Opinion ID: 2676870
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Accrual of Gallardo’s Claim

Text: A plaintiff bringing an FTCA claim against the United States must first file an administrative claim with the appropriate agency “within two years after such claim 10 GALLARDO V. UNITED STATES accrues.” 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b). Otherwise, it is “forever barred.” Id. Gallardo argues that her claim did not accrue until 2009, when she learned of the Corps’ negligence. We disagree. Gallardo’s argument is foreclosed by Kubrick. The Supreme Court held in Kubrick that once a plaintiff becomes aware of her injury and its immediate cause, her claim accrues. 444 U.S. at 122. In so deciding, the Supreme Court declined to “hold that Congress intended that ‘accrual’ of a claim must await awareness by the plaintiff that [her] injury was negligently inflicted.” Id. at 123. Our post-Kubrick precedents are consistent with the conclusion that Gallardo’s claim accrued at the time of Curtis’s assault. For example, in Hensley v. United States, 531 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. 2008), we held that the plaintiffs’ claim against the United States resulting from an accident involving a vehicle driven by a naval officer “accrued at the time of the collision and not later when the Attorney General certified that the [officer] was acting within the scope of his federal employment at the time of the collision.” Id. at 1054. “[A]s a general rule, ignorance of the involvement of government employees is irrelevant to accrual of a federal tort claim.” Id. at 1056. We wrote that Kubrick does not allow for “delay[ing] accrual of a federal tort claim until plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the culpability of federal agents.” Id. (quoting Gibson v. United States, 781 F.2d 1334, 1344 (9th Cir. 1986)). We explained: At the moment Eich [the naval officer] struck Mrs. Hensley’s car with his own, the Hensleys knew both the fact of the injury and its immediate physical cause. The fact that Mrs. GALLARDO V. UNITED STATES 11 Hensley suffered an injury was immediately apparent; the cause (a collision) was immediately apparent; and even the identity of the person who inflicted the injury (Eich) was immediately apparent. Therefore, the Hensleys’ claim accrued at the time of the accident. Hensley, 531 F.3d at 1057 (citation omitted). Gallardo cannot distinguish her case from Hensley. She emphasizes on appeal that “she could not have known or had reason to suspect” that the Corps was “complicit” in her injury “because the cause known at the time was [Curtis’s] assault.” But, as we held in Hensley, “ignorance of the involvement of United States employees is irrelevant.” Id. at 1057 (quoting Dyniewicz v. United States, 742 F.2d 484, 487 (9th Cir. 1984)). Here, Gallardo “knew both the fact of the injury and its immediate physical cause,” id., in May 2006. Because Gallardo did not file her administrative claim until four years later, the FTCA’s two-year statute of limitations, absent tolling, had run.