Opinion ID: 839228
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: a plaintiff with claims against a servicemember may waive the scra's mandatory tolling provision

Text: The SCRA makes clear that the servicemember may waive the protections of the act. 50 USC Appendix 517(a) provides that [a] servicemember may waive any of the rights and protections provided by this Act. [14] 50 USC Appendix 517(b) requires written waivers for certain actions that arise from disputes involving certain legal instruments, [15] but in all other actions the rights and protections of the act may be waived by any other means. [16] Waiver under the SCRA is not limited to servicemembers. Congress set out the purpose of the SCRA in 50 USC Appendix 502: (1) to provide for, strengthen, and expedite the national defense through protection extended by this Act to servicemembers of the United States to enable such persons to devote their entire energy to the defense needs of the Nation; and (2) to provide for the temporary suspension of judicial and administrative proceedings and transactions that may adversely affect the civil rights of servicemembers during their military service. Thus, in order to strengthen the national defense, Congress enacted the SCRA to temporarily free servicemembers from the burden of participating in litigation. The tolling of periods of limitations in actions against servicemembers serves to provide for, strengthen, and expedite the national defense by protecting the civil rights of servicemembers during their military service. The benefits of the tolling provision to a plaintiff suing a servicemember are merely incidental to the protections that provision provides servicemembers. Congress enacted the SCRA as a shield to protect servicemembers from having to respond to litigation while in active service, but manifestly indicated that the SCRA's protections may be waived. [17] Here, plaintiff is seeking to transform the SCRA into a sword to preserve his lawsuit without having timely invoked its provisions. It would be incongruent with the purpose of the SCRA to permit a servicemember to waive the rights and protections of the act, but bar a nonservicemember from waiving incidental benefits, and thereby provide, without exception, incidental benefits to a nonservicemember. The express purpose of the act is inconsistent with providing more protections to a nonservicemember than a servicemember. Because the purpose of the act is to protect servicemembers, we conclude that Congress did not intend to prohibit waiver by a nonservicemember. Therefore, we hold that the mandatory tolling provision of 50 USC Appendix 526(a) may be waived by a plaintiff asserting a claim against a servicemember during the servicemember's military service. [18] The final question we must resolve is whether plaintiff waived the tolling of the period of limitations in this case by failing to raise the tolling provision in the trial court.