Moore v. Liberty Nat'l Life Ins. Co., 00-14507
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit) |
| Citation | 2001 WL 1172689,267 F.3d 1209 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-14507,00-14507 |
| Parties | (11th Cir. 2001) ELLEN GAYLE MOORE, on Behalf of Themselves and all Others Similarly situated, FANNIE McCONNELL, on Behalf of Themselves and all Others Similarly Situated, et al, Plaintiffs-Appellees , v. LIBERTY NATIONAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendants-Appellants |
| Decision Date | 28 September 2001 |
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v.
LIBERTY NATIONAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendants-Appellants .
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Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, D. C. Docket No. 99-03262-CV-BU-S
Before BIRCH, WILSON and FARRIS* , Circuit Judges .
WILSON, Circuit Judge:
Liberty National Life Insurance Company (Liberty National) appeals the district court's denial of its motion for judgment on the pleadings on plaintiffs' civil rights claims, filed pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1982. Plaintiffs, a putative class of African Americans that purchased life insurance policies from Liberty National over the last sixty years, allege that Liberty
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National maintained a policy of charging higher premiums and paying lower benefits to African Americans than to whites. Liberty National contends that plaintiffs' claims are barred by both Alabama's applicable statute of limitations and Alabama's common law doctrine of repose. Liberty National further argues that §§ 1981 and 1982 frustrate Alabama's statutory scheme of insurance regulation and are thus reverse-preempted by the McCarran-Ferguson Act. Of these three distinct contentions, the district court certified only one for the instant interlocutory appeal: whether Alabama's doctrine of repose applies to, and therefore bars, plaintiffs' federal civil rights claims. On this issue, we conclude that Alabama's rule of repose does not apply to plaintiffs' §§ 1981 and 1982 claims. While we enjoy the discretion to decline to consider either of the two issues not certified for interlocutory appeal, we do have the jurisdiction to address those claims if we choose. We address and reject Liberty National's contention that the McCarran-Ferguson Act mandates the reverse-preemption of plaintiffs' §§ 1981 and 1982 claims. We decline to address plaintiffs' statute of limitations argument, as we do not feel it appropriate for review at this time. Therefore, we affirm the district court's denial of Liberty National's motion for judgment on the pleadings.
On December 8, 1999, four African American policyholders filed a class action complaint in the federal district court for the Northern District of Alabama, alleging that Liberty National engaged in racial discrimination by targeting low income African Americans and selling them industrial life insurance policies with higher premiums and lower benefits than those sold to whites. In their complaint, plaintiffs alleged that Liberty National sold policies in a racially discriminatory fashion from 1940 to the mid-1970s and that Liberty National continued to collect premiums on those policies until within two years of the filing of the complaint. The complaint alleged claims under § 1981, which prohibits racial discrimination in contractual relations, and also included a variety of state law claims.
Liberty National moved for judgment on the pleadings, and on April 7, 2000, the district court granted its motion. The district court ruled that the § 1981 claims accrued at the time the insurance contracts were made and therefore were barred by Alabama's two-year statute of limitations for personal injury torts. The court found that plaintiffs had not alleged fraudulent concealment with sufficient particularity to toll the statute of limitations. The court thus dismissed plaintiffs' state law claims without prejudice to refiling in state court and dismissed the § 1981 claim with prejudice.
On April 21, 2000, plaintiffs filed a motion to alter or amend the judgment and also sought leave to file an amended complaint. Plaintiffs presented a proposed amended complaint to the court, which made specific allegations that Liberty National fraudulently concealed its alleged misconduct, and added claims under § 1982, which prevents racial discrimination in the maintenance of property. Plaintiffs contended that the proposed revisions repaired the deficiencies in the initial complaint and thus asked the court to reconsider its previous ruling dismissing the case on the pleadings (assuming the court granted plaintiffs leave to amend their complaint).
On July 3, 2000, after hearing oral argument, the district court granted plaintiffs' motion to alter or amend the April 7th order and also granted plaintiffs leave to file an amended complaint. The court
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found that the proposed amended complaint alleged with particularity (as that term is defined in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b)) that Liberty National fraudulently concealed the information that gave rise to plaintiffs' claims. The court held that the two-year statute of limitations would be tolled under Alabama law if these specific allegations were true.
Liberty National argued that even if the complaint could not be dismissed at the pleadings stage on the basis of the statute of limitations, Alabama's common law rule of repose would operate to bar plaintiffs' claims. The court found that the state rule of repose, which bars any suit arising out of any event more than twenty years old, barred all but one of plaintiffs' state law claims. In contrast, the court held that the state rule of repose was inapplicable to plaintiffs' federal civil rights claims. The court noted that statutes of limitations are essential features of any cause of action, and because § 1981 does not contain a statute of limitations, federal courts must borrow the applicable limitations period from state law. However, the court determined that absolute rules of repose are not necessary components of federal causes of action, so applying them to federal civil rights claims is unnecessary and improper.
Finally, the court rejected Liberty National's claim that §§ 1981 and 1982 frustrated the purposes of Alabama's scheme of insurance regulation and thus ran afoul of the McCarran-Ferguson Act.
Liberty National moved for permission to file an interlocutory appeal, and the district court granted that motion, certifying the following question for our consideration:
Whether Alabama's 20 year common law rule of repose bars the Plaintiffs in this action from pursuing federal claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 & 1982.
Liberty National promptly filed the instant interlocutory appeal.
A.
We review a district court's denial of "a judgment on the pleadings de novo." Hawthorne v. Mac Adjustment, Inc., 140 F.3d 1367, 1370 (11th Cir. 1998). Judgment on the pleadings is appropriate only when "the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). We must accept all facts in the complaint as true and "view them in the light most favorable to the" plaintiffs. Id.
Liberty National's first contention in this appeal is that 42 U.S.C. § 1988(a) requires the application of Alabama's common law rule of repose to plaintiffs' §§ 1981 and 1982 claims. This claim presents an issue of law that is reviewed de novo. Johansen v. Combustion Eng'g, Inc., 170 F.3d 1320, 1334 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 931 (1999). To put Liberty National's contention in context, we turn first to some background on Alabama's repose doctrine.
Alabama's judicially created rule of repose serves to bar claims that arise out of events that are more than twenty years old. Ex parte Grubbs, 542 So. 2d 927, 930-31 (Ala. 1989). Alabama's rule of repose "'is similar to a statute of limitations, but [is] not dependent upon one,'" and has a greater breadth than any such statute. McDurmont v. Crenshaw, 489 So. 2d 550, 552 (Ala. 1986) (quotingBoshell v. Keith, 418 So. 2d 89, 91 (Ala. 1982)). Unlike a statute of limitations, "the only element of the rule of repose is time." Boshell, 418 So. 2d at 91. "[The rule of repose] is not affected by the circumstances
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of the situation, by personal disabilities, or by whether prejudice has resulted or evidence obscured." Id.There is some debate in Alabama law concerning the types of claims to which the doctrine is applicable. It is unclear, for example, whether the rule applies to personal injury actions. Spain v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 230 F.3d 1300, 1307 (11th Cir. 2000) (acknowledging uncertainty about the scope of actions to which the rule of repose applies). However, it is clear that any claim in Alabama courts, brought more than twenty years after the time when it first could have been, is barred if the rule of repose applies. Boshell, 418 So. 2d at 91. The Alabama Supreme Court articulated the rationale for the rule as follows:
As a matter of public policy . . . it has long been the settled policy of this state . . . that antiquated demands will not be considered by the courts . . . . It is necessary for the peace and security of society that there should be an end of litigation, and it is inequitable to allow those who have slept upon their rights for a period of 20 years . . . to demand an accounting.
Snodgrass v. Snodgrass, 58 So. 201, 201-02 (Ala. 1912).
Liberty National argues that the repose doctrine must be applied to bar plaintiffs' §§ 1981 and 1982 claims, as the events giving rise to each of the plaintiffs' claims are more than twenty years old. The governing statute concerning the appropriate rules of decision for the Reconstruction-era Federal Civil Rights Acts is codified at 42 U.S.C. § 1988(a). To evaluate Liberty National's argument, we turn first to the text of § 1988(a) itself:
The jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters conferred on the district courts by the provisions of titles 13, 24, and 70 of the Revised Statutes for the protection of all persons in the United States in their civil rights,...
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