Turner v. Knight

• Decision Date: 07 October 2008
• Docket Number: No. 5, September Term, 2008.,5, September Term, 2008.
• Parties: Sherri A. TURNER v. Raymond A. KIGHT, et al.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

957 A.2d 984

406 Md. 167

Sherri A. TURNER v. Raymond A. KIGHT, et al.

No. 5, September Term, 2008.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

October 7, 2008.

Ralph T. Byrd, Laytonsville, for Petitioner.

Patricia P. Via, Chief, Division of Litigation (Leon Rodriguez, County Atty., Marc P. Hansen, Deputy County Atty., Sharon V. Burrell, Associate County Atty. for Montgomery County, on brief), Rockville, Kathleen E. Wherthey, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Douglas F. Gansler, Atty. Gen., on brief), for Respondents.

Argued before BELL, C.J., HARRELL, BATTAGLIA, GREENE, JOHN C. ELDRIDGE, (Retired, Specially Assigned), IRMA S. RAKER, (Retired, Specially Assigned) and ALAN M. WILNER, (Retired, Specially Assigned), JJ.

WILNER, J.

The question before us is whether petitioner's complaint was erroneously dismissed by the Circuit Court for Montgomery County on the ground that the causes pled were barred by limitations. That question hinges on the proper construction to be given to 28 U.S.C. § 1367(d), which provides for the tolling of State statutes of limitations with respect to State-law claims (i) that are brought in a U.S. District Court, (ii) that are within the "supplemental jurisdiction" of that court, but (iii) over which the court eventually declines to exercise jurisdiction. We interpret § 1367(d) differently than did the Circuit Court and the Court of Special Appeals.

BACKGROUND

On May 15, 2001, petitioner filed an 19-count complaint in U.S. District Court against Montgomery County, the county sheriff, several assistants in the sheriff's office, and officials and employees of the county detention center, all based on certain events that occurred on April 19 and April 21, 2000. Twelve counts of her complaint were brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and alleged violations of petitioner's Federal Constitutional rights; seven counts were based on rights afforded by the Maryland Constitution or by Maryland common law. The details of the events complained of are not especially germane to this appeal, and it will suffice to say that all of the claims arose from the execution of an arrest warrant issued by a Maryland court and the treatment of petitioner once she was in custody.

On March 26, 2002, the District Court filed a Memorandum Opinion and Order in which it entered summary judgment in favor of the defendants on ten of the Federal claims, dismissed the remaining two, declined to exercise jurisdiction over the seven pendant State-law claims, and directed the clerk to close the case. On April 5, however, petitioner filed a timely motion for reconsideration which, on August 7, 2002, the court granted as to one Federal-law count against one defendant but otherwise denied. In its Order, the court directed the clerk to reopen the case.

On August 20, 2003, the court filed a Memorandum Opinion and Order granting the defendants' renewed motion for summary judgment on the one count under reconsideration. That produced another motion for reconsideration by petitioner which, on December 22, 2003, the court denied.¹ On January 15, 2004. petitioner filed an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Although the briefs filed in the Federal appellate court are not in the record before us, it appears from the Opinion of that court that the appeal concerned the judgments entered on petitioner's Federal claims. Finding no error with respect to those judgments, the court, on January 7, 2005, filed an Opinion affirming them. Unhappy with that result, petitioner moved for a rehearing en banc, which, on March 8, 2005, the court denied. The appellate mandate affirming the District Court judgments was issued March 16, 2005, and was docketed in the District Court on March 21. That mandate terminated the Federal action.

The action now before us, which the parties seem to agree is a repetition of the State-law claims that were filed in the Federal court, was filed in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County on March 11, 2005.² Some of the defendants in the current action have not been served. Those who were served filed or joined in a motion to dismiss based on limitations. The limitations argument presented by those defendants was essentially as follows: (1) the applicable statute of limitations with respect to petitioner's claims is three years (Maryland Code, § 5-101 of the Cts. & Jud. Proc. Article), (2) the causes of action here arose in April, 2000, (3) this action was not filed until March, 2005, long after the period of limitations expired, (4) Md. Rule 2-101(b) provides, in relevant part, that, if a State-law action is filed in U.S. District Court and that court declines to exercise jurisdiction over it, an action filed in a Maryland circuit court within 30 days after entry of the order of dismissal by the Federal District Court shall be treated as timely filed, (5) this action was not filed in the Circuit Court within 30 days after dismissal of the claims by the U.S. District Court, and (6) the action was therefore not timely under the Rule.

Petitioner's response was based not on a construction of Rule 2-101(b), but on 28 U.S.C. § 1367(d), which she argued had the effect of interrupting the running of the statute of limitations from the time the action was filed in Federal court (May 15, 2001) until 30 days after the March 16, 2005 appellate court mandate, and that, as a result, less than thirteen months had actually run on the statute. The Circuit Court rejected that construction of § 1367(d), concluded that the statute of limitations continued to run and had expired while the case was pending in the U.S. District Court, that petitioner's only safety net was the 30-day window commencing when the claims were dismissed by the District Court, and that she failed to meet that requirement.

Upon that analysis, the court dismissed the actions against those defendants who had been served and denied a motion for reconsideration. Upon a consent motion, the court purported to enter a final judgment with respect to the served defendants under Md. Rule 2-602, apparently on the theory that, absent such an order, an appeal could not proceed because there remained several unserved defendants.³ In a reported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals agreed with the trial court's conclusion that § 1367(d) does not suspend the running of the statute of limitations, but merely provides that if the period of limitations expires while the case is pending in a U.S. District Court, the period is extended until 30 days after dismissal of the claims by the District Court. Turner v. Kight, 178 Md.App. 1, 938 A.2d 863 (2007). We granted certiorari to consider three issues:

(1) Whether § 1367(d) serves (i) to suspend the running of limitations during the period that the State-law claims are pending in Federal court, so that, when those claims are dismissed, the plaintiff has as much time remaining as he or she had when the claims were filed in Federal court (plus 30 days), or (ii) merely to extend the limitations period until 30 days after the claims are dismissed if the period otherwise expires while the Federal action was pending;

(2) Whether the 30-day grace period commences when the State-law claims are dismissed by the U.S. District Court or when all Federal proceedings that may affect them, including appellate proceedings, are concluded; and

(3) Whether Md. Rule 2-101(b) can be read in harmony with § 1367(d).⁴

We shall conclude that § 1367(d) does, indeed, suspend the running of limitations and does not merely extend the period, that the suspension remains in effect until 30 days after all Federal proceedings, including appellate proceedings, are concluded, and that Rule 2-101(b) can be read in harmony with § 1367(d), as so construed.

SECTION 1367

28 U.S.C. § 1367 was enacted as part of the Judicial Improvements Act of 1990. Although we shall comment further on the legislative history of that section, it will suffice at this point to note only that the section was intended to codify (and, to some extent, modify) existing case law regarding the extent to which a U.S. District Court, when presented in a civil action with a claim that is within its original jurisdiction, coupled with a claim that is not otherwise within its jurisdiction, could exercise "pendent," or "ancillary," or "supplemental" jurisdiction over the latter if it arose from the same conduct as the former.⁵ Section 1367 contains four operative subsections. We are concerned with three of them—subsections (a), (c), and (d).⁶

Subsection (a), which provides for the grant of supplemental jurisdiction, states, in relevant part, that in any civil action over which the U.S. District Courts have original jurisdiction, they "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 under Article III of the United States Constitution." Subsection (c) specifies four circumstances under which the District Court may decline to exercise that supplemental jurisdiction, one of which is that the court has dismissed all claims over which it has original jurisdiction. That is what occurred in this case.⁷ Subsection (d)—the section at issue here—provides, in relevant part, that "[t]he period of limitations for any claim asserted 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."

The first question before us is what Congress meant when it declared that the period of limitations "shall be tolled." The second is what it meant by "while the claim is pending."

The rules governing the construction of Federal statutes are well-established. The preeminent canon requires the court to "presume that [the] legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there." BedRoc Ltd., LLC v. U.S., 541 U.S. 176, 183, 124 S.Ct. 1587, 1593, ...