Gina Santangelo v. Bridgestone/firestone, Inc.

MEMORANDUM **

Plaintiff-Appellant Gina Santangelo appeals the district court’s judgment dismissing this case following a grant of Defendant-Appellee Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc.’s (“Firestone”) motion for summary judgment. Firestone based its motion on the one-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims in California Code of Civil Procedure § 340(3) (West 1998), which the parties agree governs Santange-lo’s claims.

Santangelo was injured on May 11,1998, when the Ford Explorer driven by her mother overturned. The alleged cause of the accident was tread separation of the left rear tire, which had been manufactured by Firestone. Santangelo filed suit on May 2, 2001, nearly three years later. Santangelo contends her claim did not accrue and the limitations period did not begin to run until August 2000, when de *729 fects in Firestone tires were widely reported by the media.

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We review de novo the district court’s order granting a motion for summary judgment based on the statute of limitations. Tucker v. Baxter Healthcare, 158 F.3d 1046 , 1049 (9th Cir.1998). We affirm.

The question before us is when the statute of…

dissenting:

I respectfully dissent. In affirming the district court’s grant of Firestone’s motion for summary judgment, the majority incorrectly ruled as a matter of law that California’s one-year statute of limitations 1 began to run in June 1998 when Gina San-tangelo’s attorneys sent to a tire failure analyst the Firestone Radial ATX tires removed from Santangelo’s mother’s Ford *731 Explorer. I believe that the statute of limitations began to run in August 2000. That is when Santangelo learned, through the national media, that Firestone decided to recall its Radial ATX tires. 2 It was only when that recall was publicized in the national media that Santangelo began to suspect that the accident, which killed her mother and brother and left her severely injured, was caused by a defect in the Firestone Radial ATX tires and not by her mother’s unsafe right turn in reaction to the tire tread separation, as stated in the California Highway Patrol’s accident report.

Shortly after the accident, Santangelo hired two attorneys to pursue a claim against Santangelo’s mother’s insurance carrier, Farmers Insurance, not against Firestone. 4 In June 1998, Santangelo’s attorneys had the…

FILED

NOT FOR PUBLICATION DEC 03 2012

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

GINA SANTANGELO, No. 10-56666

Plaintiff - Appellant, D.C. No. 2:01-cv-04210-CAS-

MAN

and

BRANDON BOISCLAIR, a minor by and MEMORANDUM* through his guardian Paul Boisclair,

Plaintiff,

v.

BRIDGESTONE/FIRESTONE, INC.,

Defendant - Appellee,

and

BRIDGESTONE CORPORATION,

Defendant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Christina A. Snyder, District Judge, Presiding

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3. Argued and Submitted February 16, 2012 Pasadena, California

Before: PREGERSON and BEA, Circuit Judges, and PRATT, District Judge.**

Plaintiff-Appellant Gina Santangelo appeals the district court’s judgment

dismissing this case following a grant of Defendant-Appellee

Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc.’s (“Firestone”) motion for summary judgment.

Firestone based its motion on the one-year statute of…