UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
Plaintiff-appellant Judith Hopkinson brought this action against defendants-appellees (collectively, "Siegal"),
We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, "construing the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and drawing all reasonable inferences in its favor."
The applicable statute of limitations requires a plaintiff to file suit by the greater of six years from the date of accrual, or two years after the "facts were discovered or . . . [the] facts could with reasonable diligence have been discovered." N.Y. C.P.L.R. §§ 203(g), 213(8). The parties agree that, in this case, the statute's accrual must be before March 4, 2008, two years before Hopkinson filed suit.
For substantially the same reasons outlined in the district court's thorough opinion, we conclude that the facts of Siegal's alleged fraud could have been discovered, with the plaintiff's reasonable diligence, before March 4, 2008. As early as 2005, Hopkinson knew that she was not receiving the return on investment she had been promised by Siegal. Moreover, she knew by December 2006 that the Internal Revenue Service was investigating the tax deductions offered by the Siegal vehicles in which she had invested. Courts applying New York law have already determined that plaintiffs, such as Hopkinson, who purport to have invested in fraudulent tax shelters may be on notice when the Internal Revenue Service announces an investigation of those shelters.
Moreover, Hopkinson's receipt in 2007 of the Arnall Complaint, which alleged that several of the same frauds and representations had been made by some of the same defendants in connection with similar oil and gas investments/tax shelters, was also sufficient to put her on inquiry notice. It is of no moment that the prior complaint alleged a fraud involving significantly larger sums of money, concerned a joint venture rather than a partnership, or made additional unrelated allegations of misconduct by Siegal. The point is that Hopkinson, by her own admission, had access to allegations that Siegal had engineered a fraudulent investment and tax shelter scheme that bore a striking resemblance to her own partnerships with Siegal. New York law has recognized court documents less detailed than the Arnall complaint as an adequate basis for triggering the accrual period.
We have considered the appellant's remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment is AFFIRMED.