Opinion ID: 4514020
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Immaterial Factual Disputes

Text: But Binns argues that facts surrounding the parties’ performance of the Customer Agreements make summary judgment improper. None are genuinely in dispute. First, there is no disagreement about when Binns provided notice. In his deposition, he explained that he first “expressed to [bank employees] that [he] thought these transactions were unauthorized” in February 2017. (App. at 62.) True, he twice called about unfamiliar transactions on his monthly statements. But he stopped short of notifying the 3 We reach the same conclusion under the Pennsylvania UCC. Assuming, without deciding, that the UCC applies, the Code provides defenses against all Binns’s claims. As with the Customer Agreements, the “same wrongdoer” limitation bars all but the first few transactions. See 13 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 4406(d)(2). And a one-year statute of limitations bars the rest. See id. § 4406(f). 6 bank that these transactions were not his. That leaves the February 10, 2017 affidavit as the initial notice, which was sent too late.4 Nor does equitable tolling assist, as the doctrine applies to deadlines imposed by law, not in private agreements. See, e.g., Seitzinger v. Reading Hosp. & Med. Ctr., 165 F.3d 236, 240 (3d Cir. 1999) (“Under equitable tolling, plaintiffs may sue after the statutory time period . . . has expired[.]”) (emphasis added); Equitable Tolling, Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019) (“The doctrine that the statute of limitations will not bar a claim” in certain circumstances.) (emphasis added).5 Binns also argues that because BB&T permitted his daughter to make withdrawals from his Personal Account, it is responsible for the alleged fraudulent withdrawals from his Commercial Account. But no authority supports his position that his daughter’s transactions imposed a duty on BB&T to investigate. Indeed, the Customer Agreements place that burden on Binns. Nor does he explain why this purported “bad faith” prevented him from giving timely notice of the hundreds of transactions he ultimately flagged as fraud. Finally, Binns criticizes BB&T for waiving the required notice when it provided a refund. Yet, the Customer Agreements state that the bank could pardon deficient 4 Binns suggests that the District Court should have considered whether his calls about two of the transactions provided “reasonable notice.” But that “reasonable” standard comes from the UCC, see 13 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 1202(d), not the Customer Agreements. And as we have explained, the Customer Agreements, not the UCC, control. 5 Equitable tolling could apply to the UCC but, even if the UCC governed, it would make no difference to the outcome. The UCC provides that the parties are free to modify the standard terms of the statute by private agreement. Binns and the banks exercised that latitude to craft a specific and limited notice provision. And under the UCC, that agreement controls. 13 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 4103(a). 7 performance without sacrificing the right to insist on the terms of the contract in other transactions. In all, the factual quarrels Binns raises are immaterial, and summary judgment for Truist was proper. III. THE MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION WAS PROPERLY DENIED For largely the same reasons, we also discern no abuse of discretion in the District Court’s decision to deny Binns’s motion for reconsideration. See Max’s Seafood Cafe, 176 F.3d at 673. A motion for reconsideration is granted only if it “rel[ies] on one of three major grounds: (1) an intervening change in controlling law; (2) the availability of new evidence not available previously; or (3) the need to correct clear error of law or prevent manifest injustice.” N. River Ins. Co. v. CIGNA Reinsurance Co., 52 F.3d 1194, 1218 (3d Cir. 1995) (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). None of the issues Binns raises meet those standards. First, Binns contends that the disputed transactions are checks instead of electronic transfers. No intervening law bolsters that point, and the evidence he cites—his own deposition and a letter from Truist—is not new. And, of course, even if some transactions were checks, all that would mean is that Article 3 of the UCC applies. That is no help to Binns because, as noted, the terms of the Customer Agreements prevail. Next, Binns points to the same Truist letter suggesting Truist believed the UCC should govern this dispute. That is not an intervening legal development, nor a newly 8 developed matter of fact. And, again, it is the superseding terms of the Customer Agreements that control.6 Finally, Binns reiterates the same issues raised in his appeal from summary judgment. For the same reasons he does not prevail on those arguments, he cannot succeed under the more burdensome abuse of discretion standard. Max’s Seafood Cafe, 176 F.3d at 673. Therefore, the District Court did not abuse its discretion when denying Binns’s motion for reconsideration.