Stevens v. ARCO MANAGEMENT

• Decision Date: 25 May 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-CV-89.,99-CV-89.
• Citation: 751 A.2d 995
• Parties: Phalisha STEVENS, Appellant, v. ARCO MANAGEMENT OF WASHINGTON D.C., INC., Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

751 A.2d 995

Phalisha STEVENS, Appellant, v. ARCO MANAGEMENT OF WASHINGTON D.C., INC., Appellee.

No. 99-CV-89.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued January 21, 2000.

Decided May 25, 2000.

Ronald W. Cox, Jr., with whom Richard W. Evans, Silver Springs, MD, was on the brief, for appellant.

T. Wayne Biggs, with whom Ray L. Hanna was on the brief, for appellee.

Before STEADMAN and REID, Associate Judges, and PRYOR, Senior Judge. STEADMAN, Associate Judge:

Appellant slipped and fell on a stairway in public housing owned by the United States but managed by appellee. Appellant brought suit in federal court against both the United States and appellee, but that suit was dismissed for want of jurisdiction under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Appellant's subsequent negligence action against appellee filed in the D.C. Superior Court was dismissed based on the expiration of the District of Columbia's statute of limitations. Because we read the federal supplemental jurisdiction statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1367, as extending the local statute of limitations for thirty days beyond the pendency of the parties' federal case (a time period that appellant met in refiling the suit in the Superior Court), we reverse and remand.

I.

On December 23, 1994, appellant Phalisha Stevens fell on the stairs of Benning Park Terrace, a property within the District of Columbia, allegedly due to negligent maintenance of the stairway. Her attorney informed the property manager of the incident. In response, appellee ARCO Management of Washington, D.C., Inc. (ARCO) replied by letter, stating that the subject property "is under the control of the United States Department of Housing & Urban Development" (HUD). The letter informed appellant's attorney that any tort claim had to be filed via an enclosed claim form. The form was completed and returned to ARCO, who forwarded it to HUD. On March 15, 1996, HUD denied the claim, stating that "[t]he Project Manager is under contract with [HUD]. Under this contract, HUD indemnifies the Project Manager for certain types of claims related to management of Multifamily HUD-owned ... Projects. This claim falls under this indemnification." Upon this representation, appellant requested insurance and indemnity information and documentation from ARCO. Notwithstanding HUD's previous denial of the claim, ARCO responded only by providing the name and address of a HUD contact person, stating that "HUD was self-insured at the time of the alleged accident and all claims must be filed with them."

Appellant's next step was to file suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against HUD and ARCO on December 4, 1997. Appellant alleged injuries resulting from the negligence of an employee of ARCO or HUD, and based the suit on both the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. § 2671 et seq., and common law negligence.¹ The United States filed a motion to dismiss the action against it, contending that it did not have control over the property, that ARCO was an independent contractor managing the property, and that any negligence would have been by an employee of ARCO and not the United States. On July 20, 1998, the court granted the motion and dismissed the case. The court concluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the United States on the FTCA claim² and that it therefore lacked supplemental jurisdiction over appellant's common law negligence claims against ARCO.

Appellant filed the present action in the Superior Court against ARCO within thirty days of the dismissal in federal court, but well beyond three years from the date of the injury. The trial court subsequently granted ARCO's motion to dismiss, ruling that the District's three-year statute of limitations had expired.³

II.

Among other arguments,⁴ appellant invokes a federal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1367(d), asserting that the statute granted her an additional thirty days within which to refile the suit in Superior Court. In pertinent part, 28 U.S.C. § 1367 provides:

(a) . . . in any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction, the district courts shall have supplemental jurisdiction over all other claims that are so related to claims in the action within such original jurisdiction that they form part of the same case or controversy....

(c) The district court may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a claim under subsection (a) if —

(1) the claim raises a novel of complex issue of State law,

(2) the claim substantially predominates over the claim or claims over which the district court has original jurisdiction.

(3) the district court has dismissed all claims over which it has original jurisdiction; or

(4) in exceptional circumstances, there are other compelling reasons for declining jurisdiction.

(d) The period of limitations for any claim asserted under subsection (a), and for any other claim in the same action that is voluntarily dismissed at the same time as or after the dismissal of the claim under subsection (a), shall be tolled while the claim is pending and for a period of 30 days after it is dismissed unless State law provides for a longer tolling period.

(e) As used in this section, the term "State" includes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and any territory or possession of the United States.

Thus, subsection (d) grants a thirty-day extension of the statute of limitations otherwise applicable to state claims which are joined to a purported federal claim under the doctrine of supplemental jurisdiction.⁵ ARCO argued, however, and the trial court agreed,⁶ that § 1367(d) does not apply to situations where the underlying federal claim is dismissed for want of subject-matter jurisdiction. According to the argument, before § 1367(d) can apply, a federal court must have jurisdiction over the merits of the federal claim, and, reciprocally, where federal claims are dismissed for lack of jurisdiction there was no federal "original jurisdiction" claim on which to rest the statutory tolling of § 1367 for the alleged "supplemental" claims. In other words, ARCO asserts that subsection (d)'s tolling provision can only apply in instances where the dismissal of the state claims is discretionary under subsection (c).⁷ Although this argument is not without support, at least in one secondary source,⁸ we conclude that the language of the statute, prevailing federal and state case-law, and purposes underlying the enactment of § 1367 dictate a broader reading of the provision.

A.

"As a general rule, we look first to the plain language of a statute to determine its meaning," Francis v. Recycling Solutions, Inc., 695 A.2d 63, 72 (D.C.1997), and "favor[ ] interpretations consistent with the plain language. . . ." Downs v. Dist. of Columbia Police and Firefighters Retirement and Relief Bd., 666 A.2d 860, 861 (D.C.1995). Further, in the limitations context, where the language is arguably ambiguous so that "two constructions as to the limitations period are possible, the courts prefer the one which gives the longer period in which to prosecute the action." Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. v. Henkel, 689 A.2d 1224, 1233 (D.C.1997) (quoting Simpson v. District of Columbia Office of Human Rights, 597 A.2d 392, 402 (D.C. 1991)). Thus, we begin with the language of subsection (d). Importantly, it does not condition its application to discretionary dismissals under subsection (c). Rather, it applies to "any claim asserted under subsection (a)." (emphasis added).

Here, appellant asserted that her state law claim was so related to her federal claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act that the federal court had jurisdiction over both claims. By filing the federal suit, appellant "asserted" her claim under § 1367(a). The subsequent ruling of the federal court that the federal claim had to be dismissed did not annul plaintiff's initial assertion. Rather, it only held that contention to be legally incorrect. The contrary interpretation of subsection (d), urged by ARCO, would mean that not only must a plaintiff assert a federal claim, but that the assertion of federal jurisdiction must ultimately be correct. The language of § 1367(d) does not require a successful assertion of federal jurisdiction. Moreover, the subsection does not differentiate among the possible reasons for dismissal, whether it be on the merits, or for jurisdictional reasons. Mindful of the statutory structure, we turn next to an examination of cases on the issue.

B.

Somewhat surprisingly, we are faced here with an issue of statutory interpretation that has scarcely been addressed in reported decisions by other state or federal courts in the decade since § 1367's enactment. Appellee cites no cases in direct support of the inapplicability of subsection (d) in the current scenario, nor have we found any such cases. On the other hand, the more lenient reading which we grant the statute does find support in the admittedly scanty federal and state case law on the issue.

One would, of course, expect the issue to arise most directly in state court proceedings. To our knowledge, no state supreme court has yet decided the issue. At a lower court level, almost squarely on point is the very recent Minnesota Court of Appeals case of Raygor v. University of Minnesota, 604 N.W.2d 128 (Minn.App. 2000), which has been granted further review by the Minnesota Supreme Court, 2000 Minn. LEXIS 185 (March 28, 2000). In Raygor, the intermediate appellate court of Minnesota was faced with the question whether the state statute of limitations had been tolled pendente lite by a federal suit brought under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA). The federal claims had been dismissed by the federal court for lack of subject matter jurisdiction "because the Eleventh Amendment bars suits in federal court against a state by citizens of that or another state." Id. at 130. The...