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Craig v. Missouri Department of Health6/25/2002
y must the federal court remand a case removed from state court if it lacks subject matter jurisdiction, but also that such a pending ruling on jurisdiction divests the court of jurisdiction to allow any party to amend his or her pleadings in any fashion. Thus, according to the MDH, Craig's second amended complaint was a nullity ab initio.
There is no authority for this Court, however, to rule on the federal court's jurisdiction, and the federal court's decision with respect to its jurisdiction, and any other matter submitted for its determination, is exclusive and conclusive. "We decline to set aside, amend or ignore the federal court proceedings and/or judgment."
"The state court receives the case on remand from federal court removal in the posture it is in when remanded." "Since the case, when remanded, was governed by the second amended complaint, that complaint was properly before the state trial court." The MDH must have recognized this fact because it filed an answer to Craig's second amended petition, and the court must have accepted this posture as its order for judgment on the pleadings was specifically directed against plaintiff's second amended complaint. Even if Craig is correct in her belief that the second amended petition failed to be incorporated into the trial court's records, the " ailure to refile a pleading after remand is not fatal to a state court ruling on the pleading."
Having determined that the MHRA claims were properly before the circuit court, the Court must next determine whether or not those claims were appropriately dismissed. Craig was terminated on September 24, 1996, the last purported day the discrimination could have occurred, and the two-year statute of limitations in section 213.111.1 would have run on September 24, 1998. Craig argues that the relation back doctrine in Rule 55.33(c) applies and that her MHRA claims were timely because they relate back to the time of her filing her original ADA claim against the MDH. Craig also claims the trial court erred when dismissing her MHRA claim because the MDH prevented her from exercising her legal remedies by the proceedings it had initiated, thus entitling her to the litigation exception to the statute of limitations.
The MDH asserts Craig's MHRA claim was correctly dismissed because she had not received leave of the circuit court to amend her pleadings to add a timely claim. The MDH also argues that even if she had been properly permitted to file the amended complaint in the federal court, that complaint was filed in August of 1999 -- well beyond the two-year limitations period. As to the litigation exception doctrine, the MDH maintains that the exception is inapplicable because Craig provoked the proceedings and that she was not obstructed from filing her MHRA claims.
An action filed under the MHRA "shall be filed within ninety days from the date of the commission's notification letter to the individual but no later than two years after the alleged cause occurred or its reasonable discovery by the alleged injured party." However, " nder the relation back doctrine if 'the claim or defense asserted in the amended pleading arose out of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence set forth or attempted to be set forth in the original pleading, the amendment relates back to the date of the original pleading.'"
Craig's MHRA claims arose out of the same conduct as her original ADA claim. In all of Craig's petitions she alleged the same facts of being denied reasonable accommodations related to her disability and with being harassed and retaliated against for having filed an internal complaint concerning the alleged discrimination. Consequently, the relation
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