On February 26, 2019, the Supreme Court decided Nutraceutical Corp. v. Lambert, No. 17-1094, 586 U.S. ___ (2019). In this case, Lambert filed a class action, alleging that Nutraceutical?s marketing of a dietary supplement violated California consumer-protection law. On February 20, 2015, the district court decertified the class. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f), Lambert had 14 days to ask for permission to appeal the order. Instead, he moved for reconsideration more than 14 days later, on March 12. The district court denied the motion on June 24. Fourteen days later, Lambert petitioned the Ninth Circuit for permission to appeal the decertification order. The Ninth Circuit held, however, that Rule 23(f)?s deadline should be tolled under the circumstances because Lambert had ?acted diligently.? The 9th Circuit thus reversed the decertification order.
Justice Sotomayor, writing for a unanimous Court, noted that the governing rules speak directly to the issue of Rule 23(f)?s flexibility and make clear that its deadline is not subject to equitable tolling. While Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 2 authorizes a court of appeals for good cause to ?suspend any provision . . . in a particular case,? it does so with a caveat: ?except as otherwise provided in Rule 26(b).? Rule 26(b), which generally authorizes extensions of time, in turn includes the carve-out that a court of appeals ?may not extend the time to file . . . a petition for permission to appeal? ? the precise type of filing at issue here. ?The Rules thus express a clear intent to compel rigorous enforcement of Rule 23(f)?s deadline, even where good cause for equitable tolling might otherwise exist.?
?Whether the pertinent rule or rules invoked show a clear intent to preclude tolling, courts are without authority to make exceptions merely because a litigant appears to have been diligent, reasonably mistaken, or otherwise deserving,? Sotomayor wrote.