Court Opinion

ID: 9596514
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:50:45.623828+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:35.222055
License: Public Domain

EVANS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority concludes that Ligas’s motion to quash tax liens did not waive his previous objection to service of process and invest the district court with personal jurisdiction. I disagree.
In the first instance, it is somewhat regrettable that we are squabbling over service of process; Ligas was clearly dodging service and gaming the system. But service of process represents an important value on the whole — notice to defendants that they are being sued — even if it seems like a frustrating formality from time to time (as in this case where Ligas knew the government was after him). See United States v. Jiles, 102 F.3d 278, 282 (7th Cir.1996) (“[Sjervice of process laws are designed to ensure defendants receive notice in accordance with concepts of due process.”); cf. McMasters v. United States, 260 F.3d 814, 817 (7th Cir.2001) (“Actual notice to the defendant is insufficient; the plaintiff must comply with the directives of Rule 4.”).
The question here, however, is not whether service of process was effectuated. The district court, Chief Judge Hold-erman presiding, decided that it was not, and the case is only before us now because the court shifted course and subsequently found that Ligas waived his previously sustained objection. As to the issue of waiver, the majority holds that Judge Holderman erred as a matter of law because Ligas’s request to extinguish the liens was “simply the logical extension of a ruling in the defendant’s favor on jurisdictional grounds.”
Is that so? Judge Holderman thought not, and I tend to agree.
The problem I see with the majority’s reasoning is that the government’s case was not obviously destroyed by the dismissal of its complaint on service of process grounds. Since the dismissal was without prejudice, the government had the ability to lodge a new complaint and make a fresh run at service of process. True, the government was in a bad spot in light of the statute of limitations. However, the district court ruling on service of process had nothing to do with the statute of limitations. The potential application of the statute of limitations, an affirmative defense that Ligas would have to prove even in the face of the government’s statements that the suit might be time-barred, hinged on facts — including those pertaining to a *505likely argument for equitable tolling — that were not litigated. See General Auto Serv. Station v. City of Chicago, 526 F.3d 991, 1001 (7th Cir.2008) (the statute of limitations is an affirmative defense); Travelers Cas. & Sur. Co. of Am., Inc. v. Northwestern Mut. Life Ins. Co., 480 F.3d 499, 504 (7th Cir.2007) (equitable tolling “enablefs] a plaintiff to extend the statute of limitations in exigent circumstances”). So, while a final defeat for the government would have rendered the liens invalid, see 26 U.S.C. § 6325(a)(1), that defeat did not happen here, and extinguishing the liens did not “follow necessarily” from the dismissal without prejudice.
That may all seem like a hypertechnical approach to civil procedure. But keep in mind Judge Holderman’s take: “Ligas has litigated this case on procedure.” Ligas sought to avoid the merits of the lawsuit— and skirt hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax obligations, including remitting FICA taxes he withheld from his employees’ paychecks — by evading service of process at every step. To say that Ligas was within his rights to demand service by the book is not to say that his approach was laudable. Under these circumstances, the district court’s exacting application of procedure on the other end seems more than reasonable. The court simply gave Ligas a taste of his own medicine; those who live by the sword of procedural technicalities cannot complain when they die by it.
Because I do not believe the district court abused its discretion, I respectfully dissent.