Filed: Nov. 03, 2005
Latest Update: Feb. 21, 2020
Summary: Instance should toll the running of EMTALA's limitations period.1, Monrouzeau's late discovery of her federal cause of action, does not make this an appropriate circumstance to apply the, equitable tolling doctrine.-2-, Hospital's position.F.2d 234, 240 (9th Cir.
Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter
Citation Limited Pursuant to 1st Cir. Loc. R. 32.3
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 05-1354
IRIS MONROUZEAU,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
ASOCIACIÓN DEL HOSPITAL DEL MAESTRO, INC.,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Raymond L. Acosta, Senior U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch and Howard, Circuit Judges,
and Restani,* Judge.
Mariángela Tirado-Vales, with whom Ricardo Collazo-Suarez was
on brief, for appellant.
Miriam González Olivencia for appellee.
November 3, 2005
*Chief Judge of the United States Court of International
Trade, sitting by designation.
Per curiam. Plaintiff Iris Monrouzeau appeals the
district court's entry of summary judgment in favor of defendant
Asociacíon del Hospital del Maestro, Inc. (Hospital), on the ground
that her suit, brought pursuant to the Emergency Treatment Active
Labor Act (EMTALA), 42 U.S.C. § 1395dd, following the death of her
mother at the Hospital, was untimely. Monrouzeau concedes that the
suit was brought outside EMTALA's two-year statute of limitations,
but asserts that there is a genuine issue of material fact whether
an earlier malpractice action filed by her against the Hospital and
several of its physicians in the Puerto Rico Court of First
Instance should toll the running of EMTALA's limitations period.
Monrouzeau's argument is largely premised on an assertion
that she timely pleaded an EMTALA claim in the Commonwealth court
action. The Hospital contests whether Monrouzeau's Commonwealth
court complaint set forth an EMTALA claim, and Monrouzeau's
alternative argument in favor of equitable tolling -- that she did
not learn that she had a viable EMTALA claim until she received a
copy of her expert report in the Commonwealth court action (after
the EMTALA limitations period had run)1 -- tends to support the
1
Monrouzeau's late discovery of her federal cause of action
does not make this an appropriate circumstance to apply the
equitable tolling doctrine. This sparingly applied doctrine, see
Irwin v. Dep't of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89,96 (1990), is
generally available only where circumstances beyond the plaintiff's
control precluded timely filing, see Neverson v. Farquharson, 366
F.3d 32, 42 (1st Cir. 2003). And here, there is no reason to think
that Monrouzeau's late discovery of her federal cause of action was
beyond her control.
-2-
Hospital's position. But even if we assume, solely for the sake of
argument, that the Commonwealth pleadings did set forth an EMTALA
claim, and even if we further assume, over the Hospital's contrary
argument, that the running of EMTALA's limitations period, in some
cases, may be equitably tolled, Monrouzeau is not entitled to
tolling here.
That Monrouzeau timely pleaded her federal claim in the
Commonwealth court action -- where she was allowed to have it
adjudicated, see Burks v. St. Joseph Hosp., 596 N.W. 391, 400
(Wisc. 1999) -- does not entitle her to replead it beyond the
statutory window in this parallel federal lawsuit. See Ramirez de
Arellano v. Alvarez de Choudens,
575 F.2d 315, 319 (1st Cir. 1978)
("[P]rior judicial actions generally do not toll the statute of
limitations, no matter how close their relationship to the case at
bar."); accord Drumm v. Sizeler Realty Corp., 817 F.2d 1195, 1196
n.2 (5th Cir. 1987); Pace Indus., Inc. v. Three Phoenix Co.,
813
F.2d 234, 240 (9th Cir. 1987). So far as we can tell, there are no
additional equities on Monrouzeau's side favoring tolling. The
equitable tolling doctrine is not a means by which a litigant may
belatedly reconsider a choice to pursue a federal claim in a non-
federal forum.
Affirmed.
-3-
