Opinion ID: 809345
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Second Case

Text: Represented by counsel, Ms. Johnson, as sole plaintiff, filed a second case in the federal district court, this time asserting that she was a citizen of Arkansas, the defendants were citizens of Kansas, and the amount in controversy exceeded $75,000, thus alleging diversity jurisdiction. The summonses were promptly served on the defendants. 1 As discussed below, § 60-518 provides a six-month period to refile a prior, timely action that failed otherwise than on the merits and the limitations period has run. -3- Defendants moved to dismiss, invoking the Kansas two-year statute of limitations for medical negligence actions. They averred that Ms. Johnson’s complaint in the second case, filed on October 4, 2010, was filed more than two years after she discovered the alleged medical negligence on July 7, 2008. Ms. Johnson did not dispute that the two-year statute of limitations applied, but she asserted that the Kansas Savings Statute operated to make her second case timely. Ms. Johnson argued that, under the Kansas doctrine of unique circumstances, the district court clerk’s failure to issue the summonses in the first case was a third-party error that prevented her from “commencing” the first case. The district court granted defendants’ motions to dismiss, holding that (1) the second case was filed outside the applicable two-year statute of limitations; (2) the first case had not been “commenced” within the meaning of the Savings Statute, Kan. Stat. Ann. § 60-203(a); and (3) the doctrine of unique circumstances, even if still viable, did not apply because “there is nothing in [Fed. R. Civ. P. 4] which requires the clerk to issue summonses before plaintiffs responded to the order to show cause [in the first case], especially when lack of subject matter jurisdiction [was] evident from the face of the complaint.” Aplt. App. Vol. III at 505. Although the court noted that the record did not reflect that Ms. Johnson returned the summonses to the clerk to be issued, the court nevertheless held that even if she had returned them, there was no requirement for the clerk to issue them before the case was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Ms. Johnson appeals, renewing her argument -4- that the doctrine of unique circumstances, coupled with the Savings Statute, rendered the second case timely. She further asserts that the district court erred in not construing her allegations as true and improperly relied on the record concerning whether she returned the summonses to the clerk.