The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a tolling agreement did not prevent a cross-claim from being barred by the statute of limitations. In Camico Mutual Insurance Company v. Citizens Bank, 2007 WL 286533, the parties entered into a tolling agreement which was as follows:
“The parties agree that all statute of limitations defenses and other defenses relating to the time that claims are asserted are tolled from the Effective Date through the date of termination of this Tolling Agreement. Nothing contained herein will be deemed to renew, revive, resurrect or reinstate any claim that, on the Effective Date, was already time barred.”
The Court of Appeals affirmed the entry of a summary judgment by the District Court on the ground that the defendant had failed to timely file its cross-claim. The Court said:
“Both parties agree that “toll” means to suspend or stop temporarily; they disagree, however, as to what the agreement tolled. Citizens Bank asserts that the statute of limitations was tolled by the agreement, while the accounting firm argues that only the statute of limitations defenses and other defenses were tolled. The clear, unequivocal language of the tolling agreement resolves this dispute: only the statute of limitations defenses and other defenses were tolled. To find the contrary would require us to either eliminate the parties’ specific use of “defenses” within the agreement or otherwise augment the unambiguous agreement by including a provision that specifically tolls the running of the statute of limitations, neither of which we are permitted to do.”