Plaintiffs were members of a Federal class action for property damage caused by chemical explosions at Arkema’s industrial plant. After the District Court certified a class for injunctive relief, but not monetary damages, the plaintiffs filed individual actions in Texas state Court seeking monetary relief. Arkema removed the cases to Federal Court, and the District Court dismissed them as untimely.  The U.S. Fifth Circuit agreed:

“In American Pipe, the United States Supreme Court held that the commencement of a class action suspends the applicable statute of limitations as to all asserted members of the class who would have been parties had the suit been permitted to continue as a class action…. Texas intermediate appellate courts have imported the American Pipe tolling doctrine into the Texas state class action context.”  However, Texas State Courts have not extended this “to allow cross-jurisdictional tolling — i.e., to allow a federal class action to toll a state statute of limitations.” (The one Texas intermediate appellate court to consider this issue declined to apply American Pipe tolling to a Texas personal injury action based on a federal class action filed in New Mexico.)  Twice, the U.S. Fifth Circuit predicted that the Texas Supreme Court would likely not extend American Pipe tolling to Texas State Law claims based on the filing of a Federal class action.  Since Texas courts had not since re-addressed this cross-jurisdictional tolling issue, the Fifth Circuit followed its earlier decisions.

Judge Haynes, dissenting, suggested that the issue should be certified to the Texas Supreme Court: “As the United States Supreme Court noted, where someone is part of a class action, that person’s individual case on the same issues should have its statute of limitations suspended. That makes a great deal of sense because making individuals file a bunch of litigations while having a class action adds a lot of cases to courts which might not be needed. Even if put ‘in abeyance,’ they are still on the court’s list for no good reason given the pending class action. If the class action resolves all issues, then the individuals will never have to sue. If it does not, then the statute of limitations should come back in play, and they should sue if they wish within that time period…. To me, it makes little sense to require individuals to file individual cases when there is already a case in which they are part of a class addressing their specific issues. I don’t think state district courts want to have a bunch of abeyance cases sitting in their office awaiting a class action decision. Nor would it make sense to make the individuals litigate the issues that the class action is litigating. That is the whole reason for the class action to resolve the issues in one case and why it makes sense to suspend the statute of limitations.”

 

Ackerman v. Arkema, No.25-20006, 2025 WL 3039221 (5th Cir. Oct. 31, 2025).