In many federal actions, plaintiffs often assert state-law claims over which a federal district court may exercise supplemental jurisdiction. However, where a federal district court dismisses claims over which it has original jurisdiction, it often will decline to exercise jurisdiction over the pendent state-law claims and dismiss those claims without prejudice to the plaintiff’s right to refile them in state court. Litigants in Pennsylvania, however, often overlook the statutory requirements for transferring state-law claims from federal to state court and, instead, simply file a new complaint in state court. Doing so runs afoul of the mandates of 42 Pa. C.S. Section 5103 and controlling Pennsylvania case law, which holds that a litigant must file certified copies of the federal dismissal order and related federal pleadings in state court. Noncompliance with these requirements will not toll the limitations period on the state-law claims and could result in a litigant losing the ability to proceed with its state-law claims in any forum.
The Tolling of the Limitations Period on State-Law Claims Filed in Federal Court
Under 28 U.S.C. Section 1367(a), federal courts may exercise supplemental jurisdiction over state-law claims not otherwise within their jurisdiction when such claims “are so related to claims in the action within such original jurisdiction that they form part of the same case or controversy.” When a federal district court dismisses the claims over which it has original jurisdiction, it typically declines to exercise jurisdiction over the related state-law claims and dismisses those claims without prejudice to the plaintiff’s right to proceed with them in state court. See 28 U.S.C. Section 1367(c)(3).
Section 1367(d) specifies that the limitations period on such pendent state-law claims “shall be tolled while the claim is pending in federal court and for a period of 30 days after it is dismissed unless state law provides for a longer tolling period.” See 28 U.S.C. Section 1367(d). In Artis v. District of Columbia, 583 U.S. 71 (2018), the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the argument that “tolled” under Section 1367(d) means that the state limitations period continues to run and may expire while the state claim is pending in federal court. The court held that “Section 1367(d)’s instruction to ‘toll’ a state limitations period means to hold it in abeyance, i.e., to stop the clock.” Thus, following a federal court’s decision to decline exercising jurisdiction over state-law claims, a plaintiff has the amount of time that remained on the state limitations period when the federal suit was filed, plus the additional 30 days afforded by Section 1367(d), to refile the state-law claims in state court.
Many states have enacted tolling statutes that preserve claims that were timely commenced in federal court. Pennsylvania is one of the states that has enacted a tolling statute, but it is unique in that it does not provide a specified period in which the state-law claims dismissed by a federal court may be refiled in state court. Accordingly, litigants in Pennsylvania must ensure that the state-law claims dismissed without prejudice by the federal court are properly refiled in state court within the time period afforded by Section 1367(d) in accordance with 42 Pa. C.S. Section 5103(b).
The Pennsylvania Transfer Statute’s Requirements
The Pennsylvania tolling statute is essentially a “transfer” statute that allows a litigant to transfer state-law claims from federal to state court where such claims are “dismissed by the United States court for lack of jurisdiction.” See 42 Pa. C.S. Section 5103(b)(1). In order to do so, the litigant must “comply with the transfer provisions set forth in paragraph (2),” which require the plaintiff to file “a certified transcript of the final judgment of the United States court and the related pleadings” in the state court. If a litigant complies with those requirements, the pleadings initially filed in federal court “shall have the same effect as under the practice in the United States court, but the state court may require that they be amended to conform to the practice in Pennsylvania.”
In Williams v. F.L. Smithe Machinery, 577 A.2d 907, 910 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1990), a seminal decision interpreting Section 5103(b), the plaintiffs initially filed suit in federal court and, after the federal court dismissed their state-law claims without prejudice, the plaintiffs filed a new complaint in state court that was identical to their federal complaint along with certified copies of the federal docket sheet. About a month later, the plaintiffs filed copies of the federal pleadings—but they waited about seven months to file certified copies of those pleadings, as required by Section 5103(b). The trial court found that, by the time that the plaintiffs fully complied with the statute, the statute of limitations on their state-law claims had expired.
On appeal, the Pennsylvania Superior Court reversed the trial court’s decision, reasoning that the plaintiffs should not “suffer the harsh result of dismissal” given their “initial compliance with the statute’s requirements” and the “dearth of case law” interpreting Section 5103(b) at the time. However, the court made an unequivocal pronouncement as to how litigants must proceed in future cases where a federal court dismisses state-law claims without prejudice and a litigant seeks to refile those claims in state court: “However, for benefit of both bench and bar, we now emphasize that in order to protect the timeliness of an action under 42 Pa. C.S.A. Section 5103, a litigant, upon having his case dismissed in federal court for lack of jurisdiction, must promptly file a certified transcript of the final judgment of the federal court and, at the same time, a certified transcript of the pleadings from the federal action. The litigant shall not file new pleadings in state court.” Pennsylvania courts have repeatedly applied Williams in holding that litigants must strictly adhere to the requirements of Section 5103(b) in transferring state-law claims from federal to state court.
How to Properly Transfer State-Law Claims From Federal to State Court
Despite the clear pronouncement in Williams that a litigant seeking to transfer state-law claims from federal to state court must not file new pleadings in state court, Pennsylvania litigants frequently err by filing a new complaint in state court limited to the state-law claims they initially filed in federal court. This noncompliance with Section 5103(b) will not toll the limitations period on the state-law claims, and Pennsylvania courts have repeatedly held that belated compliance with the statutory requirements will not remedy an initial defective filing. Therefore, if the limitations period on the state-law claims expires before a litigant fully complies with Section 5103(b), the claims are subject to dismissal even if the litigant partially complied with Section 5103(b) or otherwise refiled in state court prior to the expiration of the limitations period.
In order to comply with Section 5103(b)(2), the litigant must file a “certified transcript of the final judgment of the United States and the related pleadings” in state court. This language has created some confusion as to what exactly a litigant must file in state court in order to comply with the statute. For example, where a litigant voluntarily dismisses a federal action and refiles state-law claims in state court or chooses to refile in state court after a federal court grants a motion to dismiss but grants leave to amend, the federal court does not enter a “final judgment” with respect to the state-law claims. Likewise, in a multidefendant case, a federal court’s dismissal of certain claims against one defendant generally will not constitute a “final judgment” where the cases continues against other defendants.
Pennsylvania courts have nevertheless held that Section 5103(b) applies in the foregoing circumstances and that the “final judgment” constitutes “the order dismissing the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.” See Butler v. Arctic Glacier USA, 2017 WL 565265 (Pa. Com. Pl. Phila. Cnty. Nov. 15, 2017); see also Pipe v. Shepherd, 2014 WL 10920374 (Pa. Super. Ct. May 7, 2014) (finding “it makes no difference for the purpose of Section 5103(b) whether the federal court dismisses the matter or the plaintiff voluntarily withdraws the action,” even though “the federal court can never truly render a final judgment” in the latter circumstance); Patel v. Smith, 2016 WL 4919806 (Pa. Super. Ct. July 22, 2016) (finding that Section 5103(b) applied where federal court granted motion to dismiss but gave to leave to amend and plaintiff refiled in state court instead of amending in federal court). Indeed, in Williams, the Superior Court made clear that “all that is required is an order entered by the federal court dismissing the matter for lack of jurisdiction” in order for the statute to be applicable.
Regarding the requirement that “a certified transcript” of the “related federal pleadings” also be filed in state court, Pennsylvania courts have explained that the use of the word “transcript” “is a term of art that does not equate to the docket of a case” and that “it is the body of the actual pleadings that needs transferred to state court, not the docket entries of such pleadings. Otherwise, the transferee court cannot make any meaningful subsequent rulings pertaining to the pleadings or claims being asserted therein.” See Butler, 2017 WL 5652565, at *5. Thus, it is incumbent on the litigant to ensure that certified copies of “the pleadings themselves” are filed in state court.
When Transfer Must Be Effectuated
Section 5103(b)(2) does not specify a time within which a plaintiff must transfer state-law claims from federal to state court. In Williams, the Superior Court held that a plaintiff must “promptly” comply with the requirements of Section 5103(b)(2) but did not define or expound on the meaning of “prompt.” Since Williams, Pennsylvania courts have held that delays of several months is not “prompt” for purposes of the statute. See Collins v. Greene County Memorial Hospital, 615 A.2d 760 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1992) (seven-month delay was not prompt); Ferrari v. Antonacci, 689 A.2d 320, 323 (delay of nearly one year was not prompt); Chris Falcone, Inc. v. Insurance Company of State of Pennsylvania, 907 A.2d 639 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2006) (10-month delay was too long); Northwestern Human Services v. McKeever, 2005 WL 2291075, at *4 (Pa. Com. Pl. Sept. 12, 2005) (five-and-a-half months delay too long).
This promptness determination is measured from when the transfer is perfected by filing the certified copies of the federal dismissal order and the federal pleadings. Thus, the date on which a litigant partially complies or otherwise refiles in state court in contravention of Section 5103(b)(2) will not be considered in determining the promptness of the transfer. See Perry v. Commonwealth, 2007 WL 5234152 (Pa. Com. Pl. Dec. 7, 2007) (declining to decide whether 46-day delay in transfer was timely because, even if timely, the transfer was defective due to the plaintiff’s failure to file certified copies of the federal pleadings); Stull v. Posner, 2003 WL 25428941 (Pa. Com. Pl. Dec. 22, 2003) (transfer filed two weeks after federal dismissal was untimely because uncertified pleadings were attached).
The “prompt” transfer from federal to state court is particularly important where a plaintiff initially filed state-law claims in federal court at or near the end of the limitations period on those claims. For example, in Quiah v. Devereux Foundation, 303 A.3d 523 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 2023), about a month after a federal court dismissed the plaintiff’s federal claims with prejudice and state-law claims without prejudice, the plaintiff filed a new complaint in state court containing the state-law claims initially asserted in the federal action. The defendants filed preliminary objections, asserting that the new complaint failed to conform to the requirements of Section 5103(b)(2) because it did not include certified copies of the federal dismissal order or the federal pleadings. In response, the plaintiff filed an amended complaint, attaching certified copies of all of the documents required by Section 5103(b)(2). The defendants again filed preliminary objections, asserting that the amendment did not remedy the initial defective filing because it occurred after the limitations period on the claims expired.
In affirming the trial court’s sustaining of the preliminary objections, the Commonwealth Court discussed the interplay between Section 5103(b)(2) and 28 U.S.C. Section 1367(d) and observed that neither statute “imposes any particular time limitation on the period within which a transfer can be effected.” Nevertheless, the court confirmed that the tolling period on state-law claims dismissed without prejudice by a federal court “remains 30 days, not whatever time period elapses before a prompt transfer is effected.” Therefore, “after the 30 days, the statute of limitation is no longer tolled and the plaintiff is back, for purposes of the statute of limitations, to where she was on the day she filed the federal action.” Given that the plaintiff complied with Section 5103(b)(2) only after the expiration of the statute of limitations, the court affirmed the sustaining of the preliminary objections for failure to comply with the requirements of Section 5103. The court further rejected the argument that an initial defective filing “should be considered an effective transfer” upon the filing of the documents required by Section 5103(b), reasoning that “allowing amendment to remedy the defective filing after the statute of limitations has passed would eviscerate the statutory scheme and allow an end run around its clear mandates.”
Compliance with Section 5103 Is Crucial
Strict adherence to the requirements set forth in Section 5103(b) is crucial to litigants who wish to continue pursuing state-law claims initially filed in and dismissed without prejudice by a federal court. Although the filing of a new complaint in state court or failing to attach certified copies of all of the documents required by Section 5103(b) may appear to be technical errors, Pennsylvania courts have routinely dismissed state-law claims under these circumstances.
Reprinted with permission from The Legal Intelligencer, © ALM Media Properties LLC. All rights reserved.
