Opinion ID: 76891
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Appropriateness of Equitable Tolling

Text: 15 Fernández argues that the Cabello survivors' claims are time-barred because the prisoners were killed in 1973 and the Cabello survivors first filed their complaint in 1999. The district court recognized that the statute of limitations did not begin to run until 1990 when the bodies of the thirteen prisoners killed at Copiapó were located and exhumed, which occurred only after General Pinochet left office. Thus, the district court reasoned that the Cabello survivors' claims were not time-barred because the TVPA's ten-year statute was equitably tolled. 16 Our precedent has established that the TVPA's and ATCA's statute of limitations can be equitably tolled. See Arce at 1346-47. We must therefore determine whether the facts of this case demonstrate extraordinary circumstances sufficient for equitable tolling. Sandvik v. United States, 177 F.3d 1269, 1271 (11th Cir.1999). This is a fact-specific determination because a finding of extraordinary circumstances [necessary for equitable tolling] is reserved for extraordinary facts. See Arce at 1351 (internal quotations omitted). 17 As we held in Justice , equitable tolling is appropriate in situations where the defendant misleads the plaintiff, allowing the statutory period to lapse; or when the plaintiff has no reasonable way of discovering the wrong perpetrated against her, as is the case here. 6 F.3d at 1479. Additionally, in order to apply equitable tolling, courts usually require some affirmative misconduct, such as deliberate concealment. Arce at 1349. 18 Arce , our only case addressing the application of equitable tolling to claims brought under the ATCA and the TVPA, illustrates the proper analysis. In that case, Salvadoran refugees ... claim[ed] that they were tortured by soldiers in El Salvador during the course of a campaign of human-rights violations by the Salvadoran military from 1979 to 1983. See id. at 1342-43. The plaintiffs claimed that an on-going civil war in El Salvador and defendants' pattern of denial about their personal responsibility for human rights abuses in El Salvador prevented them from timely filing their claims. Id. at 1348-49. We found these arguments insufficient to equitably toll the statute of limitations, stating that [e]quitable tolling is appropriate only in `extraordinary circumstances' [such as those] `that are both beyond the plaintiff's control and unavoidable even with diligence.' Id. at 1347. 19 The instant case is distinguishable from Arce on its facts. The district court determined that the Cabello survivors knew that Cabello was killed in October 1973 and that unknown military officers were involved. However, it was not until 1990 that they obtained knowledge of Cabello's manner of death and information about the harm suffered by him before his death. Until Cabello's unmarked grave was located, his family did not know that he and the other prisoners had been tortured before being massacred. Although Victor Bravo, a local official called upon by the military authorities to identify the bodies of the dead, had seen the prisoners' bodies shortly after they were killed, he never spoke of their conditions to the families. 20 The Chilean government, with whom Fernández conspired, concealed both the manner in which Cabello died and his place of burial. The Chilean government also created great confusion by sending three conflicting death certificates to the Cabello family. Until the first post- junta civilian president was elected in 1990, the Chilean political climate prevented the Cabello family from pursuing any efforts to learn of the incidents surrounding Cabello's murder. The district court decided that Cabello's family could not possibly have pursued their claims until Cabello's body was exhumed. 21 We agree with the district court's conclusion that the cover-up of the events surrounding Cabello's death made it nearly impossible for the Cabello survivors to discover the wrongs perpetrated against Cabello. As a result of this deliberate concealment by Chilean authorities, equitable tolling is appropriate in this case.