Margarita Marshall v. United States Post Office

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
• Decided: October 3, 2025
• Docket: 24-3104
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

No. 24-3104 _____________

MARGARITA MARSHALL, Appellant

v.

UNITED STATES POST OFFICE; UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE NATIONAL TORT CENTER; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA _____________

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (D.C. No. 2:24-cv-01931) District Judge: Honorable Kai N. Scott _____________

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) July 7, 2025

Before: RESTREPO, BIBAS, and CHUNG, Circuit Judges

(Filed: October 3, 2025) _________

OPINION * _________

RESTREPO, Circuit Judge.

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and, under I.O.P. 5.7, is not binding precedent. In 2018, Margarita Marshall slipped and fell in a United States post office. In 2023,

the Postal Service denied her administrative claim for damages. Over a year later, Marshall

filed suit against the Postal Service under the Federal Tort Claims Act. After converting

the government’s motion to dismiss, the District Court granted summary judgment for the

Postal Service on grounds that the lawsuit was untimely filed. On appeal, Marshall

contends the District Court erred in converting the motion to dismiss and granting summary

judgment. We disagree and will therefore affirm the rulings of the District Court.

I. Facts and Procedural History

Marshall alleges that she slipped and fell on a “wet and/or slippery substance” at a

post office in Philadelphia in October 2018. She claims to have suffered injuries to her

back, elbow, and hip, and that the fall was caused by the post office’s negligence and

carelessness. On January 21, 2020, Marshall filed an administrative claim for damages

against the United States Postal Service (“USPS”). Eight days later, USPS sent her an

acknowledgment of receipt and a request for supplemental records. After receiving no

response, USPS sent two follow-up letters to Marshall’s counsel in March and November

2021. Starting in January 2022, Marshall’s counsel had sporadic contact with a USPS

adjudicator. Marshall’s counsel claims that he left numerous voicemails—the final

message left on April 10, 2023—that the adjudicator left unanswered.

A week later, USPS sent a certified letter to Marshall’s counsel at the same address

used for all prior correspondence officially denying her administrative claim. The letter

explained that Marshall could file suit in federal court “no later than six (6) months after

the date the Postal Service mails the notice of that final action.” J.A. 059-60 (emphasis in

2 original). In accordance with COVID-19 pandemic protocols instituted by her counsel’s

office building, the certified letter was delivered to a designated office suite and signed for

by one of the building’s regular USPS carriers on April 21, 2023. Marshall’s counsel

alleges that they never received the denial letter.

Marshall filed suit in the District Court on May 7, 2024, a little over a year after

USPS sent the letter denying her administrative claim. USPS moved to dismiss the

complaint on grounds that the suit was untimely filed. Marshall’s counsel alleges that they

first learned of USPS’s denial letter upon receiving the government’s motion to dismiss

the lawsuit as untimely.

In August 2024, the District Court issued an order converting the motion to dismiss

to a summary judgment motion, reasoning that “both parties relied on evidence outside the

Complaint for resolution of the timeliness issue.” J.A. 012. The order gave both parties

the opportunity to submit supplemental material to the court. In her supplemental briefing,

Marshall argued that her claim should be equitably tolled because the COVID-19 pandemic

constituted an extraordinary circumstance, and she exercised due diligence in pursuing her

claim. Also in her briefing, Marshall requested to depose the Postal Service mail carrier

who delivered and signed for the certified denial letter at her counsel’s address.

The District Court granted summary judgment for USPS finding that, even

accepting the alleged facts as true, there was no genuine issue of material fact regarding

the untimeliness of her suit under the FTCA. First, the District Court found that Marshall

was not entitled to equitable tolling because her non-receipt of the letter due to a COVID-

19 mail delivery policy was not an extraordinary circumstance. Second, it concluded that

3 Marshall did not exercise due diligence in preserving her claim, given that there was no

correspondence between the parties during the year before the suit was filed. This timely

appeal followed.

II. Jurisdiction and Standard of Review

The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1346(b)(1), and we

have appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. See D.J.S.-W. v. United States, 962

F.3d 745, 749 n.3 (3d Cir. 2020).

In deciding this appeal, our review over both the District Court’s conversion of the

motion to dismiss and its decision to grant summary judgment in favor of USPS is plenary.

In re Rockefeller Ctr. Props., Inc. Sec. Litig., 184 F.3d 280, 287 (3d Cir. 1999). We review

for abuse of discretion Marshall’s contention that the District Court erred in granting

summary judgment without allowing her to depose the USPS mail carrier. Radich v.

Goode, 886 F.2d 1391, 1393 (3d Cir. 1989) (citing Dowling v. City of Phila., 855 F.2d 136

(3d Cir. 1988)) (“Whether a district court prematurely grants summary judgment is

reviewed for abuse of discretion.”).

III. Analysis

a. Conversion of Motion to Dismiss

If a court considers documents outside the pleadings that are not “integral to or

explicitly relied upon in the complaint,” then the motion to dismiss must be converted to a

motion for summary judgment as provided in Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil

Procedure. Wolfington v. Reconstructive Orthopaedic Assocs. II PC, 935 F.3d 187, 195

(3d Cir. 2019) (quoting Schmidt v. Skolas, 770 F.3d 241, 249 (3d Cir. 2014)); see Fed. R.

4 Civ. P. 12(d). To determine whether the conversion was proper, we consider three

factors: “first, whether the materials submitted require conversion; second, whether the

parties had adequate notice of the district court’s intention to convert; and third, if the

parties did not have notice, whether the court’s failure to provide notice was harmless

error.” In re Rockefeller Ctr. Props. Sec. Litig., 184 F.3d at 287 (citing Rose v. Bartle, 871

F.2d 331 (3d Cir. 1989)).

The parties do not dispute that materials outside the pleadings were critical to

determining the timeliness issue. Nor do the parties dispute that the District Court gave

notice of intent to convert the motion to dismiss to a motion for summary judgment.

Instead, Marshall contends that the District Court’s order “failed to instruct the parties on

the type of documents to be considered” in deciding the summary judgment motion.

Appellant’s Br. at 9.

The District Court is not, however, required to provide such an instruction. Here,

the order unambiguously stated the intention to convert the motion to dismiss and granted

the parties 14 days to submit a brief “with any additional information” they “would like

the Court to consider” when addressing the issue of whether Marshall’s claim was untimely

under the FTCA. App. 13. This order satisfied the District Court’s duty to provide the

parties with notice and the opportunity to respond to the motion for summary judgment.

See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(d); see also Forrest v. Parry, 930 F.3d 93, 112 (3d Cir. 2019)

(concluding that the district court committed error under Rule 56 by deciding motion for

summary judgment sua sponte without providing notice and the opportunity to oppose the

5 motion). On appeal, Marshall did not provide any legal authority to support her claim that

the District Court’s order was deficient. This absence of support is fatal to her claim.

b. Grant of Summary Judgment

Having determined that the District Court properly converted the motion, we next

consider whether it properly granted summary judgment in favor of the government.

Summary judgment is appropriate when “the movant shows that there is no genuine

dispute as to any material fact.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). Here, the parties do not dispute the

fact that Marshall filed the lawsuit under the FTCA over a year after the USPS mailed the

denial letter to Marshall’s counsel. Also not in dispute is that an FTCA lawsuit filed a year

after the government’s denial letter was mailed is untimely. The FTCA provides that a

“tort claim against the United States shall be forever barred unless … action is begun within

six months after the date of mailing, by certified or registered mail, of notice of final denial

of the claim by the agency.” 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b).

Instead, Marshall claims that there is a genuine dispute as to whether the denial letter

was properly delivered. But the terms of the governing statute make the mailing, not the

receipt, of the denial letter the relevant act in satisfying the notice requirement. See §

2401(b). The USPS’s obligations were therefore met when it mailed the denial letter to

Marshall’s counsel at the same address used for all prior correspondence. The FTCA’s

statute of limitations started running when the USPS sent the denial letter and elapsed long

before Marshall filed her lawsuit in the District Court.

Marshall attempts to avoid this conclusion by arguing that she is entitled to equitable

tolling. Equitable tolling applies when a litigant demonstrates that she exercised due

6 diligence to preserve her claim and was prevented “in some extraordinary way . . . from

asserting [her] rights.” Hedges v. United States, 404 F.3d 744, 751 (3d Cir. 2005). A

litigant must establish both elements to receive the benefit of equitable tolling. D.J.S.-W.,

962 F.3d at 751.

Marshall contends that changes to mail delivery protocols at her counsel’s office

during the COVID-19 pandemic constituted an extraordinary circumstance. Under the

COVID-19 protocol, counsel had to collect the certified letter from a bin on a different

floor of the building. Nothing about that circumstance was extraordinary. Marshall does

not allege, much less establish, that the protocols prevented counsel from receiving mail or

that sorting his mail was beyond his control during the pandemic. Id. at 752 (“[T]o meet

the extraordinary-circumstances element, the litigant must show that the circumstances

were ‘extraordinary and beyond [her] control.’”) (quoting Menominee Indian Tribe of

Wisc. v. United States, 577 U.S. 250, 257 (2016)). Because Marshall did not present

circumstances that come close to meeting this standard, the District Court properly found

Marshall was not entitled to toll the lawsuit’s deadline.

c. Denial of Discovery

Finally, Marshall argues that the District Court erred by deciding the motion for

summary judgment without her deposition of the mail carrier who delivered USPS’s denial

letter. We disagree. “[W]e review a claim that the district court has prematurely granted

summary judgment for abuse of discretion.” Pastore v. Bell Tel. Co. of Pa., 24 F.3d 508,

510 (3d Cir. 1994) (citing Radich, 886 F.2d at 1393). Here, the District Court decided the

summary judgment motion without the deposition and explained that the delivery of the

7 denial letter was legally irrelevant. The FTCA’s plain language is unambiguous, stating

that an action must be begun within six months after the date of the denial letter’s mailing,

not delivery. See 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b). Given the plain language of the governing statute,

we conclude no abuse of discretion occurred.

IV. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the District Court’s order granting

summary judgment for the government.