JOHNNIE WATKINS, as Guardian of the Estate of Johnnice Ford, a disabled person v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
No. 16-2109
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
April 27, 2017
Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and BAUER and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
No. 16-2109
JOHNNIE WATKINS, as Guardian of the
Estate of Johnnice Ford, a disabled
person,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 1:15-cv-08350 — Ronald A. Guzmán, Judge.
ARGUED JANUARY 6, 2017 — DECIDED APRIL 27, 2017
Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and BAUER and ROVNER, Circuit
Judges.
ROVNER, Circuit Judge. This appeal is from the district
court’s dismissal, on statute of limitations grounds, of a
medical malpractice claim. The plaintiff, Johnnie Watkins, filed
is a disabled person. The complaint alleged that Ford sought
treatment at the emergency room of Ingalls Memorial Hospital,
where she was treated by Dr. Bari Parks-Ballard, an employee
of Family Christian Health Center. She asserts that Parks-
Ballard failed to properly diagnose and treat Ford, who was
eventually diagnosed with Wernicke’s encephalopathy and
who sustained neurological injuries including permanent
disability. Because Family Christian Health Center operated
pursuant to grant money from the Public Health Services, an
agency of the United States government, the action was
brought pursuant to the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) and
the United States is the defendant. The district court dismissed
the action as filed beyond the relevant statute of limitations,
and the plaintiff appeals that determination. On appeal, the
plaintiff argues that the court erred in taking judicial notice of
Ford’s prior lawsuit and dismissing the case based on the
statute of limitations without allowing her to establish that
Ford suffered from a mental disability. We agree with the
reasoning of the district court and affirm.
As the district court recognized, the FTCA constitutes a
limited waiver of the United States’ sovereign immunity,
which allows individuals to pursue actions against the federal
government for “personal injury or death caused by the
negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the
Government while acting within the scope of his office or
employment.”
427 F.3d 1048, 1049 (7th Cir. 2005). The applicable FTCA statute
of limitations bars any such claim not presented in writing to
the appropriate agency within two years of the claim’s accrual.
long as the plaintiff filed a civil suit concerning the underlying
tort claim within two years of its accrual and presented that
case to the appropriate federal agency within 60 days of the
civil suit’s dismissal.
In assessing the timeliness of the 2015 action, we must first
identify when the claim accrued, because the limitations period
begins to run at that time. In United States v. Kubrick, 444 U.S.
111, 118 (1979), the Supreme Court held that a cause of action
for purposes of the limitations period accrues when the
claimant knows, or would reasonably be expected to know, of
the existence of her injury and who caused it, whether or not
the claimant is aware that there was negligence or a wrongful
act involved. See also Blanche v. United States, 811 F.3d 953, 958
(7th Cir. 2016). In Barnhart v. United States, 884 F.2d 298, 299
(7th Cir. 1989), we addressed a claim that the injury itself
impaired the ability of the plaintiff to understand and pursue
her claim, and we considered that such incapacity could toll
the accrual date; we held that the proper focus in determining
when the claim accrued under the discovery rule in such cases
remains on the claimant’s awareness or ability to discover and
comprehend the cause of her injuries. In Blanche we further
noted that the plaintiff need not know that her injury was
caused by a doctor; “the accrual date is when the plaintiff has
enough information to suspect, or a reasonable person would
suspect, that the injury ‘had a doctor-related cause.’” 811 F.3d
at 958, quoting Arroyo v. United States, 656 F.3d 663, 672-73 (7th
Cir. 2011).
In determining that the claim accrued as of August 2010,
the district court took judicial notice of a state court medical
Memorial Hospital, Dr. Parks-Ballard, and Family Christian
Health Center. See Ennenga v. Starns, 677 F.3d 766, 773 (7th Cir.
2012) (noting that in considering a motion to dismiss, courts
may take judicial notice of facts readily ascertainable from the
public court record such as the dates on which certain actions
were taken). The district court noted that the August 2010
complaint contained virtually the same allegations as those in
this case regarding the failure to timely diagnose and treat her
encephalopathy. Ford voluntarily dismissed that complaint
within a month after its filing, but its relevance is in its reflec-
tion of Ford’s awareness that those defendants caused her
injuries.
Because the complaint reflects an awareness that her
injuries were caused by the defendant (through its agents), at
a minimum the claim accrued as of August 2010. Pursuant to
the limitations provision applicable to FTCA claims, Ford
could proceed with her claim against the United States only if
she (1) presented her claim to the appropriate agency within
two years of the date of the claim’s accrual; or (2) filed a civil
suit within 2 years from that date of accrual and presented that
case to the appropriate federal agency within 60 days of the
civil suit’s dismissal. See
811 F.3d at 957-58. The plaintiff failed to satisfy either of those
alternate avenues. The claim was not presented to the adminis-
trative agency until January 19, 2015, which was approximately
4-1/2 years after the date the claim accrued. Nor was the claim
presented to the appropriate agency within 60 days from the
dismissal of a civil suit that was filed within 2 years from the
date of accrual. No claim was submitted to the agency within
other civil suit was filed within 2 years of the claim’s accrual,
which was August 2010 at the latest. On that basis, the district
court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss the complaint.
Watkins raises a number of challenges to that reasoning.
First, Watkins argues that the district court improperly failed
to credit her allegations that Ford suffered from a mental
disability since September 2008. Watkins alleged in the
complaint that Ford “has been disabled since September 10,
2008, when she was diagnosed with Wernicke’s encepha-
lopathy,” and that Ford “has been unable to manage her
person, and estate and unable to recognize the cause of her
action due to her diagnosis of Wernicke’s encephalopathy.”
Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint § 6. The complaint further
provided that Watkins brought the cause of action as Ford’s
legal guardian “due to Johnnice Ford’s inability to make
medical, legal, and financial decisions for herself.” Id. at § 7.
Watkins asserts that the district court failed to consider those
allegations as true, as required in addressing a Rule 12(b)(6)
motion, and that if it had done so, it would have necessarily
concluded that Ford’s mental disability prevented her from
recognizing the “doctor-related cause of her injuries.”
But the district court properly took judicial notice of the
state court complaint filed by Ford’s counsel in August 2010,
which contained the same essential allegations as the present
suit. We need not speculate as to whether the alleged mental
disability impacted Ford’s ability to recognize the cause of her
injuries, because the 2010 lawsuit establishes that Ford was
actually aware of the cause of her injuries. Watkins argues,
however, that the court erred in taking judicial notice of that
establishes only two facts—that Ford’s name appears in the
caption and that the complaint was filed on a certain date. She
asserts that the record is devoid of evidence that Ford had any
awareness of its filing. That bare allegation, without more, is
insufficient to render the 2010 complaint irrelevant to these
proceedings. Watkins provides nothing more than mere
speculation that the complaint was filed without Ford’s
awareness. She includes no argument as to how the attorney
who filed the complaint would be aware of the injuries to Ford
and the circumstances which caused those injuries without
Ford’s participation and awareness. Moreover, she never
alleges that she has, or could provide, evidence calling into
question the legitimacy of the complaint, such as affidavit
evidence from the attorney who filed it indicating that he or
she communicated with someone other than Ford, or evidence
that the attorney engaged in such unethical behavior in other
such cases by purporting to bring a cause of action on behalf of
a person without that person’s knowledge or consent. Al-
though the appeal is here on a motion to dismiss, the com-
plaint and the public court record establish that Ford was
aware of the injury and its cause, and in fact was pursuing
legal action on such claims, as of August 2010. To survive
dismissal, Watkins must allege some non-speculative basis to
dispute that conclusion. Absent a claim that there is a plausi-
ble, good-faith basis to challenge the legitimacy of the August
2010 complaint, the court is entitled to take judicial notice that
the complaint was filed by Ford in 2010 which contained the
same essential allegations as the complaint before us now.
been disabled since September 10, 2008, when she was diag-
nosed with Wernicke’s encephalopathy, and has been unable
to manage her person and estate and to recognize the cause of
her action due to that diagnosis, there is no allegation that any
guardian was appointed for Ford until Watkins was named her
guardian on January 14, 2015. Accordingly, the 2010 complaint
with Ford as plaintiff cannot be attacked on the basis that Ford
legally could act only through a guardian.
Watkins questions whether the district court considered the
statements of Ford’s physicians and case workers regarding
her brain damage, such as a statement in 2008 by her physician
that she was unable to attend to her financial affairs since she
was unresponsive for unknown reasons and that he could not
predict when she would be able to attend to her personal
affairs. Although in November 2008, a case manager issued a
report indicating that due to Watkins’ cognitive limitations and
physical impairments, she was unable to care for her children,
and Watkins was appointed as guardian for those children, no
guardian was appointed for Ford and nothing indicated a total
inability to understand her own circumstances or to appreciate
the cause of her injuries. As we concluded earlier, however, we
need not assess whether the allegations of Ford’s disability
would have been sufficient to permit an inference that Ford
was unable to recognize the cause of her injuries, because the
allegations in the complaint filed in 2010 establish that at least
as of that date she in fact possessed such knowledge. Contrary
to Watkins’ argument to this court, the court in taking judicial
notice of that 2010 complaint did not take notice of the validity
of the substance of the allegations within it, but rather took
Whether the allegations are valid or not, the court can take
notice of their presence in the complaint, and that presence
demonstrates Ford’s awareness of those potential allegations
at that time. Because the cause of action accrued at least as of
that date, the complaint in this case was not filed within the
limitations period. As we uphold the dismissal on that ground,
we need not consider the defendant’s alternative argument
that dismissal would also be proper under Illinois’ statute of
repose. See Augutis v. United States, 732 F.3d 749 (7th Cir. 2013).
Accordingly, the decision of the district court is
AFFIRMED.