JOSÉ A. CABRANES, Circuit Judge:
This appeal presents an unsettled question of law: whether the tolling rule set forth by the Supreme Court in American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538, 94 S.Ct. 756, 38 L.Ed.2d 713 (1974) ("American Pipe") — that "the commencement of a class action suspends the applicable statute of limitations as to all asserted members of the class who would have been parties had the suit been permitted to continue as a class action," id. at 554, 94 S.Ct. 756 — applies to the three-year statute of repose in Section 13 of the Securities Act of 1933 ("Securities Act"), 15 U.S.C. § 77m.
This appeal comes to us from an order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Lewis A. Kaplan, Judge) denying, in relevant part, proposed intervenors-appellants' motions to intervene.
We hold that: (1) American Pipe's tolling rule does not apply to the three-year statute of repose in Section 13; and (2) absent circumstances that would render the newly asserted claims independently timely, neither Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24 nor the Rule 15(c) "relation back" doctrine permits members of a putative class, who are not named parties, to intervene in the class action as named parties in order to revive claims that were dismissed from the class complaint for want of jurisdiction. In practical terms, the proposed intervenors may not circumvent Section 13's statute of repose by invoking American Pipe or Rule 15(c). Accordingly, we
This appeal arises from two securities class actions, consolidated by the District Court, asserting claims for violations of Sections 11, 12(a) and 15 of the Securities
On June 21, 2010, the District Court dismissed for lack of standing all claims in the Amended Complaint arising from the offerings of securities not purchased by the Wyoming entities, who are the lead and sole named plaintiffs. IndyMac I, 718 F.Supp.2d at 501. The District Court explained that, as in any lawsuit, the named plaintiffs must demonstrate constitutional standing, and that the Wyoming entities had failed to make the necessary showing of injury as to the offerings of securities that they did not purchase. Id. (relying on an earlier District Court opinion in separate mortgage-backed securities litigation).
The dismissed claims included those involving securities purchased by Detroit PFRS and by other members of the asserted class, none of whom were named plaintiffs. In addition to Detroit PFRS, five members of the asserted class — (1) the City of Philadelphia Board of Pensions and Retirement ("Philadelphia"); (2) the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association ("LACERA"); (3) the Public Employees' Retirement System of Mississippi ("PERS"); (4) the Iowa Public Employees' Retirement System ("Iowa"); and (5) the General Retirement System of the City of Detroit ("Detroit Retirement") — subsequently moved to intervene in the action, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24,
The District Court denied the motions to intervene in a thorough and careful memorandum opinion of June 21, 2011, reasoning that the Section 13 repose period had expired and could not be tolled under American Pipe or extended by operation of Rule 15(c). See Indymac II, 793 F.Supp.2d 637.
We review de novo a district court's denial of a motion to dismiss, see, e.g., Gollomp v. Spitzer, 568 F.3d 355, 365 (2d Cir.2009), and its denial of a motion to intervene for an "abuse of discretion," AT & T Corp. v. Sprint Corp., 407 F.3d 560, 561 (2d Cir.2005). To the extent that our analysis requires us to review interpretations of a statute, we do so de novo. See United States v. Robles, 709 F.3d 98, 99 (2d Cir.2013) ("We review de novo a district court's decision resolving a question of statutory interpretation."); In re Sims, 534 F.3d 117, 132 (2d Cir.2008) ("A district court has abused its discretion if it based its ruling on an erroneous view of the law...." (alteration and internal quotation marks omitted)).
The principal issue before us is whether the tolling rule set forth by the Supreme Court in American Pipe and its progeny applies to the three-year statute of repose in Section 13 of the Securities Act. The plaintiffs in American Pipe originally instituted a timely putative class-action antitrust suit, which was dismissed by the district court in that case for failing to satisfy the prerequisite of "numerosity," as required for certification of a class under Rule 23(a)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of the motions to intervene, concluding that the denial of class certification could not "strand" asserted members of the class for whom the statute of limitations had run while the case was pending. Id. at 544-45, 94 S.Ct. 756. The Supreme Court then affirmed the Ninth Circuit's decision, holding that "the commencement of a class action suspends the applicable statute of limitations as to all asserted members of the class who would have been parties had the suit been permitted to continue as a class action." Id. at 554, 94 S.Ct. 756.
In reaching this conclusion, the American Pipe Court relied heavily on Rule 23,
In Crown, Cork & Seal Co. v. Parker, 462 U.S. 345, 103 S.Ct. 2392, 76 L.Ed.2d 628 (1983), the Supreme Court clarified that the American Pipe tolling rule applies not only to putative class members who seek to intervene in an action, but also to would-be class members who later file their own independent actions. Id. at 353-54, 103 S.Ct. 2392; see also Joseph v. Wiles, 223 F.3d 1155, 1167 (10th Cir.2000). In so doing, the Crown Court explained the rationale for the American Pipe tolling doctrine:
Crown, 462 U.S. at 350-51, 103 S.Ct. 2392.
Proposed intervenors in this appeal now seek to apply the tolling rule of American Pipe to the statute of repose provision in Section 13.
Although "[s]tatutes of repose and statutes of limitations are often confused[,]... they are [nonetheless] distinct" and serve distinct purposes. Ma v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., 597 F.3d 84, 88 n. 4 (2d Cir.2010); see also City of Pontiac Gen. Emps.' Ret. Sys. v. MBIA, Inc., 637 F.3d 169, 175 (2d Cir. 2011) (noting a difference in the "basic purpose" of a statute of limitations as contrasted to a statute of repose). As we recently explained:
Fed. Hous. Fin. Agency v. UBS Americas Inc., 712 F.3d 136, 140 (2d Cir.2013) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). In other words, while statutes of limitations are "often subject to tolling principles," a statute of repose "extinguishes a plaintiff's cause of action after the passage of a fixed period of time, usually measured from one of the defendant's acts." Ma, 597 F.3d at 88 n. 4.
Thus, in contrast to statutes of limitations, statutes of repose "create[ ] a substantive right in those protected to be free from liability after a legislatively-determined period of time." Amoco Prod. Co. v. Newton Sheep Co., 85 F.3d 1464, 1472 (10th Cir.1996) (emphasis supplied) (quotation marks omitted); see also P. Stolz Family P'ship. L.P. v. Daum, 355 F.3d 92, 102 (2d Cir.2004) ("Stolz") ("Unlike a statute of limitations, a statute of repose is not a limitation of a plaintiff's remedy, but rather defines the right involved in terms of the time allowed to bring suit."). This conceptual distinction carries significant practical consequences. For instance, "a statute of repose may bar a claim even before the plaintiff suffers injury, leaving her without any remedy." Fed. Hous. Fin. Agency, 712 F.3d at 140 (emphasis supplied) (relying on Stolz, 355 F.3d at 103, and Stuart, 158 F.3d at 627); see also McCann v. Hy-Vee, Inc., 663 F.3d 926, 930 (7th Cir.2011). And, as most important here, a statute of repose is "subject [only] to legislatively created exceptions," Stolz, 355 F.3d at 102 (quotation marks omitted), and not to equitable tolling, Fed. Hous. Fin. Agency, 712 F.3d at 140 (internal alterations omitted).
Section 13 of the Securities Act contains two limitations periods.
Courts have repeatedly recognized that the three-year limitations period in Section 13 is a statute of repose. See, e.g., Lampf, Pleva, Lipkind, Prupis & Petigrow v. Gilbertson, 501 U.S. 350, 360, 362, 111 S.Ct. 2773, 115 L.Ed.2d 321 (1991) ("Lampf") (referring to Section 13 as a "3-year period of repose"); Fed. Hous. Fin. Agency, 712 F.3d at 140; Stolz, 355 F.3d at 96. In so doing, they have also emphasized that, as a statute of repose, the three-year period in Section 13 is said to be "absolute" and not subject to equitable tolling. For instance, the Supreme Court in Lampf noted that Section 13's three-year limitation "is a period of repose inconsistent with tolling," and reiterated that the "purpose of the 3-year limitation is clearly to serve as a cutoff," to which "tolling principles" do not apply. Lampf, 501 U.S. at 363, 111 S.Ct. 2773 (emphasis supplied). We have similarly recognized that "a statute of repose begins to run without interruption once the necessary triggering event has occurred, even if equitable considerations would warrant tolling or even if the plaintiff has not yet, or could not yet have, discovered that she has a cause of action." Stolz, 355 F.3d. at 102-03; see also Jackson Nat'l Life Ins. Co. v. Merrill Lynch & Co., 32 F.3d 697, 704 (2d Cir.1994) ("The three-year period is an absolute limitation which applies whether or not the investor could have discovered the violation." (emphasis supplied)); see generally 2 T. Hazen, Law of Securities Regulation § 7.10[4] (6th ed. 2011) ("Section 13 is not only a statute of limitations but also operates as a statute of repose. There is an absolute maximum of three years in order to prevent stale claims. The three-year repose period is absolute in that it cannot be extended by applying equitable tolling principles.").
The Supreme Court's opinion in American Pipe does not explicitly state whether the Court was recognizing "judicial tolling," grounded in principles of equity, or statutory tolling (or, "legal" tolling), based on Rule 23.
As discussed in Part II.B.i, ante, the American Pipe decision contains conflicting indications of the source of authority for its tolling rule, and the Supreme Court's subsequent statements on the matter — all in dicta — provide little clarity.
As we have explained above, see Part II.B.ii, ante, the statute of repose in Section 13 creates a substantive right, extinguishing claims after a three-year period. Permitting a plaintiff to file a complaint or intervene after the repose period set forth in Section 13 of the Securities Act has run would therefore necessarily enlarge or modify a substantive right and violate the Rules Enabling Act.
We are cautioned by some of the proposed intervenors that a failure to extend American Pipe tolling to the statute of repose in Section 13 could burden the courts and disrupt the functioning of class action litigation. See Joint Br. and Special App'x for Proposed Intervenors-Appellants LACERA and PERS at 42-43. We are not persuaded. Given the sophisticated, well-counseled litigants involved in securities fraud class actions, it is not apparent that such adverse consequences will inevitably follow our holding. See, e.g., Footbridge Ltd. Trust v. Countrywide Fin. Corp., 770 F.Supp.2d 618, 627 (S.D.N.Y. 2011) ("Even without lengthening the repose period, many class actions are resolved
We now turn to the related, but distinct, question of whether the three proposed intervenors — Detroit Retirement, LACERA, and PERS — may intervene to bring certain claims despite the Section 13 statute of repose and the absence of any currently named plaintiff with standing to bring the same claims. In particular, we consider whether the proposed intervenors may "relate back" their proposed amended complaint to a prior, timely complaint pursuant to Rule 15(c).
In this case, the statute of repose in Section 13 ordinarily bars the commencement of any new suits after the three-year period has expired. Accordingly, we proceed to consider only whether proposed intervenors may, as asserted class members in the original complaint, press their otherwise expired claims using Rule 15(c). For the reasons discussed below, we hold that the Rule 15(c) "relation back" doctrine does not permit members of a putative class, who are not named parties, to intervene in the class action as named parties in order to revive claims that were dismissed from the class complaint for want of jurisdiction.
In analyzing the proposed intervenors' Rule 15(c) argument, we reiterate at the outset that after the District Court consolidated the Detroit PFRS and Wyoming actions, pursuant to the PSLRA, 15 U.S.C. § 78u-4, see note 6, ante, and appointed Wyoming to be the lead plaintiff of the consolidated action, no other plaintiffs were named in the consolidated action. The District Court subsequently dismissed for lack of standing all claims in the Amended Complaint arising from any offerings in which the Wyoming entities, as the lead and sole named plaintiffs, had not themselves purchased securities. IndyMac I, 718 F.Supp.2d at 501; see also In re Initial Pub. Offering Sec. Litig., 214 F.R.D. 117, 122 (S.D.N.Y.2002) ("[C]ourts in this circuit have repeatedly held that, in order to maintain a class action, Plaintiffs must first establish that they have a valid claim with respect to the shares that they purchased." (alterations omitted) (emphasis supplied)).
In these circumstances, the proposed intervenors' ability to join the suit is foreclosed by the "long recognized" rule that "if jurisdiction is lacking at the commencement of a suit, it cannot be aided by the intervention of a plaintiff with a sufficient claim." Disability Advocates, Inc. v. N.Y. Coal. for Quality Assisted Living, Inc., 675 F.3d 149, 160 (2d Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted); see also Town of West Hartford v. Operation Rescue, 915 F.2d 92, 95 (2d Cir.1990) ("[I]t is fundamental that an intervening claim cannot confer subject matter jurisdiction over the action it seeks to join."); 7C C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1917, at 457 (3d ed. 2005) ("Intervention cannot cure any jurisdictional defect that would have barred the federal court from hearing the original action.").
Prior to class certification, the District Court dismissed for lack of constitutional standing all claims in the Amended Complaint arising from offerings that the Wyoming entities, as the only named plaintiffs, had not purchased. In so doing, the District Court ruled that no named plaintiff in the suit had constitutional standing to bring the claims that the proposed intervenors later sought to assert before the District Court and which they now press on appeal.
Our holding here is consistent with the structure and purposes of the PSLRA. That statute provides that a district court should appoint as lead plaintiff "the member or members of the purported plaintiff class that [are] most capable of adequately representing the interests of class members." 15 U.S.C. § 78u-4(a)(3)(B)(i); 15 U.S.C. § 77z-1(a)(3)(B)(i). However, "[n]othing in the PSLRA indicates that district courts must choose a lead plaintiff with standing to sue on every available cause of action.... [I]t is inevitable that, in some cases, the lead plaintiff will not have standing to sue on every claim." Hevesi v. Citigroup Inc., 366 F.3d 70, 82 (2d Cir.2004). Nor do we think it necessary "that a different lead plaintiff be appointed to bring every single available claim," as such a requirement "would contravene the main purpose of having a lead plaintiff — namely, to empower one or several investors with a major stake in the litigation to exercise control over the litigation as a whole." Id. at 82 n. 13. Rather, there must be a named plaintiff sufficient to establish jurisdiction over each claim advanced. See id. at 82-83.
Our holding today merely reemphasizes that "the [PSLRA] was ... certainly not intended to excuse sophisticated parties [such as proposed intervenors] from being diligent and keeping abreast of developments in the case, especially when the class is not certified." Emp'rs-Teamsters Local Nos. 175 & 505 Pension Trust Fund v. Anchor Capital Advisors, 498 F.3d 920, 925 (9th Cir.2007). The proposed intervenors, through minimal diligence, could have avoided the operation of the Section 13 statute of repose simply by making timely motions to intervene in the action as named plaintiffs, or by filing their own timely actions and, if prudent, seeking to join their claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20 (joinder).
To summarize, we hold that:
For these reasons, we
15 U.S.C. § 77m (emphasis supplied). As we explain below, see Part II.B.ii., post, the emphasized text is understood to be a "statute of repose," Fed. Hous. Fin. Agency v. UBS Americas Inc., 712 F.3d 136, 140-41 (2d Cir.2013), meaning that it "extinguishes [a] cause of action ... after a fixed period of time ... regardless of when the cause of action accrued," as opposed to a statute of limitations, which "establishes the time period within which lawsuits may be commenced after a cause of action has accrued," Stuart v. Am. Cyanamid Co., 158 F.3d 622, 627 (2d Cir. 1998).
Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(c)(1).
15 U.S.C. § 77l(a)(2). Section 13 of the Securities Act, codified at 15 U.S.C. § 77o, extends joint and several liability to persons who "control[ ] any person liable under [Sections 11 and 12(a)]" of the Securities Act. See 15 U.S.C. § 77o(a).
IndyMac II, 793 F.Supp.2d at 641.
Disability Advocates, 675 F.3d at 160-61; see also id. (noting that this rule is "an axiomatic principle of federal jurisdiction," and collecting cases).
Morlan v. Universal Guar. Life Ins. Co., 298 F.3d 609, 616 (7th Cir.2002) (citations omitted).