Mary Ann TIGERT, Plaintiff-Appellant v. AMERICAN AIRLINES INC.; Dal Global Services, L.L.C., Defendants-Appellees.
No. 10-30069
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
Aug. 10, 2010.
357
Before BENAVIDES, PRADO, and SOUTHWICK, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
Mary Ann Tigert appeals the district court‘s dismissal with prejudice of her negligence suit against American Airlines, Inc. (“American“) and DAL Global Services, L.L.C. (“DAL“). The district court found that Louisiana‘s one-year prescriptive period applied to Tigert‘s case rather than California‘s two-year prescriptive period, and that Tigert‘s claims were thus time-barred because she filed her complaint more than a year after her injury. The district court also denied Tigert‘s request to transfer her case to a district court in California under
On appeal, Tigert argues that the district court (1) failed to take into account Louisiana‘s practice of “strictly construing” prescriptive statutes in favor of allowing, rather than denying, a suit to proceed; (2) abused its discretion by denying her request for a transfer; and (3) abused its discretion by entering its dismissal with prejudice rather than without. Because (1) the district court correctly applied Louisiana‘s choice of law provision to prescriptive periods, (2) a transfer would not affect the timeliness of her claim, and (3) the res judicata effect of the district court‘s dismissal does not turn on whether it was with or without prejudice, we affirm the district court‘s dismissal.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
On July 11, 2007, Tigert arrived at the Oakland, California airport for a return flight with American Airlines to Shreveport, Louisiana, after visiting her son. Due to her disability, American provided Tigert with a wheelchair upon her arrival. An individual named “Bonita” pushed Tigert‘s wheelchair to the airport‘s security checkpoint.
At the checkpoint, security officials conducted a further examination of Tigert‘s “C-Pap Machine.” Security personnel took the C-Pap Machine to a nearby table, and Bonita instructed Tigert to walk toward it. As she did, Bonita gathered Tigert‘s carry-on bag and placed it on the floor behind Tigert.
After security personnel informed Tigert that she could return to her seat, Tigert turned and tripped over her carry-on bag, injuring her right knee. Tigert boarded the plane to Shreveport, and upon arrival, her knee injury had manifested to a degree requiring medical attention. In August 2007, Tigert received injections to help alleviate the injury, and later that month, underwent arthroscopic surgery.
On June 11, 2009, Tigert filed a negligence suit in the district court for the Western District of Louisiana against American and DAL for their collective failure “to protect her by properly controlling, guarding, watching, and protecting her safety during the transportation of her through airport facilities.” American and DAL filed a motion to dismiss under
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
We review de novo the district court‘s dismissal of Tigert‘s action as time-barred under
We review the district court‘s decision whether to transfer a case pursuant to
III. ANALYSIS
On appeal, Tigert advances three arguments. First, she contends that the district court should have applied California‘s two-year prescriptive period rather than Louisiana‘s one-year prescriptive period. Next, she argues that, in lieu of dismissing her suit with prejudice, the district court should have transferred her case to an appropriate federal court in California. Finally, Tigert asserts that the district court should have dismissed her suit without prejudice, which would have allowed her to pursue her action in California and escape Louisiana‘s time bar. We address each argument in turn.
A. Louisiana‘s One-Year Prescriptive Period
Tigert contends that the district court misapplied Louisiana‘s conflict of law and prescription principles when it held that her suit was time-barred. Specifically, Tigert argues that Louisiana has a policy of “strictly interpreting” prescriptive periods in favor of maintaining, rather than dismissing, an action where two permissible views involving prescription are available. Tigert also argues that even if Louisiana‘s choice of law provision mandates that Louisiana‘s prescriptive period applies, she has demonstrated that “compelling considerations of remedial justice” favor applying California‘s prescriptive period.
Louisiana law states that “delictual actions are subject to a liberative prescription of one year,” which “commences to run from the day injury or damages is sustained.”
Article 3549(B), however, incorporates a relevant exception: if Louisiana law prescribes a cause of action, but the law of the state whose law applies to the substantive conduct would find the action timely, the suit may be maintained as timely in a Louisiana court if maintenance in Louisiana is “warranted by compelling considerations of remedial justice.” “There is no question that the authors of the ‘compelling considerations of remedial justice’ exception intended it to be used in only the most extraordinary of circumstances.” Brown, 220 F.3d at 420 (citation omitted). Comment f to article 3549 describes examples of “compelling considerations” as those
where through no fault of the plaintiff an alternative forum is not available as, for example, where jurisdiction could not be obtained over the defendant in any state other than the forum or where for some reason a judgment obtained in the other state having jurisdiction would be unenforceable in other states, [and] ... also situations where suit in this alternative forum, although not impossible would be extremely inconvenient for the parties.
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “In cases where plaintiffs have litigated their claims in Louisiana by choice, not by necessity, claims of ‘compelling considerations’ warranting maintenance of the suit in Louisiana have been consistently rejected.” Brown, 220 F.3d at 420; see id. (noting that “[o]nly one case has found compelling considerations of remedial justice,” and in that case, “Louisiana was the only forum in which suit could be maintained, because it was the only forum in which jurisdiction could be obtained over all the defendants“) (citing Smith v. Odeco (UK) Inc., 615 So.2d 407, 409 (La.Ct.App.1993)).
Here, Tigert has not demonstrated “compelling considerations of remedial justice” that would be served by maintenance of her action in Louisiana. See
Tigert‘s argument that Louisiana strictly construes prescriptive statutes in favor of maintaining, rather than dismissing, an action, lacks merit. The district court did not interpret Louisiana‘s prescriptive statute,
The district court correctly determined that Louisiana‘s one-year prescriptive period applied to Tigert‘s suit. Because Tigert‘s injury accrued on July 11, 2007, her filing on June 11, 2009 was time-barred. We thus hold that the district court correctly dismissed Tigert‘s suit as untimely.
B. Transfer under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a)
In the alternative, Tigert argues that the district court should have transferred her case to a district court in California. In support, she cites Seagrave v. Delta Airlines, Inc., in which a district court, after finding that Louisiana‘s prescriptive period barred the plaintiff‘s claim in Louisiana, transferred the case to a federal court in Virginia, which had a prescriptive period that had not yet expired. 848 F.Supp. 82, 85-86 (E.D.La.1994). The Seagrave court found that a dismissal was not “in the interests of justice, as it might create prescription problems for the plaintiff in Virginia, and it is plain that the suit could have been filed in Virginia.” Id. at 86. Although the Seagrave court “recognize[d] that Louisiana Civil Code article 3549 contemplates the dismissal of the action,” it concluded that “a transfer comports with both the directive of article 3549 and the interests of justice,” especially considering “Louisiana‘s strong policy of providing remedies to tortiously injured plaintiffs and deterring wrongful conduct (codified in [
Although factually analogous to Tigert‘s case, here, the district court correctly noted that the Seagrave court failed to consider the effect of the Supreme Court‘s decisions in Ferens v. John Deere Co., 494 U.S. 516, 523 (1990), and Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno, 454 U.S. 235, 244 n. 8 (1981). Ferens held that a transferee forum must “apply the law of the transferor court, regardless of who initiates the transfer. A transfer under
In other words, were the district court to have transferred Tigert‘s cause of action to a district court in California, under Piper Aircraft and Ferens, a California district court would be bound to apply Louisiana‘s article 3549, find that Louisiana‘s one year prescriptive period applies, and con
C. Dismissal With Prejudice
Finally, Tigert argues that the district court abused its discretion by entering a dismissal with prejudice rather than a dismissal without prejudice. She claims that the district court noted the possibility that she could re-file her negligence suit in California, but contends that it closed off her opportunity to do so by entering a dismissal with prejudice. She asserts that dismissals for failure to state a claim are final, and would thus be res judicata on another action.
The Supreme Court, however, has explained that a dismissal with prejudice does not necessarily bar a plaintiff from filing again in another jurisdiction. See Semtek Int‘l v. Lockheed Martin Corp. (”Semtek“), 531 U.S. 497, 506 (2001) (“[U]nlike a dismissal ‘without prejudice,’ the dismissal in the present case barred refiling of the same claim in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. That is undoubtedly a necessary condition, but it is not a sufficient one, for claim-preclusive effect in other courts.“). Traditionally, “expiration of the applicable statute of limitations merely bars the remedy and does not extinguish the substantive right, so that dismissal on that ground does not have claim-preclusive effect in other jurisdictions with longer, unexpired limitations periods.” Id. at 504 (citing RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONFLICT OF LAWS §§ 142(2), 143 (1969); RESTATEMENT OF JUDGMENTS § 49, cmt. a (1942)). The Semtek Court concluded that “federal common law governs the claim-preclusive effect of a dismissal by a federal court sitting in diversity,” and adopted, “as the federally prescribed rule of decision, the law that would be applied by state courts in the State in which the federal diversity court sits.” Id. at 508 (citations omitted).
In other words, the district court‘s designation of its dismissal as with or without prejudice is immaterial. What matters for purposes of Tigert‘s case is, whether given refiling in California, a California court would find that the district court‘s dismissal on grounds of Louisiana‘s prescriptive period bars refiling in California. Cf. id. at 509 (“Because the claim-preclusive effect of the California federal court‘s dismissal ‘upon the merits’ of petitioner‘s action on statute-of-limitations grounds is governed by a federal rule that in turn incorporates California‘s law of claim preclusion ..., the Maryland Court of Special Appeals erred in holding that the dismissal necessarily precluded the bringing of this action in the Maryland courts.“). Because that issue is not before us, we decline to address it. We do note, however, that a dismissal of Tigert‘s claim without prejudice would abrogate American and DAL‘s statute of limitations defense to the extent that Tigert wishes to re-file and prosecute her claim in Louisiana. See id. at 505 (“The primary meaning of ‘dismissal without prejudice,’ we think, is dismissal without barring the plaintiff from returning later, to the same court, with the same underlying claim. That will also ordinarily (though not always) have the consequence
IV. CONCLUSION
The district court correctly found that Louisiana‘s one year prescriptive period applied to Tigert‘s claim, and that because it did, Tigert‘s claim was time-barred. Additionally, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied Tigert‘s request to transfer her case to a district court in California. Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion by dismissing Tigert‘s suit with prejudice. For all these reasons, we affirm the district court‘s dismissal of Tigert‘s negligence suit.
AFFIRMED.