile, two federal class actions were filed against various manufacturers of the same spinal fixation devices, including Danek Medical, in federal courts in Pennsylvania and Louisiana. Id. Wade and her husband were putative class members in both actions. Id. Wade filed her action in the Eastern District of Virginia in October 1995, and the district court dismissed it as untimely. On appeal, Wade argued that Virginia's statute of limitations was tolled by the pendency of the federal class actions. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal, finding that the Supreme Court of Virginia would not apply an equitable tolling rule for federal class actions filed outside Virginia for three reasons. Id. at 286-88. First, the court determined that Virginia has no interest in promoting class action procedures in other jurisdictions because it has no class action procedures itself. Second, the court explained that Virginia has an interest in avoiding the flood of follow-on filings that would result if it adopted a cross-jurisdictional class action tolling rule. Third, the court noted that the Supreme Court of Virginia has historically resisted becoming dependent on the resolution of claims in other jurisdictions, as would inevitably occur if the length of the limitations period var[ied] depending on the efficiency (or inefficiency) of courts in foreign jurisdictions. Id. at 288. Focused as it was on the issue of equitable cross-jurisdictional tolling, the court in Wade referred only obliquely to Virginia's tolling statute, Va. Code Ann. § 8.01-229(E)(1), [4] describing the statute as providing for tolling of the limitations period in certain other situations. Id. at 286 n. 4 (emphasis added). The Fourth Circuit did not identify the other situations in which the tolling statute would apply.