A recent decision dismissing an RMBS lawsuit in the Los Angeles County Superior Court highlights the critical importance of filing your claims in the correct court whenever there is a jurisdictional issue. By rejecting the plaintiff's equitable tolling arguments and applying the appropriate statutory limitations periods, the decision is notable because it arguably conflicts with similar decisions by other state courts involving similar RMBS claims. We have previously written about the application of statutes of limitations to RMBS claims, which may be viewed here.
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, an insurance
company that allegedly purchased over $300,000,000 worth of RMBS
issued by various Countrywide entities, filed a complaint in
Massachusetts federal court for violations of Massachusetts
securities laws, against four former Countrywide officers that had
no ties to Massachusetts. That case was then transferred to
the multi-district litigation proceeding in California federal
court where dozens of Countrywide RMBS-related cases are currently
being overseen. The MDL court then subsequently granted the
former Countrywide executives' motions to dismiss for lack of
personal jurisdiction in Massachusetts.
Mass Mutual then attempted to refile its claims against the former
Countrywide executives, this time in California Superior Court in
April 2012. (Mass. Mutual Life Ins. Co., v. Mozilo, et.
al., No. BC482950) However, the "misguided
decision" to initiate the suit in Massachusetts resulted in
plaintiff's claims being dismissed on timeliness grounds on
March 10, 2014. Superior Court Judge Amy D. Hogue, sitting in
the Los Angeles County Superior Court's complex civil
department by temporary assignment, held that plaintiff had filed
its California complaint too late and had no valid reason for doing
so. A copy of the ruling may be viewed here. Notably, the court
explained that a plaintiff is not entitled to invoke
California's equitable tolling doctrine for the time its claims
are pending in a court that does not have jurisdiction to hear
them. Judge Hogue rejected several tolling arguments that
plaintiff hoped would save its untimely RMBS misrepresentation
claims asserted against the four former Countrywide executives,
reaching a different conclusion than some other courts that have
stated that equitable tolling should be allowed under similar
circumstances. (E.g., Valenzuela v. Kraft, Inc., 801 F.2d
1170 (9th Cir. 1986); Shafnacker v. Raymond James &
Assocs., Inc., 425 Mass. 724 (1997); Oshiver v. Levin,
Fishbein, Sedran & Berman, 38 F.3d 1380 (3d Cir.
1994)).
This recent decision underscores what a defendant can do to successfully rebut a plaintiff's attempt to invoke California's equitable tolling doctrine. In this case, the plaintiff did not, and was not able to, affirmatively plead specific facts to justify any delayed discovery of its claims as required for equitable tolling. The ruling affirmed that a plaintiff cannot simply ask the court to presume these facts based on findings in other actions involving the same underlying events. Also, a defendant may be able to use a plaintiff's early litigation tactics to bolster its own arguments. By choosing an improper court at the outset, a plaintiff does not only risk being thrown out of that court for lack of personal jurisdiction, but also delays proceedings even further and may not automatically receive any future benefit of the original forum's statute of limitations, equitable tolling doctrine, or saving statute.
An important lesson for plaintiffs from this decision is that litigation tactics concerning where to file a lawsuit may later affect tolling-related arguments if there are statute of limitations arguments at issue. As Judge Hogue stated in her order sustaining defendants' demurrer: "[t]he point is that [plaintiff] could have sued and obtained jurisdiction over Countrywide and the individual Defendants in California at the outset . . . [and] there is no equity in tolling the statute of limitations to allow plaintiff to correct the error by filing suit in a jurisdictionally appropriate forum after the statute [of] limitations has run."
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
