Legal Definitions - equitable tolling

Equitable tolling is a legal principle that allows a court to pause or extend the deadline (known as the "statute of limitations") for filing a lawsuit. This doctrine is applied in specific, exceptional circumstances where it would be unfair or unjust to prevent someone from pursuing a claim simply because the standard legal deadline has passed. It focuses on fairness to the plaintiff under unusual circumstances, rather than on any wrongdoing by the defendant.

There are generally two main scenarios where equitable tolling might apply:

• Delayed Discovery of Injury: This occurs when a plaintiff, despite making reasonable and diligent efforts, could not have discovered their injury or the cause of their injury until after the standard statute of limitations period had already expired.
• Refiling a Lawsuit: This applies when a plaintiff initially files a lawsuit in one court, and that case is later dismissed for a reason unrelated to the merits of the claim (such as a procedural error or incorrect jurisdiction). If the plaintiff then promptly refiles the same lawsuit in the correct court, the time the first lawsuit was pending might not count against the statute of limitations. This typically requires that the defendant received timely notice of the initial suit, was not unfairly prejudiced by the delay, and the plaintiff acted in good faith.

Here are some examples illustrating how equitable tolling can be applied:

• Example 1 (Delayed Discovery of Injury): Imagine a patient undergoes a complex dental procedure. Years later, they begin experiencing severe, unexplained pain and complications that lead to further diagnostic tests. It is then discovered that a piece of a dental instrument was inadvertently left embedded in their jawbone during the original procedure, causing progressive damage. The standard statute of limitations for medical malpractice might have expired long before the patient even knew about the foreign object. In this situation, a court might apply equitable tolling, allowing the patient to file a lawsuit because they could not have reasonably discovered the injury (the retained instrument and its effects) until well after the initial deadline had passed, despite their diligent efforts to understand their health issues.

• Example 2 (Refiling a Lawsuit): A small technology startup sues a large, out-of-state competitor for patent infringement in their local state court, believing it to be the correct jurisdiction. The competitor successfully argues that because the parties are from different states and the value of the patent dispute exceeds a certain threshold, the case should have been filed in federal court (a concept known as "diversity jurisdiction"). The state court dismisses the case without ruling on the patent infringement claim itself. The startup then promptly refiles the lawsuit in the appropriate federal court. Equitable tolling could prevent the statute of limitations from expiring during the time the case was mistakenly pending in the state court, as long as the competitor received timely notice of the original suit, was not unfairly disadvantaged by the initial filing error, and the startup acted reasonably and in good faith.