Pfeifer v. Federal Express Corporation ( 2013 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
July 1, 2013
PUBLISH Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
CYNTHIA PFEIFER,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v. No. 11-3064
FEDERAL EXPRESS
CORPORATION,
Defendant-Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS
(D.C. No. 6:09-CV-1248-EFM-KMH)
George A. Barton, Law Offices of George A. Barton, P.C., Kansas City, Missouri,
for Appellant.
Terrence O. Reed, Federal Express Corporation Legal Department, Memphis,
Tennessee, for Appellee.
Before BRISCOE, Chief Judge, BALDOCK and LUCERO, Circuit Judges.
BALDOCK, Circuit Judge.
Plaintiff Cynthia Pfeifer filed this diversity action against Defendant Federal
Express Corporation in the District of Kansas. Plaintiff alleged that Defendant
retaliated against her for receiving workers’ compensation benefits by terminating
her employment. Plaintiff’s employment agreement contained a provision requiring
all claims against Defendant to be brought within “the time prescribed by law or 6
months from the date of the event forming the basis of [Plaintiff’s] lawsuit,
whichever expires first.” Defendant terminated Plaintiff’s employment on May 2,
2008. Plaintiff filed this suit 15 months later, within the applicable statutory statute
of limitations of 24 months, as set forth in Kan. Stat. Ann. § 60-513(a)(4), but
outside her employment agreement’s six-month limitation.
The District Court granted Defendant’s motion for summary judgment,
concluding the contractual provision that shortened the statute of limitations did not
violate public policy and the six-month limitations period was reasonable. Because
no Kansas case law appeared to control the outcome of this case, we certified two
questions to the Kansas Supreme Court on November 28, 2011. We first asked,
“Does Kansas law, specifically Kan. Stat. Ann. § 60-501 and/or public policy,
prohibit private parties from contractually shortening the generally applicable statute
of limitations for an action?” Pfeifer v. Fed. Express Corp., 455 F. App’x. 813,
813–14 (10th Cir. 2011) (unpublished). Additionally, we inquired, “If no such
prohibition exists, is the six-month limitations period agreed to by the private parties
in this action unreasonable?” Id.The Kansas Supreme Court answered the first question in the affirmative.
Pfeifer v. Fed. Express Corp., --- P.3d ----, 2013 WL 2450531 (Kan. June 7, 2013).
Although the court held Kan. Stat. Ann. § 60-501 did not prohibit the contractual
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provision at issue, it held that the contract violates public policy, which recognizes
that injured workers should be protected from retaliation when exercising rights
under the Workers Compensation Act, Kan. Stat. Ann. § 44-501 et seq., “and is
invalid to the extent it limits the applicable 2-year statute of limitations under K.S.A.
60-513(a)(4) for filing a retaliatory discharge claim based on her exercise of rights
under the workers compensation laws.” Id. at *9. The court said its holding “is
limited to the circumstances in which there is a strongly held public policy interest
at issue.” Id. Because of its affirmative answer to our first question, the Kansas
Supreme Court did not answer the second question.
In light of this conclusive determination of state law, the district court’s grant
of summary judgment cannot stand. We therefore REVERSE and REMAND.
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