McKeever v. Security Consultants Group
Appellant, Rubbie McKeever, originally filed a complaint for personal injuries in federal court. Following dismissal of the federal action, McKeever filed an identical complaint in the superior court. On a motion filed by defendants and respondents, Security Consultants Group, Inc. (Security Consultants) and Adalberto Arreguin (Arreguin), the trial court granted judgment on the pleadings in respondents’ favor. The court found that McKeever did not file the superior court action within the applicable statute of limitations.
McKeever contends the trial court erred in not applying the equitable tolling doctrine to her case. According to McKeever, the statute of limitations should have been tolled during the pendency of the federal court action.
The effect of equitable tolling is that the limitations period stops running during the tolling event and begins to run again when the tolling event has concluded. (Lantzy v. Centex Homes (2003) 31 Cal.4th 363, 370 (Lantzy).) The court added the time that remained in the limitations period as of the date McKeever filed her federal action to the 30-day grace period provided by 28 United States Code section 1367(d) to find that she had 50 days to file the superior court action following the dismissal of the federal action. However, McKeever filed the superior court action 91 days after the federal action was dismissed. As a result, McKeever’s superior court action is barred by the statute of limitations. The judgment is affirmed.
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