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Listen to this articleWhere a medical malpractice complaint against the United States was found to be untimely under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the lower court correctly determined that the plaintiff’s claims accrued in 1995 when he underwent surgery at a VA hospital.
Affirmed.
“This is an appeal from the grant of summary judgment in a case involving the application of the discovery rule to the accrual of claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act (‘FTCA’) and Puerto Rico law. Appellant José Luis Roldán-Barrios (‘Roldán’) contends that the district court erred in concluding that he filed his medical malpractice claims against the United States over two decades after the statute of limitations had elapsed. We affirm. …
“On appeal, Roldán asserts that the district court erred when it found that his FTCA medical malpractice claim was time-barred because it accrued in 1995. Specifically, he theorizes that his claim first accrued in 2018, when he was told that his infections were related to the 1995 surgeries, and that the 2020 MRI revealing the metal in his leg also tolled the accrual date. …
“The district court correctly determined that Roldán’s claims accrued when he was discharged from the VA on December 2, 1995, after a multi-week hospital stay to treat cellulitis on his right leg. The hospital stay followed a September 1995 infection and subsequent surgery to remove the intramedullary rod and nail. Thus, by December 1995, Roldán should have been on notice that he had a claim, because he had suffered repeated infections in his right leg and needed surgical correction to that leg — the same leg that the VA originally operated on in January 1995. … Roldán therefore had sufficient information for his claim to accrue in December 1995, and any information he learned after that time from the infectious disease specialist and MRI does not toll the accrual date for his FTCA claim. …”
Roldón-Barrios v. United States (Lawyers Weekly No. 01-215-25) (9 pages) (Per curiam) Appealed from the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico (Docket No. 23-1202) (Oct. 20, 2025).
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