Opinion ID: 1388776
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Equitable Tolling Applies Here.

Text: Inasmuch as equitable tolling can apply in cases under the FTCA, we turn to the question whether we should equitably toll the FTCA's statute of limitations in this case. Equitable tolling, if available, can rescue a claim otherwise barred as untimely by a statute of limitations when a plaintiff has been prevented from filing in a timely manner due to sufficiently inequitable circumstances. Seitzinger v. Reading Hosp. & Med. Ctr., 165 F.3d 236, 240 (3d Cir.1999). This occurs (1) where the defendant has actively misled the plaintiff respecting the plaintiff's cause of action; (2) where the plaintiff in some extraordinary way has been prevented from asserting his or her rights; or (3) where the plaintiff has timely asserted his or her rights mistakenly in the wrong forum. Hedges, 404 F.3d at 751 (internal citations omitted); School Dist. v. Marshall, 657 F.2d 16, 19-20 (3d Cir.1981) (internal citations omitted). But a plaintiff will not receive the benefit of equitable tolling unless she exercised due diligence in pursuing and preserving her claim. Irwin, 498 U.S. at 96, 111 S.Ct. at 457-58. The principles of equitable tolling thus do not extend to garden-variety claims of excusable neglect. Id. at 96, 111 S.Ct. at 458. The remedy of equitable tolling is extraordinary, and we extend it only sparingly. Id. at 96, 111 S.Ct. at 457; Hedges, 404 F.3d at 751. It is especially appropriate to be restrictive with respect to extension of equitable tolling in cases involving the waiver of the sovereign immunity of the United States. The Supreme Court made that point clear when it indicated that inasmuch as the FTCA waives the immunity of the United States, ... in construing the [FTCA's] statute of limitations, which is a condition of that waiver, we should not take it upon ourselves to extend the waiver beyond that which Congress intended, and the Court should not assume the authority to narrow the waiver that Congress intended. Kubrick, 444 U.S. at 117-19, 100 S.Ct. at 357.
It is clear that even though Santos did not determine before she brought her state court action that York Health and its employees had been deemed to be federal employees for FTCA purposes in malpractice actions, she diligently and vigorously pursued her claim. In this regard, after her claim accrued on December 22, 2002, she retained diligent counsel, who requested and reviewed her medical records, visited, corresponded with, and performed a public records search on York Health, and retained a family practice expert, a dental expert, a professor of pediatric otolaryngology, and a board-certified spinal surgeon, all of whom prepared expert reports. We have brought considerable experience to the federal bench which we are confident allows us to identify a diligent counsel, and based on that experience and our examination of the record in this case we believe that no reasonable person can doubt that Santos's counsel was diligent. Yet we do not suggest that Santos's mere compliance with the statutorily tolled state statute of limitations and her counsel's thorough preparation of her case entitles her to equitable tolling under the FTCA. See Norman v. United States, 467 F.3d 773, 776 (D.C.Cir.2006). On the other hand, Santos's compliance with state law and preparation of her case do evidence her general diligence and thus are significant, even though her diligence in itself could not overcome her failure to identify York Health and its personnel as federal employees.
The Government argues, however, that even if Santos generally was diligent, she did not exercise due diligence in inquiring into the employment status of York Health and its healthcare providers with respect to malpractice claims. Consequently, it contends that equitable tolling should not apply, even if Santos had been diligent with respect to the other aspects of her case. In support of its contention, the Government cites our decision in Zeleznik v. United States, 770 F.2d 20. [5] Zeleznik was an action against the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) for the wrongful death of the plaintiffs' son. The plaintiffs sued the INS when they discovered, more than two years after their son's death, that the INS had released their son's killer just days before the murder even though the killer had confessed to the INS that he did not have an authorized status in the United States, was in fraudulent possession of a United States passport, and had been involved in illegal drug sales. Id. at 20-22. We held in Zeleznik that the FTCA's two-year statute of limitations barred the plaintiffs' claim because it had accrued when they learned of their son's death and its immediate cause. Thus, they were put on notice of the need to investigate their claim even though at the time of his death they had not learned of the INS's involvement. We explained, following the Supreme Court's decision in Kubrick, that the accrual date is not postponed until the injured party knows every fact necessary to bring his action. Id. at 23. Because the plaintiffs knew of their son's death and its immediate cause, even though they did not know of the INS's involvement, they possessed sufficient critical facts to investigate their claim, and inasmuch as the INS did not actively conceal its involvement in the case, the accrual of the claim was not postponed by reason of the plaintiffs' lack of actual notice of that involvement. Id. at 24. But the issue here is not when Santos's claim accrued, as that date is undisputed. It therefore follows that Zeleznik is not directly on point. In this regard, we emphasize that the discovery rule, which governs a claim's accrual date for statute of limitations purposes, is distinct from equitable tolling, which applies where circumstances unfairly prevent a plaintiff from asserting her claim. See Hedges, 404 F.3d at 750-51 (distinguishing between an equitable discovery rule governing when a claim accrues and equitable tolling); see also Valdez v. United States, 518 F.3d 173, 182 (2d Cir.2008) (Equitable tolling is frequently confused both with fraudulent concealment on the one hand and with the discovery rulegoverning ... accrualon the other.) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted); Norman, 467 F.3d at 774-78 (addressing equitable estoppel issue where date that claim accrued was undisputed). The issue here is whether the limitations period should be tolled because the circumstances of this particular case unfairly precluded Santos from timely filing her claim. The Government cites cases from other courts of appeals holding that equitable tolling did not apply in those cases to the FTCA's statute of limitations because the plaintiffs bringing state-law suits failed to perform reasonable investigations that would have demonstrated that the defendants had been deemed federal employees covered by the FTCA. Norman, 467 F.3d at 777-78; Ingram, 443 F.3d at 964; Gonzalez v. United States, 284 F.3d 281, 291-92 (1st Cir.2002). In Norman, the plaintiff who was struck by an automobile brought an untimely suit against the driver, a federal agency employee covered by the FTCA, without investigating either the driver or his employer. Norman, 467 F.3d at 774-76. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that equitable tolling did not apply because at no time during the FTCA's two-year statute of limitations did [the plaintiff] make any effortdiligent or otherwiseto identify [the defendant's] employer. Id. at 778. Norman is instructive because it contrasts with this case, in which Santos correctly identified the entity that was the employer of the four individual state-court defendants for all purposes other than under the FTCA. In Gonzalez, a medical malpractice case, there was no evidence that the plaintiff made any inquiry whatsoever into the employment of the defendants, who were federal employees covered by the FTCA. Gonzalez, 284 F.3d at 291. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that the FTCA's limitations period was not equitably tolled because [a]lthough the plaintiff did not know the federal status of the defendants at the time of her treatment, she and her attorneys had two years to ascertain the legal status of the doctors and could easily have learned it. Id. at 291. Similarly, the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Ingram, also a medical malpractice case, declined to toll the FTCA's statute of limitations where the plaintiff was unaware of, but the Government did not hide, the fact that the allegedly negligent doctor was a federal employee subject to the FTCA. Ingram, 443 F.3d at 963-65 (citing Garza v. United States Bureau of Prisons, 284 F.3d 930, 935 (8th Cir.2002)). In both Norman and Gonzalez, a simple investigation could have revealed the critical information, i.e., the federal or non-federal employment status of the defendants. Norman, 467 F.3d at 776-78; Gonzalez, 284 F.3d at 291. But see Ingram, 443 F.3d at 963-64; cf. Gould v. United States, 905 F.2d 738, 745 (4th Cir.1990) (en banc) (where issue was accrual of claim under FTCA, plaintiff could have ascertained that defendant, a commissioned officer of United States Public Health Service, was a federal employee simply by contacting Department of Health and Human Services). [6] In this case, the District Court noted that it was not clear whether Santos knew or should have known that York Health received federal funds, but nevertheless found that Santos failed to exercise due diligence by attempting to ascertain the federal status of her health care providers. Santos, 523 F.Supp.2d at 443. The District Court reached its conclusion because of Santos's admission that she did not confirm her belief based on correspondence with and inquiries into York Health and its employees that the allegedly negligent healthcare workers and their employer were subject to claims under Pennsylvania law. Yet Santos's belief was far from a baseless assumption. See Gonzalez, 284 F.3d at 292 (plaintiff who failed to make any inquiries whatsoever into employment status of allegedly negligent healthcare providers not duly diligent). To start with, York Health apparently looked like a private clinic, and except for FTCA purposes the clinic and its employees were private actors, rather than federal employees. As the District Court explained, the [h]ealth care workers at private clinics, even ones receiving some federal aid, are not federal employees in the usual sense. After all, they do not perform a traditional government function or work in a government building, and they are not on the federal payroll. Santos, 523 F.Supp.2d at 442. Moreover, Santos based her implicit conclusion that York Health and its employees could be liable under state law on inquiries, reviews of records, and other contacts with York Health. Santos's counsel identified the individuals whose alleged negligence injured her, and further identified their employer, York Health, an apparently private corporation that he investigated by performing a public records search. Cf. Norman, 467 F.3d at 776 (plaintiff suing individual defendant without determining individual defendant's employer was not duly diligent). In addition, we reiterate that Santos's counsel corresponded with York Health, obtained Santos's medical records, visited its facility, and retained several expert witnesses. None of these inquiries, records, visits, or correspondence gave him a clue that the healthcare providers or York Health had been deemed federal employees or that Santos should contact the Department of Health and Human Services for more information about them. Indeed, the District Court acknowledged that Santos's assumption that her doctors were private actors subject to state law ... was not at all unreasonable. 523 F.Supp.2d at 442. The Government nonetheless claims that Santos could have ascertained that the FTCA protected York Health and its healthcare providers, and undoubtedly if she had been alerted to the need to explore their federal employment status then the Government's contention would be correct. Specifically, according to the Government, [s]ources of information, including the very webpage cited in the affidavit of Plaintiff's counsel [as not revealing that York Health had been deemed a federal employee], were available, from which the status of York Health could be ascertained. Appellee's br. at 24. This website's main page stated that York Health receives funding from various federal, state, local, and charitable sources: The York Health Corporation receives grant support from the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the United Way of York County, the Family Health Council of Central Pennsylvania, the York County Community Development Department, the York City Bureau of Health, and the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. Id. at 10 (citing archived website). [7] In addition, the webpage indicated that York Health was a federally-qualified health center. [8] The foregoing statements indicated that York Health received partial federal financial support from the Government. But they would not reveal to a reasonably diligent plaintiff that its doctors and clinics had been deemed federal employees under the Public Health Service Act, 42 U.S.C. § 233(g)-(n), and thus were subject to the FTCA inasmuch as the Government gives financial aid to many entities, public and private, but their employees are not thereby federalized. In this regard, we point out York Health and its employees did not become employees of the other entities supporting them. With respect to the significance or not of federal aid, we cannot conceive that anyone would contend that on the basis of the common law application of the doctrine of respondeat superior the entities contributing to York Health's funding, including the United States itself, would be liable for York Health's employees' malpractice. After all, if making a contribution to an entity could have such a consequence, contributions to many charities, service and community organizations, foundations, and other nonprofit organizations would cease. Surely potential donors to such entities would not run the risk that by making their contributions they would become liable for a future plaintiff's injuries attributable to such an entity's torts. Furthermore, if York Health was a federal employee it would not be expected that charitable organizations and state and local governmental agencies would be giving it aid. [9] The Government asserts that in addition to the website, which did not indicate that York Health and its employees had been deemed federal employees, other sources of information ... were available from which Santos could have learned this critical fact. Appellee's br at 24. At oral argument, when we asked what publicly available information would have alerted Santos that the allegedly negligent healthcare providers and York Health had been deemed federal employees, the Government stated that the Department of Health and Human Services maintains a database of clinics that receive funding and are deemed federal employees. Yet the Government did not indicate that the database was publicly available, or how it would be accessed, and the record does not specify where there is a public source setting forth the information. The absence of such a source is not surprising. As the District Court noted, the FTCA does not include a requirement that deemed facilities publicize their status as federal entities, nor does [the Department of Health and Human Services] publish this information. Santos, 523 F.Supp.2d at 442. The Government also asserts that [a] simple inquiry directed at the health center would have been sufficient in and of itself. Appellee's br. at 30. While the record does not indicate whether this assertion is true, clearly it presents an odd scenario in which Santos, a potential claimant, should have relied on her adversary to inform her of the applicability of the FTCA and its two-year statute of limitations. In any case, the Government does not contend that the healthcare providers or York Health would have been obligated legally to reveal their federal status. Moreover, while we do not doubt that the management of York Health understood its FTCA liability status, we are by no means certain that this knowledge extended to its employees, and the record is silent on this point. Overall, it seems to us, as far as we can see from the record, that Santos and her counsel had no reason to inquire as to the possible federal status of York Health and its employees.