Court Opinion

ID: 9469320
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:37:28.216062+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:19.792059
License: Public Domain

THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I agree fully with Judge Clark that this case is an admiralty action under the Suits in Admiralty Act, 46 U.S.C. § 741 et seq. (1975). I also agree with him that the case should be remanded, for a determination of whether or not to toll the SAA’s limitations period. But I do not think that the analysis has yet been taken far enough to show that the limitations period can actually be tolled; therefore, I would remand to allow the presentation of additional evidence and argument regarding our ability to toll the limitations period. t
As Judge Clark quite correctly observes, the question whether or not a limitations period can be tolled depends upon the meaning of the statute which contains it. *352No longer can a sophisticated legal system decide this question simply by incanting the charmed labels of “substance” or “procedure.” “The proper test is not whether a time limitation is ‘substantive’ or ‘procedural,’ but whether tolling the limitation in a given context is consonant with the legislative scheme.” American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538, 557-58, 94 S.Ct. 756, 768, 38 L.Ed.2d 713 (1974). Even when the limitations period conditions a waiver of the United States’ sovereign immunity, as does the SAA, “we should not take it upon ourselves to extend the waiver beyond that which Congress intended. Neither, however, should we assume the authority to narrow the waiver that Congress intended.” United States v. Kubrick, 444 U.S. Ill, 118,100 S.Ct. 352, 357, 62 L.Ed.2d 259 (1979) (citations omitted). We should, in other words, analyze a limitations period according to Congress’ will, not according to the courts’ magical formulae.
The problem is that no one has fully examined Congress’ intent in the limitations period written for the SAA. None of the parties here presented any evidence of statutory purpose to this Court either in brief or in oral argument; apparently, no such argument was made to the court below. The two Circuits that have found the SAA limitations period to be jurisdictional, and thus incapable of being tolled, have done little more than state conclusions, without undertaking the legislative analysis that I believe Kubrick mandates. See Szy-ka v. United States Secretary of Defense, 525 F.2d 62 (2d Cir. 1975); T. J. Faigout Boats, Inc. v. United States, 508 F.2d 855 (9th Cir. 1974), cert, denied, 421 U.S. 1000, 95 S.Ct. 2398, 44 L.Ed.2d 667 (1975).1 The Third Circuit, which allowed the SAA limitations period to be tolled, accurately investigated the policy considerations relevant to statutes of limitations, but did not examine congressional intent in a manner completely applicable to this case. See Northern Metal Co. v. United States, 350 F.2d 833 (3d Cir. 1965). Because of this paucity of information available to us, I would remand primarily for the purpose of finding what Congress meant in the SAA limitations period. Only after this full analysis would I require the district court to study the equities and facts of this case.

. Of course, it is possible that the parties and the Second and Ninth Circuits have discovered what is often the case in legislative history analyses — the fact that no legislative history or congressional policy can be found to answer the particular question. Indeed, my own cursory examination has revealed no evidence relating to the SAA statute of limitations. If no such evidence exists, then I might have to object to Judge Clark’s decision to allow tolling of the limitations period. In my opinion, and as indicated by the rule construing waivers of sovereign immunity in favor of the sovereign, we probably ought to assume that if Congress had intended to broaden the waiver by allowing tolling, it would have said so.