HOWARD, Circuit Judge.
In this diversity action, we decide when a pension fund's state-law causes of action against an auditor and an actuary accrued, thus triggering Maine's six-year statute of limitations. Me.Rev.Stat. tit. 14, § 752 (2003). The district court determined that they accrued at the time of injury and on that basis dismissed the complaints in this case as untimely. Plaintiff New England Carpenters Pension Fund (the "Fund"), invoking Maine's so-called discovery rule,
The Fund is the surviving entity of a 2006 merger between two predecessor pension funds. Shortly after the merger, the Fund's auditor tested a random sample of pension calculations and discovered that certain pensions paid by one of its predecessors had been calculated incorrectly. The Fund then checked all of its predecessor's pension calculations between 1973 and 2005. That exercise revealed overpayments totaling more than $3.5 million.
In 2009, the Fund brought two separate but identical suits against Ouellette and Thomas — the auditor and actuary, respectively, for the Fund's predecessor — in federal district court in Maine. Invoking the court's diversity jurisdiction, the Fund asserted common-law claims for breach of contract, negligence, and professional malpractice stemming from Thomas's miscalculation of pension payments and Ouellette's failure to test those calculations in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. After filing an answer, Ouellette moved to dismiss on several grounds, including timeliness. In a bench ruling following oral argument on Ouellette's motion, the court dismissed the Fund's complaint as time-barred to the extent that it sought damages before 2003 (six years before suit was filed in 2009).
Two months later the court convened a conference call that included counsel for parties in both cases. The parties agreed that the court's bench ruling in the Ouellette case applied equally to the Fund's case against Thomas. Further, the Fund's counsel informed the court that alleged damages for the two-year period that was not time-barred (between 2003 and 2005), even if aggregated in both cases, did not satisfy the diversity statute's amount-in-controversy requirement. See 28 U.S.C. 1332(a) (2006). At the court's suggestion, the parties filed a stipulation concerning the points addressed in conference. The court thereafter entered judgment in favor of both Ouellette and Thomas. This appeal followed.
The Fund argues that its claims against Ouellette and Thomas did not accrue until it discovered the overpayments in 2006. According to the Fund, Maine courts apply a discovery rule — as opposed
Our standard of review is plenary. Local 791, 507 F.3d at 46. "Where, as here, the dismissal is grounded on a statute of limitations, we will affirm only if the record, construed in the light most flattering to the pleader, leaves no plausible basis for believing that the claim may be timely." Gonzalez Figueroa v. J.C. Penney Puerto Rico, Inc., 568 F.3d 313, 318 (1st Cir.2009) (citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555-56, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)).
Civil actions in Maine, with exceptions not relevant here, are subject to a six-year limitations period that begins to run when "the cause of action accrues." Me.Rev.Stat. tit. 14, § 752 (2003). The statute does not define accrual; however, Maine courts generally consider an action accrued "when a plaintiff received a judicially recognizable injury," McLaughlin v. Superintending Sch. Comm. of Lincolnville, 832 A.2d 782, 788 (Me.2003) (quoting Johnston v. Dow & Coulombe Inc., 686 A.2d 1064, 1065-66 (Me.1996)), no matter when the injury was discovered. See, e.g., Bozzuto v. Ouellette, 408 A.2d 697, 699 (Me.1979) (the plaintiff's "ignorance of defendant's misfeasance for about seven years does nothing by itself to prevent the running of the statute of limitations"). Thus, a contract claim "accrues at the time of breach," Dunelawn Owners' Ass'n v. Gendreau, 750 A.2d 591, 595 (Me.2000), and a tort claim "accrues when `the plaintiff sustains harm to a protected interest.'" McLaughlin, 832 A.2d at 788 (quoting Johnston, 686 A.2d at 1066); see also Williams v. Ford Motor Co., 342 A.2d 712, 714 (Me.1975) (tort claim accrues at "the point at which a wrongful act produces an injury for which a potential plaintiff is entitled to seek judicial vindication").
Sometimes Maine courts consider that an action has accrued "when the injury is discovered rather than when the injury was incurred." McLaughlin, 832 A.2d at 788. But such cases are few and are limited to discrete areas. For example, in Anderson v. Neal, the Maine high court applied a discovery rule in an attorney malpractice action "based on an allegedly negligent title search." 428 A.2d 1189,
More recently, in Nevin v. Union Trust Company, the court applied a discovery rule to claims against a fiduciary providing financial management services. 726 A.2d 694, 699 (Me.1999). There, a bank with significant management responsibilities over a client's assets improperly executed a series of transactions designed to reduce potential estate taxes. Id. at 696-97. Following the client's death years later, the Internal Revenue Service disallowed benefits and imposed costly penalties on the client's estate. Id. at 697. Beneficiaries of the estate sued the bank; the trial court dismissed the case as untimely, and the beneficiaries appealed. Id. at 698. Referencing Anderson and Myrick, the court stated that it has departed from the date-of-injury rule in favor of a discovery rule only when a fiduciary's acts or omissions prevented a party from discovering its cause of action. Nevin, 726 A.2d at 699. The facts in Nevin met that standard because the bank — beyond merely managing its client's accounts — had assumed a fiduciary role. Id. at 699-70.
Here, the Fund cites no Maine decision, nor are we aware of any, that applies a discovery rule to claims against an auditor or an actuary. Its argument relies instead on an analogy to Nevin. Of course, in Nevin the bank was a fiduciary; here, the Fund concedes that Ouellette and Thomas were not. Because the Maine high court has refused to extend Nevin to non-fiduciary relationships, Gendreau, 750 A.2d at 596 ("Although the facts of this case present a difficult to discover breach, the absence of a fiduciary relationship in these facts prevents the application of the discovery rule.") (citing Nevin, 726 A.2d at 699), the Fund's argument is foreclosed.
The Fund responds that its predecessor had a "confidential relationship" with both Ouellette and Thomas, and that Maine law recognizes fiduciary and confidential relationships as "legal equivalents." Ruebsamen v. Maddocks, 340 A.2d 31, 36 (Me. 1975). But a confidential relationship requires "the actual placing of trust and confidence in fact by one party in another and a great disparity of position and influence between the parties to the relation." Id. at 35 (citing George T. Bogert, Trust and Trustees § 482, at 136-38 (2d ed. 1960)). We discern no allegations of the kind of diminished capacity or of the "letting down of all guards and bars" that is implied by the use of the term "disparity of position" in this context. See id. Rather, the complaints describe arms-length, contractual arrangements between the board of a sizable pension fund and professionals providing routine, even mechanical, financial services. As the Fund's counsel correctly acknowledged at oral argument, these relationships were neither special nor unique. Other states require more before elevating actuaries and accountants to fiduciary or other special status.
Applying a discovery rule in these circumstances would represent a significant step in expanding Maine law that we decline to take. Departures from Maine's date-of-injury rule are rare. They have involved careful balancing between competing interests of fairness and repose, and the opinions have not always been unanimous.