[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
FILED
________________________
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 05-13906 FEBRUARY 14, 2006
Non-Argument Calendar THOMAS K. KAHN
________________________ CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 05-20577-CV-CMA
JANE DOE (A.H.),
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
CARNIVAL CORP.,
Defendant-Appellee.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
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(February 14, 2006)
Before TJOFLAT, ANDERSON and CARNES, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Jane Doe appeals the district court’s grant of Carnival Corporation’s motion
for summary judgment. On appeal, the only issue is whether or not Appellant’s
complaint was time-barred.
Appellant alleges that she was sexually assaulted by a Carnival employee
when she took a cruise as a seventeen year-old. Carnival presented evidence that
it sends each ticket holder a contract upon purchase that contains a limitations
period for the filing of suits based on personal injuries sustained aboard the ship.
The limitations period on Appellant’s ticket was for one year from the time she
sustained the injury. Carnival’s modified limitations period complied with federal
admiralty law, which provides that the three-year limitations period can be
contractually shortened to no shorter than a year. See 46 U.S.C. App. § 183b(a).
In turn, this provision is limited by § 183b(c):
If a person who is entitled to recover on any such claim is mentally
incompetent or a minor, or if the action is one for wrongful death, any
lawful limitation of time prescribed in such contract shall not be
applicable so long as no legal representative has been appointed for
such incompetent, minor, or decedent's estate, but shall be applicable
from the date of the appointment of such legal representative:
Provided, however, That such appointment be made within three
years after the date of such death or injury.
46 U.S.C. App. § 183b(c) (emphasis in original).
Appellant filed the instant action more than one year from the date of her
injury; and, more significantly, more than one year from the date of her eighteenth
birthday, when she reached the age of majority. Appellant does not argue that she,
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or someone acting on her behalf, lacked notice of the one-year statute of
limitations embodied in the ticket. Rather, she argues that the contract is not
effective to bind her, because she was a minor at the time of execution of the
contract and at the time of her injury. She argues that §183b(c) is a partial
codification of the common law, which historically did not enforce contracts
against minors. In effect, she argues that §183b(c) is not a tolling provision, but
rather simply renders the contractual statute of limitations inoperative, therefore
leaving the three-year federal admiralty law statute of limitations as the operative
provision.
We reject appellant’s construction of the statute. We look to the plain
language of the statute. We conclude that it clearly does not incorporate the
common law view that refused to recognize a contract with a person who was a
minor at the time of execution. Contrary to the common law, it is clear that
§183b(c) does recognize the validity of such a contract with a minor: it expressly
recognizes the applicability of the statute of limitations embodied in such a
contract from and after the time that a legal representative is appointed for the
minor. Thus, it is clear that §183b(c) does not abrogate the contractually
shortened statute of limitations, as urged by appellant, but rather simply tolls its
operation until the appointment of the guardian.
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Having concluded that §183b(c) is a tolling provision, we also conclude that
it merely tolls the operation of the shortened statute of limitations during the time
that the party is a minor. This construction of the statute is bolstered by the use of
the present tense in the statute: “If a person . . . is . . . a minor . . . any lawful
limitation of time prescribed in such contract shall not be applicable . . . .”
(emphasis added). Thus, we conclude that §183b(c) tolled the operation of the
contractually shortened statute of limitations until appellant reached the age of
majority. Because appellant waited more than a year from that date, we conclude
that the district court correctly held that the instant suit is barred by the statute of
limitations.
Accordingly, the decision of the district court is affirmed.1
AFFIRMED.
1
Appellant’s request for oral argument is denied.
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