Court Opinion

ID: 9940220
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-13 18:00:55.297318+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:44:39.623076
License: Public Domain

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

                        UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                             FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
                                 _______________

                                 Nos. 23-1663 & 23-1689
                                   _______________

                                GILBERT SPENCER, III,
                                             Appellant

                                             v.

       PRINCETON UNIVERSITY; MUNICIPALITY OF MERCER COUNTY;
        MUNICIPALITY OF PRINCETON; JOHN DOES, 1–3; ABC, INC. 1–3

                                    _______________

                     On Appeal from the United States District Court
                              for the District of New Jersey
                                (D.C. No. 3-19-cv-20945)
                      District Judge: Honorable Georgette Castner
                                    _______________

                      Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
                                 on February 2, 2024

               Before: KRAUSE, PORTER, and CHUNG, Circuit Judges

                                (Filed: February 13, 2024)

                                    _______________

                                       OPINION*
                                    _______________

*
 This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and, under I.O.P. 5.7, is not binding
precedent.
KRAUSE, Circuit Judge.

       On December 10, 2018, Appellant Gilbert Spencer, III, was seriously injured

when he rode his bike over a poorly maintained sewer grate on the campus of Princeton

University. After serving notice on Mercer County1 within the 90-day period required for

claims under the New Jersey Tort Claims Act (NJTCA),2 see N.J. Stat. Ann. § 59:8-8

(West 2023), Spencer’s counsel also provided notice to the Municipality of Princeton.

Because the latter notice came over nine months after Spencer’s accident, however, the

District Court dismissed Spencer’s claim against the Municipality as untimely. For the

reasons set forth below, we will affirm.

I.     BACKGROUND

       In the days following the accident, Spencer’s counsel took steps to determine the

entity responsible for the grate. Those steps included confirming the location of the

accident, reviewing public documents, and retaining an investigator. Ultimately, counsel

and the investigator came to the same conclusion: Mercer County owned and maintained

the sewer grate at the time of Spencer’s injury. Consistent with that conclusion,

1
  The County of Mercer is incorrectly captioned as “Municipality of Mercer County.”
2
  Because (1) there is no “direct collision” between a federal rule and the NJTCA’s notice
requirement; (2) the notice requirement is outcome determinative and “failure to apply
[it] would frustrate the twin aims of . . . discourag[ing] forum shopping and avoid[ing]
inequitable administration of the law”; and (3) no countervailing federal interest prevents
the notice requirement from being applied in federal court, the requirement is substantive
for purposes of Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938). Liggon-Redding v.
Est. of Sugarman, 659 F.3d 258, 262 (3d Cir. 2011); see Schmigel v. Uchal, 800 F.3d
113, 114–15, 121–24 (3d Cir. 2015) (concluding that a similar notice requirement is
substantive).
                                             2
Spencer’s counsel filed a timely notice of claim with the County on February 18, 2019

(70 days after the accident).

       As it turned out, however, the County neither owned nor maintained the sewer

grate. Instead, ownership and maintenance responsibility fell to the Municipality.3 In

Spencer’s telling, counsel first discovered this fact on September 27, 2019, when a claims

administrator for the County identified the Municipality as the responsible party.

       That same day—291 days after the accident—Spencer’s counsel “immediately”

filed a notice of claim with the Municipality. Opening Br. 4. Although the NJTCA

permits a claimant, with a court’s leave, to file notice “within one year after the accrual of

his claim,” N.J. Stat. Ann. § 59:8-9 (West 2023), counsel did not seek leave to file a late

notice. Instead, after the Municipality denied ownership of the accident site and pointed

to the University as the responsible party, Spencer filed suit against the University, the

Municipality, and the County.4

       The Municipality eventually acknowledged that the accident site “appears to be

ours,” App. 207 (quoting a Municipality attorney), but the District Court granted the

3
  The road on which Spencer was injured is maintained in part by the County and in part
by the Municipality. Spencer’s accident occurred close to the line where Municipality
maintenance ends and County maintenance begins.
4
  Spencer filed suit on December 2, 2019, less than six months after filing his notice of
claim with the Municipality. See N.J. Stat. Ann. § 59:8-8 (allowing a claimant to sue
only “[a]fter the expiration of six months from the date notice of claim is received”).
Because we can decide this case on lack of timely notice alone, we need not address
Spencer’s premature complaint.
                                              3
Municipality’s motion to dismiss for failure to file a timely notice and then granted

summary judgment for the remaining defendants.5

II.    DISCUSSION6

       On appeal, Spencer challenges the dismissal of his claim against the Municipality,

arguing that (1) the NJTCA’s 90-day clock began to run not on the date of Spencer’s

injury, but on the date counsel learned of the Municipality’s ownership; and (2) the

Municipality should be estopped from asserting a timeliness defense because it made

misleading statements to counsel. Both arguments are unavailing.

       A.     Accrual

       As a general matter, a claim accrues under the NJTCA “when any wrongful act or

omission resulting in any injury, however slight, for which the law provides a remedy,

occurs.” Beauchamp v. Amedio, 751 A.2d 1047, 1050 (N.J. 2000). But that “occurrence

rule” gives way in New Jersey when “the victim either is unaware that he has been

injured or, although aware of an injury, does not know that a third party is responsible.”

5
  The order granting summary judgment did not dispose of Spencer’s claims against the
John Doe or ABC, Inc. defendants. Because these defendants were never identified or
served with process, however, they “are not parties within the meaning of [Fed. R. Civ.
P.] 54(b) . . . [and] the district court’s orders are . . . final and appealable.” Lacey v.
Cessna Aircraft Co., 862 F.2d 38, 39 n.1 (3d Cir. 1988); see also, e.g., James v. Mazda
Motor Corp., 222 F.3d 1323, 1324 nn.1, 6 (11th Cir. 2000).
6
  The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332. We have jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1291. To the extent the citizenship of unserved parties is “considered in the
calculus for assessing diversity,” see Iraola & CIA, S.A. v. Kimberly-Clark Corp., 232
F.3d 854, 860 (11th Cir. 2000), we “have the authority to dismiss dispensable John Doe
parties in order to preserve diversity jurisdiction,” see Mortellite v. Novartis Crop Prot.,
Inc., 460 F.3d 483, 494 (3d Cir. 2006), and will do so here.
                                             4
Id. In that circumstance, the so-called “discovery rule” comes into play, and the claim

accrues when the victim discovers both the injury and the third party’s involvement. Id.

       Spencer relies on Ben Elazar v. Macrietta Cleaners, Inc., 165 A.3d 758 (N.J.

2017), to argue that the discovery rule applies and that his notice to the Municipality—

sent on the same day counsel discovered the Municipality’s role—was therefore timely.

In that case, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that claims against a municipality

accrued not when the plaintiffs learned of a dry cleaner’s leaking chemical tanks, but

instead when they discovered (via a public-records request) that those tanks were located

on municipal property. Id. at 761–62, 765–68. As in Ben Elazar, Spencer argues, there

was “nothing to suggest” prior to counsel’s September 27th conversation with the

administrator “that [the Municipality] was responsible” for Spencer’s injury. Id. at 766.

       Unfortunately for Spencer, Ben Elazar is distinguishable. Plaintiffs there initially

sued only a private party because nothing in their investigation could have revealed the

tanks were on municipal land, meaning they had no reason to believe any public entity

caused their injuries. See id. at 766–67. But the New Jersey Supreme Court drew

contrasts between that situation—where the discovery rule did apply—and cases like

Beauchamp v. Amedio, 751 A.2d 1047 (N.J. 2000), and McDade v. Siazon, 32 A.3d 1122

(N.J. 2011), where it did not because “the plaintiffs knew immediately that one or more

public entities were involved” and “reasonable diligence” would have revealed the

responsible party or parties, Ben Elazar, 165 A.3d at 766–67.

       Spencer’s case aligns with Beauchamp and McDade, not Ben Elazar. Spencer’s

counsel was (or should have been) aware from public records that (1) Spencer’s accident

                                             5
occurred on a public road almost certainly maintained by a public entity; (2) the grate

itself was located near the County–Municipality maintenance line; and (3) the responsible

party was therefore either the County or the Municipality. And there is no reason

Spencer could not have filed notices with both the County and the Municipality—as he

eventually did—and sued the appropriate entity after confirming (or in order to confirm)

ownership. In addition, although Spencer could have sought the District Court’s leave to

provide notice to the Municipality before or after filing suit,7 N.J. Stat. Ann. § 59:8-9, he

did not do so. Counsel’s investigation here was no doubt more diligent than the

investigation in McDade, see 32 A.3d at 1131–32, but we do not read Ben Elazar to

cover a scenario like this one where the plaintiff is (or reasonably should be) aware of

two potentially responsible public entities but gives notice to only one.

         Because there was evidence “to suggest that [the Municipality] was responsible”

for Spencer’s injury before September 27, 2019, Ben Elazar, 165 A.3d 766, the discovery

rule is inapplicable. Spencer’s claim thus accrued on December 10, 2018, and Spencer’s

notice to the Municipality fell outside of the NJTCA’s 90-day window. For those

reasons, even viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Spencer, see, e.g.,

Jaroslawicz v. M&T Bank Corp., 962 F.3d 701, 708 (3d Cir. 2020), we cannot say the

District Court erred in dismissing Spencer’s claim against the Municipality.

7
    Spencer filed suit eight days before the NJTCA’s one-year window ended.
                                              6
       B.        Estoppel

       Spencer argues in the alternative that even if the claim accrued on December 10,

2018, his failure to comply with the NJTCA’s notice requirement should be excused

because “a public entity will be estopped from asserting [a timeliness] defense ‘where the

interests of justice, morality and common fairness dictate that course.’” See Hill v. Bd. of

Educ. of Middletown Twp., 443 A.2d 225, 227 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 1982) (quoting

Anske v. Borough of Palisades Park, 354 A.2d 87, 90 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 1976)).

       It is true that New Jersey courts have estopped public entities from arguing

untimeliness when the entities themselves prevented timely notice. See, e.g., Feinberg v.

State Dep’t of Env’t Prot., 644 A.2d 593, 597 (N.J. 1994). But this is not a case where

the Municipality thwarted timely notice through its misrepresentations. The Municipality

first spoke with Spencer’s counsel after counsel sent the Municipality a notice of claim,

and only then did the Municipality state that the University owned and maintained the

accident site.

       Nor did the Municipality stop Spencer’s counsel from seeking leave to file a late

notice under N.J. Stat. Ann. § 59:8-9. Even if Spencer’s counsel reasonably relied on the

Municipality’s statements, nothing prevented counsel from seeking leave on

September 27, 2019 (before counsel talked to the Municipality, and when it was clear that

notice came more than 90 days after Spencer’s injury) or in the days after filing suit

(when the University produced evidence that it had no ownership responsibility).

Because the Municipality did not stop Spencer from filing a timely claim or seeking leave

to file out of time, an estoppel argument cannot justify reversal.

                                              7
III.   CONCLUSION

       For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court. We

dismiss Spencer’s claims against John Does 1–3 and ABC, Inc. 1–3 without prejudice.

                                           8