Court Opinion

ID: 9468050
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:02:53.942157+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:39.278903
License: Public Domain

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part, dissenting in part:
I concur in all but section III of the majority’s per curiam opinion. In section III, the majority holds that the district court abused its discretion in declining to exercise pendent jurisdiction over Henson’s state-law claim. I am unable to agree.
The district court had two occasions in which to consider exercising pendent jurisdiction over the state-law claims. On the first occasion, the court was unaware that a time-bar awaited Henson in the Georgia courts. Lacking this knowledge, the district court, in the exercise of its discretion, see United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 725-726, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 1138-1139, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966), declined to exercise pendent jurisdiction. The district court offered two reasons for its declination: the non-federal claim involved difficult issues of Georgia law whose resolution was best left to the Georgia courts; and the state-law claim would require production of confusing evidence that was irrelevant to the Truth-In-Lending claims. Record, vol. II, at 91-93. Certainly, the district court did not, on the information then before it, abuse its discretion in declining jurisdiction.
Following the district court’s dismissal of his state-law claims, Henson took those claims to the Georgia courts. The Georgia courts, however, held that they could not entertain them because the relevant Georgia statute of limitations had run. Henson then returned to the district court and moved the court, in light of the Georgia time-bar, to reconsider its dismissal of the pendent claims. The district court denied Henson’s motion. On appeal, the majority reverses on the basis of Pharo v. Smith, 625 F.2d 1226 (5th Cir. 1980). In my view, Pharo does not mandate reversal. Rather, it requires us to affirm the district court on the pendent jurisdiction issue if it acted within its discretion, which I conclude it did.
In Pharo v. Smith, we held that a time-bar to a plaintiff’s pendent state-law claims “is certainly a factor, if not a determinative factor, a district court should consider in deciding whether to maintain jurisdiction over pendent state claims.... ” 625 F.2d at 1227. The suggestion in Pharo that the time-bar may be a determinative factor in the district court’s decision is, at most, dictum. In the case at bar, I would hold that the district court acted within its discretion in not giving the time bar factor determinative weight, since Henson, rather than timely calling the problem to the district court’s *331attention,1 actually litigated his claim in state court, subjecting the Bank to needless expense and. inconvenience. Given this, I think the district court acted well within its discretion in denying the motion. Therefore, I must respectfully dissent.

. Henson argued that he reasonably believed the Georgia renewal statute, see Ga.Code Ann. § 3-808, tolled the statute of limitations while the state-law claim was pending in federal court, and he thus had no reason to call the limitations problem to the district court’s attention. Henson’s position would be appealing if his belief were in fact reasonable. His belief, however, was not reasonable, as there is a long line of Georgia cases holding to the contrary. See Nevels v. Detroiter Mobile Homes, 124 Ga. App. 112, 183 S.E.2d 77 (1971); Webb v. Southern Cotton Oil Co., 131 Ga. 682, 63 S.E. 135 (1908); Constitution Publishing Co. v. De-Laughter, 95 Ga. 17, 21 S.E. 1000 (1894).