Court Opinion

ID: 9615266
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:33:25.19803+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:44.068875
License: Public Domain

O’NEILL, J.,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
I agree with the majority’s statement of the facts and characterization of the issues before us. The first disputed issue, whether in any circumstance there can be equitable tolling of the FTCA’s limitations period, is complicated and has created a significant circuit split.
In Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89, 111 S.Ct. 453, 112 L.Ed.2d 435 (1990), the Supreme Court held that non-jurisdictional statutes of limitations governing actions against the United States are subject to “the same rebuttable presumption of equitable tolling applicable to suits against private defendants.” Id. at 96, 111 S.Ct. 453. The majority follows this Court’s precedent in finding that the FTCA’s statute of limitations is non-jurisdictional and that equitable tolling can apply. See Hughes v. United States, 263 F.3d 272, 278 (3d Cir.2001).
However, as the majority notes, a substantial circuit split exists on whether the FTCA is jurisdictional and whether equitable tolling applies.12 The Court of Appeals *205for the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Marley v. United States, 548 F.3d 1286 (9th Cir.2008), notes that the issue is further complicated by the Supreme Court’s recent decision in John R. Sand & Gravel Co. v. United States, 552 U.S. 130, 128 S.Ct. 750, 169 L.Ed.2d 591 (2008).13 A definitive Supreme Court holding on this issue would eliminate the confusion and permit the law to be applied uniformly.
However, I find it unnecessary to address this issue because, regardless of whether the FTCA statute of limitations can be equitably tolled, Santos fails to show that equitable tolling is appropriate in this case. The majority would apply equitable tolling here because it believes that Santos and her attorney exercised due diligence and that she was precluded from discovering that her doctors and their employer were federal employees under the FTCA. It is on this ground that I dissent.
The Supreme Court permits
equitable tolling in situations where the claimant has actively pursued his judicial remedies by filing a defective pleading during the statutory period, or where the complainant has been induced or tricked by his adversary’s misconduct into allowing the filing deadline to pass. We have generally been much less forgiving in receiving late filings where the claimant failed to exercise due diligence in preserving his legal rights.... But the principles of equitable tolling described above do not extend to what is at best a garden variety claim of excusable neglect.
Irwin, 498 U.S. at 95-96, 111 S.Ct. 453 (footnotes omitted). Under Irwin, equita*206ble tolling is available where a plaintiff has actively pursued judicial remedies but filed a defective pleading if plaintiff has exercised due diligence. Id. However, equitable tolling is an extraordinary remedy which should be extended only sparingly. Hedges v. United States, 404 F.3d 744, 751 (3d Cir.2005), citing Irwin, 498 U.S. at 96, 111 S.Ct. 453. The burden is on the party claiming the benefit of the exception to the statute of limitations to show that he or she is entitled to it. Irwin, 498 U.S. at 96, 111 S.Ct. 453.
As the majority noted, we have found that equitable tolling is available in three circumstances. Sch. Dist. of Allentown v. Marshall, 657 F.2d 16, 19-20 (3d Cir.1981). Santos does not allege that defendant actively misled her regarding the cause of action or that she raised the statutory claim in a timely fashion but in the wrong forum as she filed approximately five months after the FTCA statute of limitations had elapsed. Instead, plaintiff alleges that she is entitled to equitable tolling because she was prevented “in some extraordinary way” from asserting her rights because nothing put her on notice that she should inquire into whether York Health and her doctors were covered by the FTCA and the FTCA statute of limitations is eleven years shorter than the state statute of limitations. Hedges v. United States, 404 F.3d 744, 751 (3d Cir.2005). The majority claims that, despite an otherwise diligent investigation including medical records requests, public records searches and conversations with York Health employees, nothing put Santos and her attorney on notice to inquire into whether York Health employees were deemed federal employees under the FTCA before filing her state law claim.
I disagree with the majority’s holding that Santos exercised due diligence in ascertaining the federal status of her health care providers. She retained an attorney six months after her claim accrued and requested medical records immediately. While Santos and her attorney were clearly diligent in obtaining medical records and expert opinions, they did not exercise due diligence in inquiring into the effect of York Health’s federal grants or federal qualifications. Santos and her attorney had two years to ask whether the hospital was private or federal while her attorney prepared her case. As other courts have held, for Santos and her attorney merely to assume that York Health was a private entity without making any inquiries to confirm this assumption constitutes a lack of due diligence.14 I agree with our sister *207courts and the district courts that have addressed this issue that Santos’ failure to inquire into her doctors’ federal status constitutes “a garden variety claim of excusable neglect.” Irwin, 498 U.S. at 95-96, 111 S.Ct. 453.
Santos argues that she was never informed of York Health’s FTCA coverage. However, employees protected by the FTCA have no duty to disclose their federal legal status. Gould, 905 F.2d at 745. Santos concedes that she was not affirmatively misled by York Health or the government-Santos simply made no inquiry into York Health’s status while receiving treatment nor during the two years that followed when an administrative FTCA claim could have been timely filed. Santos’ attorney conceded that he did not confirm his assumption that York Health and its employees were private entities. To toll the FTCA statute of limitations because plaintiff is ignorant of defendant’s federal status, plaintiff “must at the very least show that the information could not have been found by a timely diligent inquiry....” Motley, 295 F.3d at 824, citing Gonzalez, 284 F.3d at 291. Here, as in Motley, Santos had two years after discovering the alleged negligence to learn of the Public Health Service Act, 42 U.S.C. § 201 et seq., (the Act) as amended by the Federally Supported Health Centers Assistance Act of 1992, Pub.L. No. 102-501, 106 Stat. 3268 (1992), for which York Health had been deemed eligible since October 7, 1993, and to inquire into its possible application to her claim. The “failure to do so was a mistake of law that does not entitle [Santos] to equitable tolling.” Id.,citing Kubrick, 444 U.S. at 123-24, 100 S.Ct. 352. “[HJowever harsh it may seem, the law is clear that, absent active concealment, a plaintiffs ignorance of a person’s status as a federal employee does not excuse plaintiffs failure to file a timely administrative claim.” Kelly v. Total Health Care, Inc., 2000 WL 151280, at *1 (D.Md. Jan.28, 2000), aff'd 3 Fed.Appx. 15 (4th Cir.2000).
The majority attempts to distinguish factually-similar cases cited by the government that place the burden on plaintiffs to investigate defendants’ legal status. The majority notes that Santos’ attorney identified the doctors and their employer as defendants but did not have cause to discover their status as federal employees while, in the other cases, the plaintiffs failed to inquire into the identity of the defendants’ employer. The majority argues that these cases did not apply equitable tolling because the plaintiffs “failed to perform reasonable investigations that would have demonstrated that the defendants had been deemed federal employees covered by the FTCA.” I do not agree that these cases are distinguishable on the basis that the plaintiffs failed to inquire about the doctors’ employer.15 Instead, *208these cases do not apply equitable tolling for the same reason it is not applicable here: the plaintiffs failed to inquire into the defendant’s federal status regardless of whether they correctly identified the defendants’ employer.
In Gonzalez, a child’s mother consulted an attorney four months after the doctors’ allegedly tortious conduct and filed a claim shortly after the FTCA’s limitations period expired. Gonzalez, 284 F.3d at 285-86. The plaintiff claimed that she was “blamelessly ignorant” and could not discover the defendants’ legal status. Id. at 291. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that the plaintiff could not show due diligence justifying equitable tolling because she presented no evidence that she or her attorneys inquired as to defendants’ federal status. Id. The Court found that the plaintiff had two years to ascertain the defendants’ legal status and that to assume state jurisdiction without confirmation was a lack of due diligence. Id. at 291-92. Like Gonzalez, Santos and her attorney failed to inquire into defendants’ legal status or confirm their assumption that state law applied. The majority cites the case as finding that “there was no evidence that the plaintiff made any inquiry whatsoever into the employment of the defendants.” However, the Court found “no evidence ha[d] been presented that [plaintiff] or her attorneys made any inquiry whatsoever as to the status of the defendants as federal employees.” The majority suggests that a “simple investigation” by Gonzalez would have revealed the doctors’ federal status but that it was impossible for Santos to discover that York Health was a federal employee. It is difficult to see how this could be. If Gonzalez had discovered that her doctors worked for a different hospital, General Lawrence Family Health Center, then Gonzalez would still have to learn the hospital’s legal status — a step that the majority believes Santos was precluded from discovering although she knew her doctors’ employer. Thus, like Gonzalez, Santos and her attorney could easily have learned the legal status of her doctors.
In Ingram, a 15-year-old mother’s attorney started investigating six days after the doctors’ allegedly tortious conduct during her child’s birth, requested medical records within months and filed a claim within two and a half years. Ingram, 443 F.3d at 958. The plaintiff argued that she had no reason to suspect that her baby was delivered by a federal employee at the private hospital and that medical records made no such indication. Id. at 964. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit declined to apply equitable tolling because Ingram was unaware that her doctor was a federal employee when she knew her doctor’s identity and there was no indication that the doctor or the United States attempted to conceal his federal employee status. Id. Santos and her attorney similarly received medical records that did not put her on notice of defendants’ federal status though she knew the identity of her doctors and their employer. The Ingram Court relied not on Ingram’s failure to inquire into her doctors’ employer but on her failure to inquire into her doctor’s legal status. That Santos identified her doctors’ employer does not distinguish Ingram or Gonzalez and extinguish her obligation to inquire into her doctors’ legal status.
Moreover, instead of following our sister courts in these factually-similar cases, the majority attempts to distinguish them and relies on the decision of the Court of Ap*209peals for the Second Circuit in Valdez to support its proposition that Santos was precluded from discovering York Health’s federal status. However, the discussion cited is dicta. The Valdez Court remanded the case on the issue of when the action accrued and the discussion cited by the majority began by noting that Valdez “involved a special circumstance that may warrant equitable tolling” and concluded by stating that it was unnecessary to determine whether due diligence justified equitable tolling because it was remanding on the issue of accrual. See Valdez, 518 F.3d at 183, 185, emphasis added.
Under the majority’s standard, for a plaintiff to identify her doctors and her doctors’ employer but not to ask about their federal status because general diligence did not put her on notice to inquire is sufficient to justify equitable tolling. The majority believes that Santos’ and her attorney’s assumption was “far from [] baseless” when York Health looked like a private clinic, that its employees do not resemble traditional federal employees and that nothing revealed in general diligence “gave [Santos’ attorney] a clue” that York Health and its employees were federal employees. However, plaintiffs have an affirmative duty to investigate defendant’s legal status; defendants do not have a duty to disclose their identity as federally-protected employees. Gould, 905 F.2d at 745. The majority believes that Santos was precluded from discovering that York Health was a federal employee because neither York Health nor any “publically available sources” provided notice of federal status and that even if the information were available no circumstances should have led her to inquire. The source that prompts the inquiry is not the facts; it is the law itself.16
The information was not “undiscovera-ble” or even difficult to discover — the plaintiff need only know the law and ask. The only obstacle in learning of the defendant’s federal status stemmed from ignorance of the applicable statutes, case law and literature in this area,17 not from determining whether the Act applied. Santos has presented no evidence that an inquiry into her doctors’ and York Health’s legal status would not have discovered it.
*210The majority suggests that this situation presents an “odd scenario” wherein a plaintiff must rely on her adversary to provide accurate information, that York Health is under no legal obligation to respond truthfully to Santos’ inquiry into its legal status and that York Health employees may not be aware of their federal status. However, if Santos had exercised diligence by making the inquiry and York Health had misrepresented its legal status, equitable tolling likely would have been appropriate because Santos could claim that she was misled. Irwin, 498 U.S. at 95-96, 111 S.Ct. 453. Also, Santos need not have relied on York Health’s statement of its legal status. If Santos or her attorney had been aware of the Public Health Service Act, they could have looked up the clinic on a Department of Health and Human Services website that lists clinics under the Act: http://www.bphc.hrsa.gov/. This website was available for this purpose no later than January 2003, almost two years before the FTCA statute of limitations ran in this case. See Griffith, Medical Malpractice Litigation, supra, at 37, describing procedures for determining whether a health center is covered by the Act and referencing the website. The majority excuses Santos and her attorney of the duty to inquire as to potential defendants’ legal status if nothing puts them on notice to inquire while Congress has imposed no duty to disclose on federal employees covered by the FTCA. If plaintiffs need not ask and defendants need not tell, then the burden lies with neither party and equitable tolling is provided as a benefit to those who do not learn the law regardless of how much general diligence is done in the case.
Santos is in this situation because she and her attorney believed that she had additional time to file under the Pennsylvania Minor’s Tolling Statute.18 We agree with the majority that a plaintiffs minority status cannot toll the FTCA’s statute of limitations because the knowledge of the injury and the correct party to sue is imputed to the parents.19 Thus, children in states with minority tolling statutes are in an identical position to adults in states with longer statutes of limitations for torts *211than that provided by the FTCA20 and I have looked to those cases for guidance. Courts have not extended equitable tolling for adults in states that have longer statutes of limitations for tort claims than the FTCA’s limitations period. See e.g., Gonzalez, 284 F.3d at 291-92, holding that plaintiff who incorrectly believed that the Massachusetts’ three-year statute of limitations applied had not exercised due diligence where plaintiff failed to inquire into employment status of her doctor, who made no attempt to conceal his federal employee status; Kelly, 2000 WL 151280, *1 (D.Md.2000), holding that plaintiff who filed within the Maryland statute of limitations had not exercised due diligence where defendant had not actively concealed federal status though it did not publicize that defendants were deemed to be federal employees.
As there is no case law in this Court involving a similarly-situated minor, I look to precedential law governing similarly-sympathetic plaintiffs. In McNeil v. U.S., 508 U.S. 106, 113 S.Ct. 1980, 124 L.Ed.2d 21 (1993), the Supreme Court held that a pro se litigant’s claim was properly dismissed because he failed to heed clear statutory text to wait until his administrative proceedings terminated before instituting an action in federal court under the FTCA. Id. at 113. The Court noted that it has never suggested that procedural rules in ordinary civil litigation should be interpreted so as to excuse mistakes by those who proceed without counsel. Id. How can we allow an attorney’s mistake of law to justify equitable tolling if precedent does not allow a pro se litigant’s claim to proceed when it involves a mistake of law? Moreover, this Court has declined to extend equitable tolling to pro se litigants finding a lack of due diligence for failure to discover the proper causes of actions before the statute of limitations expired. See e.g., Hedges, 404 F.3d at 752-53, citing McNeil, 508 U.S. at 113, 113 S.Ct. 1980; United States v. Sosa, 364 F.3d 507, 512 (4th Cir.2004), stating that a pro se plaintiffs “misconception about the operation of the statute of limitations” was “neither extraordinary nor a circumstance external to his control” sufficient to warrant equitable tolling; see also Huertas v. City of Philadelphia, 188 Fed.Appx. 136, 138 (3d Cir.2006), holding that a plaintiffs “ignorance, inexperience and pro se status” do not equitably toll the statute of limitations in a personal injury case. The Hedges Court also held that the plaintiffs “mental incompetence, even rising to the level of insanity, did not toll a federal statute of limitations for claims against the Government” separately and in combination with the plaintiffs pro se status. Hedges, 404 F.3d at 753, citing Barren v. United States, 839 F.2d 987 (3d Cir.1988), denying equitable tolling for mental incompetence in a FTCA claim. It is inconsistent and, indeed, incomprehensible to extend equitable tolling to a child whose parent was aware of her injury and immediately employed an attorney experienced in medical malpractice when we do not extend it to mentally-incompetent and pro se litigants because of their mistakes of law.
As this Court has previously noted, “[pjrocedural requirements established by Congress for gaining access to the federal courts are not to be disregarded by courts out of a vague sympathy for particular litigants.” Hedges, 404 F.3d at 754. “In the long run, experience teaches that strict adherence to the procedural requirements specified by the legislature is the best *212guarantee of evenhanded administration of the law.” Id. at 753, citing Baldwin County Welcome Ctr. v. Brown, 466 U.S. 147, 152, 104 S.Ct. 1723, 80 L.Ed.2d 196 (1984). While statutes of limitations can work a substantial hardship on plaintiffs and may harshly impact innocent parties by making it impossible to enforce otherwise valid claims, we must apply the law as written. “As the Supreme Court has instructed, it is clearly the prerogative of Congress, not the judiciary, to reform the terms and scope of waiver of sovereign immunity beyond that which Congress intended.” Gould, 905 F.2d at 747, citing U.S. v. Kubrick, 444 U.S. 111, 117-19, 100 S.Ct. 352, 62 L.Ed.2d 259 (1979). In fact, Congress amended the FTCA in 1988 to provide statutory tolling of its statute of limitations for timely claims brought erroneously in state court rather than before the appropriate federal agency. 28 U.S.C. § 2697(d)(5). This provision protects the claims of plaintiffs unaware of defendants’ federal status in states with statutes of limitations for tort claims of two years or less. Thus, any remaining “traps” within the FTCA’s statute of limitations for minors in states with minor’s tolling statutes or adults in states with tort statutes of limitations longer than two years are for Congress, not this Court, to correct. See Bourne, A Day Late, discussing methods by which Congress could address this issue. To hold otherwise would effectively rewrite the two year statute of limitations of 2401(b) to allow the state statute of limitations or a state minor’s tolling statute to apply whenever a plaintiff is unaware of a defendant’s federal status.
In sum, if Santos and her attorney had considered the Public Health Service Act, the relevant case law and literature they would have known that York Health and Santos’ doctors could be federal employees and that her cause of action could be governed by the FTCA. Their ignorance of the law and their failure to inquire into the possibility of its application are the only possible grounds for equitable tolling. As I previously noted, this is a “garden variety claim of excusable neglect” and not an example of due diligence that justifies equitable tolling. Irwin, 498 U.S. at 96, 111 S.Ct. 453. This is not one of the rare situations which justifies equitable tolling.
I would affirm the well-reasoned decision of the District Court.

. See e.g., Gonzalez v. United States, 284 F.3d 281, 288 (1st Cir.2002), noting that it "has repeatedly held that compliance with this statutory requirement is a jurisdictional prerequisite to suit that cannot be waived” (citations omitted); but see de Casenave v. United States, 991 F.2d 11, 13 n. 2 (1st Cir.1993), holding that "[i]n light of the Supreme Court's holding in Irwin ... the district court’s refusal to *205entertain plaintiffs’ tolling argument [with respect to Section 2401(b)] was erroneous”; Valdez ex rel. Donely v. United States, 518 F.3d 173, 185 (2d Cir.2008), declining to determine whether to apply equitable tolling to the FTCA statute of limitations; Hughes, 263 F.3d at 278, holding that the FTCA’s statute of limitations is non-jurisdictional and applying equitable tolling; Gould v. U.S. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., 905 F.2d 738, 741 (4th Cir.1990), finding that the FTCA statute of limitations is jurisdictional and unwaiva-ble, so equitable tolling cannot be applied; Johnson v. United States, 460 F.3d 616, 619 (5th Cir.2006), noting that it has not yet determined whether the FTCA is jurisdictional; but see Perez v. United States, 167 F.3d 913, 916-17 (5th Cir.1999), holding that the FTCA statute of limitations may be subject to equitable tolling; Glarner v. U.S. Dept. of Veterans Admin., 30 F.3d 697, 701 (6th Cir.1994), holding that the FTCA statute of limitations is not jurisdictional and can be equitably tolled; McCall ex rel. Estate of Bess v. United States, 310 F.3d 984, 987 (7th Cir.2002), treating the statute of limitations as an affirmative defense and applying equitable tolling; T.L. ex rel. Ingram v. United States, 443 F.3d 956, 961 (8th Cir.2006), holding that "there is no inconsistency between viewing compliance with the statute of limitations as a jurisdictional prerequisite and applying the rule of equitable tolling” (citations omitted); Marley v. United States, 548 F.3d 1286, 1290 (9th Cir.2008), noting that it has long held that the FTCA’s statute of limitations is jurisdictional and thus equitable tolling may not be applied; Trobaugh v. United States, 35 Fed.Appx. 812, 815 (10th Cir.2002), applying equitable tolling to the FTCA’s statute of limitations; but see Farlaino v. United States, 108 F.3d 1388, 1997 WL 139768 at *4 (10th Cir.1997) (unpublished), noting that the FTCA limitations periods are jurisdictional and not subject to estop-pel or waiver principles; Torjagbo v. United States, 285 Fed.Appx. 615, 618 (11th Cir.2008), finding that the FTCA is jurisdictional but declining to determine whether equitable tolling applies; Norman v. United States, 467 F.3d 773, 776 (D.C.Cir.2006), noting that it had not yet determined whether the FTCA’s statute of limitations is jurisdictional.

. The Marley Court noted that the Supreme Court held in John R. Sand & Gravel that the rebuttable presumption of Irwin is not the correct rule when past precedents analyzing the specific statute at issue are available. Marley, 548 F.3d at 1292-93, citing John R. Sand & Gravel, 128 S.Ct. at 755-56; see also Belton v. United States, 2008 WL 2273272, at *9 (E.D.Wis. June 2, 2008).

. See e.g., Ingram, 443 F.3d at 964, holding that even if the plaintiff "had no reason to suspect” that the clinic was protected by the FTCA, "[t]he statute of limitations is not tolled, however, simply because a plaintiff is unaware that an alleged tortfeasor is a federal employee.... A plaintiff thus must inquire into the employment status of her doctor”; Norman, 467 F.3d at 775-76, declining to apply equitable remedies because defendants were not required to inform plaintiff of their federal status; Gonzalez, 284 F.3d at 291-92, holding that medical malpractice FTCA claim should not be equitably tolled despite the plaintiff’s claim of “blameless ignorance” of federal status of her doctors; Gould, 905 F.2d at 745-46, holding that "blameless ignorance” is insufficient and that "[t]he burden is on plaintiffs to show that due diligence was exercised and that critical information, reasonable investigation notwithstanding, was undiscoverable;” Jones v. United States, 2007 WL 4557211, at *11-12 (M.D.Fla. Dec.21, 2007), finding that the court could not apply equitable tolling to indigent single mother who failed to file her claim under the FTCA within the two year statute of limitations because she did not inquire as to the employment status of the doctors; Schappacher v. United States, 475 F.Supp.2d 749, 755-56 (S.D.Ohio 2007), holding that the statute of limitations should not be equitably tolled because of the plaintiffs’ ignorance about doctor’s federal status because they made no inquiry and there was no evidence that doctor *207affirmatively misled the plaintiff; but see Valdez, 518 F.3d at 183, noting in dicta that the government’s decision not to require notice to patients of a doctor's federal status creates a potential statute of limitations trap in many states and that the government has taken advantage of this trap many times; Albright v. Keystone Rural Health Center, 320 F.Supp.2d 286 (M.D.Pa.2004), finding that equitable tolling of the FXCA's statute of limitations was justified in a medical malpractice case where the combination of Pennsylvania Minor's Tolling statute and difficulty of ascertaining federal status of defendants resulted in extraordinary circumstances precluding plaintiff from timely filing her claim.

. I note that Norman is distinguishable from this case because inquiry into the defendant’s employer likely would have led to his federal status because the employer was the Environmental Protection Agency. However, though the majority relies on Norman as instructive, the Norman Court gives no indication that the plaintiff’s identification of the defendant’s employer would have been sufficient to justify equitable tolling. See Norman, 467 F.3d at 776, holding that "[a]t a minimum, due dili*208gence requires efforts to learn the employment status of the defendant" and that the plaintiff had not met that minimum.

. Additionally, the majority suggests that if federal grants to an otherwise private hospital impose liability on the federal government for its medical malpractice then, by that same logic, no one would donate to non-profits because of the risk of liability for the nonprofits’ malpractice and the federal government would be liable for all entities to which it provides support. This is logically flawed as the circumstance which creates liability for the federal government in this case is the Public Health Service Act, not the financial support itself. For plaintiffs who know of the law, the existence of federal support is therefore sufficient notice that the Act could apply. In the present situation, it is not merely that York Health received federal support; it is that the United States waived its immunity and consented to be liable for the malpractice of those deemed federal employees under the Act if acting within the scope of their employment when a claim is timely filed.

. Case law in other courts and academic literature published before the FTCA statute of limitations tolled in this case should have operated to put Santos and her experienced medical malpractice attorney on notice of the requirement to inquire into her doctors' legal status. See e.g., Motley, 295 F.3d at 824; Gonzalez, 284 F.3d at 291; Kelly, 2000 WL 151280, at *1; Joseph P. Griffith Jr., Medical Malpractice Litigation and Federally Funded Health Centers: A Primer on the Federally Supported Health Centers Assistance Act, 14-JAN S.C. Lawyer 32, 37 (2003); Richard W. Bourne, A Day Late, A Dollar Short: Opening a Governmental Snare Which Tricks Poor Victims Out of Medical Malpractice Claims, 62 U. Pitt. L.Rev. 87 (2000). If Santos’ counsel had read any of the cases or articles cited, he would have been aware of this problem.

. The Pennsylvania Minors’ Tolling Statute states:
(i) If an individual entitled to bring a civil action is an unemancipated minor at the time the cause of action accrues, the period of minority shall not be deemed a portion of the time period within which the action must be commenced. Such person shall have the same time for commencing an action after attaining majority as is allowed to others by the provisions of this subchap-ter.
(ii) As used in this paragraph, the term "minor” shall mean any individual who has not yet attained 18 years of age.
42 Pa.C.S.A. § 5533(b)(l)(i-ii).

. See e.g., Ingram, 443 F.3d 956, holding that even the status of mother of injured infant as a minor when daughter was born did not toll the two-year statute of limitations under the FTCA; Wilson ex rel. Wilson v. Gunn, 403 F.3d 524 (8th Cir.2005), cert. denied, 546 U.S. 827, 126 S.Ct. 367, 163 L.Ed.2d 74 (2005), holding that infancy does not ordinarily toll the FTCA statute of limitations because the parents or guardians of an infant plaintiff are under a duty to investigate an injury and its cause and to take legal action within the time prescribed; McCall, 310 F.3d 984, holding that neither minor's infancy nor mental incompetency, allegedly caused by United States, tolled FTCA administrative statute of limitations; MacMillan v. United States, 46 F.3d 377, 381 (5th Cir.1995), holding that the limitations period is not tolled during minority of putative plaintiff because parent's knowledge of injuries is imputed to plaintiff; Robbins v. United States, 624 F.2d 971, 972 (10th Cir.1980), same; Mann v. United States, 399 F.2d 672, 673 (9th Cir.1968), holding that the time limitation is not tolled during a claimant’s minority.

. As the District Court noted, "Fifteen states have statutes of limitations for medical malpractice claims that exceed the two year limit under the FTCA.” Santos v. United States, 523 F.Supp.2d 435, 442 (M.D.Pa.2007), collecting statutes.