Tolling After Dismissal

Tolling After Dismissal

A federal court that declines a supplemental state claim sends the plaintiff to state court, and the state statute of limitations may have expired while the federal case was pending. Section 1367(d) closes that trap. The period of limitations for any claim asserted under subsection (a), and for any other claim in the same action that is voluntarily dismissed at the same time as or after the dismissal of the claim under subsection (a), "shall be tolled while the claim is pending and for a period of 30 days after it is dismissed unless State law provides for a longer tolling period."¹ To toll a period is to stop the clock, so time that passes while the claim sits in federal court does not count against the plaintiff.

The protection is needed because a plaintiff who joins a state claim to an anchor claim has done exactly what § 1367(a) invites, yet the court keeps discretion under subsection (c) over whether to hear that claim. Timing shapes how that discretion plays out. When the anchor claim is dismissed early in the litigation, the state claims may go with it. Later on, a different result might obtain: on the eve of trial, a court might proceed with the state claims even after the anchor claim is gone, because efficiency and judicial economy argue against a dismissal that would make the parties start over in state court.² Where the court does decline, the dismissal is without prejudice, so the plaintiff may sue in state court. A right to refile is worth little, however, if the state limitations period ran out during the federal case. Tolling turns the dismissal from a loss of the claim into a loss of time.

The protection has two parts that work together. The first is the pause: the limitations period is held in abeyance for as long as the claim was pending in federal court. The second is the grace period: the plaintiff has at least thirty days after dismissal to file in state court, even if less time than that remained on the state clock.³

The statute reaches beyond the declined claim itself. A plaintiff whose court has declined one state claim may prefer to litigate the related state claims together in state court and so dismiss them voluntarily from the federal action. Subsection (d) tolls the period for those companion claims too, as long as they are voluntarily dismissed at the same time as or after the claim asserted under subsection (a).⁴ Without that extension, the plaintiff would have to choose between leaving the companion claims in federal court and risking them to the clock, and a single dispute could end up split between two court systems. The closing clause of the subsection preserves any more generous state rule: if State law tolls the period for longer than thirty days, the longer period governs. Subsection (e) defines "State" to include the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and any territory or possession of the United States, so the tolling rules of those jurisdictions count as State law here.⁵

The tolling rule also applies to state-law claims against local governments. In Jinks v. Richland County the Court upheld application of the thirty-day tolling rule to state-law claims against a county, reasoning that Congress acted within its power to regulate procedure in federal court when it adopted the rule.⁶ A plaintiff whose state-law claim against a county was declined therefore has the same protection as any other supplemental claimant.

Three misreadings of the subsection recur:

• Treating a dismissal under § 1367(c) as the end of the claim. The dismissal is without prejudice, and the claim can be refiled in state court.
• Reading the protection as only thirty days. The period is tolled during the whole time the claim was pending and then for thirty days after dismissal.
• Treating thirty days as a ceiling. The statute makes it a floor that yields to a longer state tolling period.⁷