Court Opinion

ID: 9941048
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-15 19:00:46.098709+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:46:11.270379
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-10013        Document: 00517065082             Page: 1      Date Filed: 02/15/2024

             United States Court of Appeals
                  for the Fifth Circuit
                                     ____________
                                                                               United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                        Fifth Circuit
                                       No. 22-10013
                                     ____________                                     FILED
                                                                               February 15, 2024
   Toni Marie Bullock,                                                           Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                                      Clerk
                                                                    Plaintiff—Appellant,

                                            versus

   The University of Texas at Arlington,

                                               Defendant—Appellee.
                     ______________________________

                     Appeal from the United States District Court
                         for the Northern District of Texas
                               USDC No. 4:21-CV-864
                     ______________________________

   Before Davis, Dennis, and Higginson, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
         Plaintiff Tony Marie Bullock filed suit against the University of Texas
   at Arlington (“UT Arlington”) alleging that UT Arlington violated Title IX
   of the Education Amendments of 1972 (“Title IX”), Title II of the
   Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), and the Rehabilitation Act of
   1973 (“Rehabilitation Act”) by failing to accommodate her. The district
   court dismissed Plaintiff’s ADA claim as barred by sovereign immunity and

         _____________________
         *
             This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-10013      Document: 00517065082           Page: 2   Date Filed: 02/15/2024

                                     No. 22-10013

   her Rehabilitation Act claim as barred by the statute of limitations. The
   district court also found that Plaintiff abandoned her Title IX claim. Plaintiff
   only appeals the dismissal of her Rehabilitation Act claim on statute of
   limitations grounds. For the following reasons, we REVERSE and
   REMAND for further proceedings.
                                I. Background
          Plaintiff is a student at UT Arlington who suffers from severe major
   depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In March 2018,
   Plaintiff received an accommodation letter from UT Arlington granting her
   requested accommodations: extended time for both examinations and to
   complete assignments.
          During the Fall 2018 semester, Plaintiff sent the accommodation
   letter to one of her professors, Professor Durand. However, the letter was
   sent to Professor Durand’s personal e-mail address rather than her university
   e-mail address and Professor Durand denied having seen the accommodation
   letter. Plaintiff did not receive accommodations in her courses taught that
   semester by Professor Durand. After UT Arlington issued a new
   accommodation letter that was sent to Professor Durand, Professor Durand
   acknowledged receipt of both accommodation letters, but refused to
   retroactively apply them, resulting in poor grades for Plaintiff on assignments
   completed without her requested accommodations. Because of Professor
   Durand’s    refusal   to   retroactively   grant    Plaintiff   her   requested
   accommodations, Plaintiff alleges that her emotional condition deteriorated.
   Further, Plaintiff received a failing grade and her performance suffered in all
   of her Fall 2018 classes taught by Professor Durand.
          As a result, Plaintiff filed suit against UT Arlington in state court on
   October 14, 2019, seeking compensatory damages for her emotional distress
   and delayed educational opportunities. UT Arlington moved to dismiss the

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                                           No. 22-10013

   case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, which the state court granted on
   June 8, 2020. Plaintiff timely appealed. On May 20, 2021, the state court of
   appeals affirmed the dismissal.
           Plaintiff brought the instant lawsuit against UT Arlington in federal
   district court on July 16, 2021, alleging violations of Title IX, the ADA, and
   the Rehabilitation Act. UT Arlington moved to dismiss Plaintiff’s complaint.
   Relevant to this appeal, the district court granted UT Arlington’s motion to
   dismiss, finding that the two-year Texas statute of limitations barred
   Plaintiff’s Rehabilitation Act claim. In doing so, the district court determined
   that although Texas’s savings clause applied to toll the limitations period,
   Plaintiff filed this action after the savings clause expired and the statute of
   limitations barred her Rehabilitation Act claim. The district court entered
   final judgment dismissing her claim and she timely appealed.
                                      II. DISCUSSION
           Plaintiff only appeals the district court’s dismissal of her
   Rehabilitation Act claim on statute of limitations grounds, 1 which we review
   de novo. Clymore v. United States, 217 F.3d 370, 373 (5th Cir. 2000). We apply
   Texas’s two-year personal-injury statute of limitations for claims under the
   Rehabilitation Act. Frame v. City of Arlington, 657 F.3d 215, 237 (5th Cir.
   2011). A claim accrues when “the plaintiff becomes aware that [s]he has
   suffered an injury.” Id. at 238 (internal citation omitted). The parties agree
   that Plaintiff’s claim accrued in December 2018, when she received her

           _____________________
           1
             Plaintiff does not challenge whether she alleged a viable ADA claim that validly
   abrogates UT Arlington’s sovereign immunity, or whether she did indeed abandon her
   Title IX claim. Because Plaintiff’s brief does not raise either issue, they are waived. Failure
   adequately to brief an issue on appeal constitutes waiver of that argument. See FED. R. APP.
   P. 28(a)(8)(A); Proctor & Gamble Co. v. Amway Corp., 376 F.3d 496, 499 n.1 (5th Cir. 2004)
   (internal citations omitted).

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                                         No. 22-10013

   grades for the Fall 2018 courses. The statute of limitations, excluding any
   relevant tolling, would have run in December 2020. The complaint in this
   case was filed on July 16, 2021. In the absence of applicable tolling, Plaintiff’s
   action was brought far beyond the two-year deadline.
          Plaintiff contends, however, that the Texas savings clause applies and
   tolls the statute of limitations. Section 16.064 of the Texas Civil Practice and
   Remedies Code allows a plaintiff a grace period of sixty days to file in a court
   of proper jurisdiction after a dismissal for lack of jurisdiction becomes final.
   TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE § 16.064. This provision tolls the statute of
   limitations for a party who has inadvertently filed a case in a trial court that
   lacks jurisdiction, functioning to give parties another opportunity to pursue
   their claims in a court of proper jurisdiction. Specifically, the statute states:
          (a) The period between the date of filing an action in a trial
          court and the date of a second filing of the same action in a
          different court suspends the running of the applicable statute
          of limitations for the period if:
          (1) because of lack of jurisdiction in the trial court where the
          action was first filed, the action is dismissed or the judgment is
          set aside or annulled in a direct proceeding; and
          (2) not later than the 60th day after the date the dismissal or
          other disposition becomes final, the action is commenced in a
          court of proper jurisdiction.
          TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE § 16.064.
          Both parties agree that this provision applies. 2 The only issue on
   appeal is identifying when the judgment of dismissal in Plaintiff’s state court
   action became “final” for the purposes of Section 16.064(a)(2). The district
   court found that “[e]ven construing this statute liberally, the dismissal

          _____________________
          2
              On appeal, UT Arlington “concedes that Texas’s savings clause applies.”

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                                         No. 22-10013

   became final when the trial court’s ‘plenary power over its judgment of
   dismissal expired.’” Therefore, the district court said it found that the
   judgment of dismissal became “final” thirty days after the judgment
   dismissing Plaintiff’s first action was signed on July 7, 2020. Plaintiff argues
   that this interpretation was erroneous. She argues instead that the state trial
   court’s judgment dismissing her Rehabilitation Act claim did not become
   final until the state appellate court affirmed that judgment and its plenary
   power to alter that judgment expired.
           When faced with this same issue, another panel of our court certified
   questions to the Supreme Court of Texas. Sanders v. Boeing Co., 68 F.4th 977
   (5th Cir. 2023). Specifically, the Sanders panel certified two questions to the
   Supreme Court of Texas, the second of which was whether “Plaintiffs file[d]
   this lawsuit within sixty days of when the prior judgment became ‘final’ for
   purposes of Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 16.064(a)(2)?” Id. at
   984. Both parties in this instant case agreed that the second question certified
   in Sanders appeared to present the same issue and that the Supreme Court of
   Texas’s answer to this question would likely be dispositive. 3
           Plaintiff’s interpretation carried the day. The Supreme Court of
   Texas held that “a dismissal or other disposition ‘becomes final’ under
   Section 16.064(a)(2) when the parties have exhausted their appellate
   remedies and the courts’ power to alter the dismissal has ended.” Sanders v.
   Boeing Co., 680 S.W.3d 340, 358 (Tex. 2023). The court also explained that
   “the dispute still exists until this Court loses power to act on any timely filed

           _____________________
           3
             When asked whether the second certified question in Sanders presented the same
   issue as this case, Plaintiff stated that “our case does present the same issue of when the
   sixty days under Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 16.064 begins to run.” UT
   Arlington responded similarly, stating that “the second certified question appears to
   present the same issue in this case.”

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                                     No. 22-10013

   petition for review.” Id. at 356 (citing Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas LLC v.
   1776 Energy Partners, LLC, 672 S.W.3d 391, 398–99 (Tex. 2023) (explaining
   that decisions only become “final” when the mandate issues because “[u]ntil
   then, the dispute still existed because [a party] could file a motion for
   rehearing and convince us to change our opinion and judgment”)). Thus, we
   hold that, in accordance with the Supreme Court of Texas’s opinion, the
   dismissal of Plaintiff’s state court case was not “final” for the purposes of
   Section 16.064(a)(2) until the state appellate court’s plenary power to alter
   the judgment had expired.
          Plaintiff’s initial state court suit was filed on October 14, 2019. The
   state trial court dismissed her case on June 8, 2020, for lack of jurisdiction.
   The dismissal was affirmed by the state appellate court on May 20, 2021. The
   appellate court’s plenary power expired on July 19, 2021. See TEX. R. APP. P.
   19.1(a). Under the Texas Supreme Court’s interpretation of Section
   16.064(a)(2), Plaintiff had sixty days from July 19, 2021, in which she could
   refile her action in a court of proper jurisdiction. Plaintiff filed this instant
   lawsuit on July 16, 2021, before the state appellate court’s plenary power
   expired and well within the sixty-day grace period. Therefore, Plaintiff’s
   Rehabilitation Act claim is not barred by the statute of limitations. For the
   foregoing reasons, we REVERSE and REMAND for further proceedings
   consistent with this opinion.

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