Opinion ID: 163868
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Was the Statute of Limitations Defense Waived?

Text: 27 Having determined that the statute of limitations defense is a waivable affirmative defense, we must determine whether the defendants, in fact, waived it in this case. It is true that the defendants here initially pled the statute of limitations defense, at least in general terms. See Aplts' App. at 12. The defendants also filed a motion during the course of the trial, again raising the statute of limitations issue. Aplts' App. at 55 (Motion for Directed Verdict, filed Mar. 23, 2001) (The undisputed facts developed at trial show that plaintiff failed to timely file her claims). Neither of these facts, however, overcomes the Pretrial Order Rule, embodied in Rule 16(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: 28 After any conference held pursuant to this rule, an order shall be entered reciting the action taken. This order shall control the subsequent course of the action unless modified by a subsequent order. The order following a final pretrial conference shall be modified only to prevent manifest injustice. An order entered pursuant to Rule 16(e) supersedes the pleadings and controls the subsequent course of litigation. 29 The resulting pretrial order measures the dimensions of the lawsuit, both in the trial court and on appeal. Tyler v. City of Manhattan, 118 F.3d 1400, 1403 (10th Cir. 1997) (internal quotation marks omitted). Since the whole purpose of Rule 16 is to clarify the real nature of the dispute at issue, attorneys at a pre-trial conference must make a full and fair disclosure of their views as to what the real issues of the trial will be. Rios v. Bigler, 67 F.3d 1543, 1549 (10th Cir.1995) (internal quotation marks omitted). In assessing whether an issue was preserved where it was omitted from a pretrial order, we have held that because a party did not include this issue in the pre-trial report, ... it was not part of the case before the district court. Gowan v. United States Dep't of Air Force, 148 F.3d 1182, 1192 (10th Cir. 1998). 30 Although the defendants included the statute of limitations as an affirmative defense in their answer to the complaint, they did not identify the statute of limitations issue in the pretrial order. Notably, there is a section of the pretrial order with the heading CONTESTED ISSUES OF LAW, under which the defendants listed three purely legal questions — but the statute of limitations issue was conspicuously not among them. Aplts' App. at 48 (capitalization in original). Even more notably, the pretrial order was evidently prepared exclusively by the defendants. See Aplts' Reply Br. at 3 n. 1 (No joint pretrial order was prepared in this matter.); Aplts' App. at 53 (pretrial order with the signatures of Tintic's counsel and the judge, but not that of Ms. Youren's counsel). 31 In McGinnis v. Ingram Equipment Co., 918 F.2d 1491 (11th Cir.1990), the Eleventh Circuit considered facts similar to those present here, where a party raised an issue in its first responsive pleading but then omitted reference to the issue in the pretrial order. The court ruled: [I]n the pretrial order, which supersedes the pleadings..., [the defendant] abandoned its `failure to state a claim' defense.... Thus, the issue was not preserved in the district court. Id. at 1494. 32 The defendants point to Calderon v. Witvoet, 999 F.2d 1101 (7th Cir.1993), for the proposition that a statute of limitations defense is not waived by failure to include it in the pretrial order. Calderon does, indeed, conclude that a statute of limitations defense was not waived by failure to include it in a pretrial order, 999 F.2d at 1108, but it does so on the basis that the district court in that case had already ruled against the defendants on that issue. The Seventh Circuit thus concluded: Nothing in the Rules of Civil Procedure tells counsel that to preserve issues for appeal they must insert into the pretrial order contentions that have already been rejected by the judge. Id. As the defendants themselves note here, the district court did not rule on the statute of limitations issue until after trial. Hence, the statute of limitations was a live issue when the pretrial order was drafted before trial, and Calderon is thus not applicable. 33 The statute of limitations issue, therefore, was not part of the case before the district court. Gowan, 148 F.3d at 1192. We thus hold that the defendants waived their statute of limitations affirmative defense by omitting the issue from the pretrial order, and we decline to reach the merits of the defendants' argument on this issue. 34