The simple question in Artis v. District of Columbia is: What does it mean for a statute of limitations to “toll” (i.e., delay, suspend, or hold off the effect of a statute) under 28 U.S.C 1367(d)? The State and Local Legal Center (SLLC) filed a Supreme Court amicus brief agreeing with the District of Columbia’s interpretation of toll. 

A year after the fact, Stephanie Artis sued the District of Columbia in federal court bringing a number of federal and state law claims related to her termination as a D.C. code inspector. It took the federal district court more than two and a half years to rule on her claims. It dismissed her sole federal claim as “facially deficient” and ruled it no longer had jurisdiction to decide the state law claims. 

28 U.S.C 1367(d) states that statutes of limitations for state law claims pending in federal court shall be “tolled” for a period of 30 days after they are dismissed (unless state law provides a longer tolling period). 

While Artis was waiting for the federal district court to rule the three-year statutes of limitations on all her state law claims passed. She waited 59 days to refile her claims in state court after the federal district court dismissed her case. 

Was her claim timely? The District of Columbia Court of Appeals held no.   

Under the suspension theory, the state statute of limitations freezes on the day the federal suit is filed, and it unfreezes with the addition of 30 days when the federal lawsuit is dismissed. Under this theory, Artis would have about two years to refile her lawsuit in state court. 

Under the grace-period theory, if the state statute of limitations would have expired while the federal case was pending, a litigant has 30 days from federal court dismissal to refile in state court. Under this theory, Artis’s lawsuit in state court is time-barred because she waited longer the 30 days to refile in state court.  

The SLLC amicus brief argues in favor of the grace-period theory. As this case illustrates, local governments are regularly sued in cases involving federal and state law claims. The longer the tolling period, the greater the costs and burden are on resource-constrained local governments. The brief also points out that many states have state law tolling provisions longer than 30 days, which would be preempted per Artis’s interpretation that read “despite the fact that state statutes of limitations schemes reflect careful balancing of competing policy concerns that are the province of state legislatures.”  

Katharine Mapes, William Huang, and Jeffrey Bayne, Spiegel & McDiarmid, wrote SLLC’s brief, which these organizations joined: National Conference of State Legislatures, Council of State Governments, National Association of Counties, National League of Cities, United States Conference of Mayors, International City/County Management Association, and International Municipal Lawyers Association.