ORDER
WILLIAM H. STEELE, District Judge.
This matter comes before the Court on the Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (doc. 9) filed by defendant Holiday Isle, LLC. The Motion has been briefed and is ripe for disposition at this time.
I. Relevant Background.
The relevant underlying facts are straightforward and undisputed. Plaintiffs Celestine F. Taylor, Richard Murray, III, John and Lisa Murray, Arthur Fitzner, and John and Tracy Gardner all entered into agreements with defendant Holiday Isle, LLC to purchase enumerated condominium units of a development being constructed by Holiday Isle in Mobile County, Alabama. Uncontroverted record facts reflect that each plaintiff signed Pre-Con-struction Purchase and Escrow Agreements (the “Agreements”) with Holiday Isle between February 22, 2005 and March 3, 2005.
Each plaintiff paid a substantial earnest money deposit or arranged for delivery of a standby letter of credit to Holiday Isle, to be held by an escrow agent pending closing.
On June 5, 2007, plaintiffs’ counsel transmitted a letter to Holiday Isle on behalf of all plaintiffs in this case purporting to exercise their right to rescind the Agreements pursuant to the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1701
et seq.
(“ILSFDA”). Among other things, the June 5 letter asserted that Holiday Isle had violated 15 U.S.C. § 1703, which requires a property report to be provided to the purchaser in advance of that purchaser executing the sales agreement, and which further requires certain contractual language that was omitted by Holiday Isle. On that basis, the June 5 letter stated, “please be advised that [plaintiffs] hereby rescind the Contracts pursuant to ILSFDA [and] demand a return of their earnest money or a release of their letters of credit.” (Doc. 9, Exh. F.) When Holiday Isle declined to honor this request, plaintiffs filed suit in this District Court on October 30, 2007.
In their Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and Damages (doc. 1), plaintiffs delineate four causes of action, including a claim under the ILSFDA and pendent state-law claims for breach of contract, conversion and declaratory judgment. The sole cause of action at issue for purposes of the Motion for Partial Summary Judgment is Count One, in which plaintiffs
allege,
inter alia,
that they “are entitled to and have rescinded the Contracts pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1703(c) and (d).” (Complaint, ¶53.)
The finite, discrete issue presented by Holiday Isle’s Motion for Summary Judgment is whether plaintiffs’ rescission claim is timely. Holiday Isle maintains that plaintiffs missed the two-year deadline for rescinding the Agreements, and that Count One is therefore properly dismissed. Plaintiffs oppose the Motion on the grounds that Count One is governed by a three-year statute of limitations, not the two-year period for rescission established by § 1703(c).
II. Analysis.
The lone legal issue presented by Holiday Isle’s Rule 56 Motion concerns the meaning of and interplay between two distinct provisions of the ILSFDA, to-wit: 15 U.S.C. §§ 1703(c) and 1711(b).
Section 1703 provides that if a property report is required and has not been provided to the purchaser in advance of execution of the purchase agreement, “such contract or agreement may be revoked at the option of the purchaser or lessee
within two years from the date of such signing,
and such contract or agreement shall clearly provide this right.” 15 U.S.C. § 1703(c) (emphasis added). By contrast, section 1711 provides that “[n]o action shall be maintained ... to enforce a right created under subsection (b), (c), (d), or (e) of section 1703 of this title
unless brought within three years after the signing of the contract or lease.”
15 U.S.C. § 1711(b) (emphasis added).
As the Court understands it, Holiday Isle’s position is that rescission is an available remedy under the ILSFDA only if a plaintiff invokes such remedy within two years after he or she signs the purchase agreement. Here, of course, it is uncontested that plaintiffs did not exercise their right of rescission within the two-year window, as they signed their agreements in February or March 2005, but did not notify Holiday Isle of the rescission until June
2007, approximately 27 months later. According to defendant, then, plaintiffs’ failure to rescind their contracts within the two-year period provided by § 1703(c) renders Count One time-barred. Plaintiffs’ interpretation of the ILSFDA is different. They assert that the three-year limitations period set forth in § 1711(b) preserves the timeliness of their rescission claims, inasmuch as there is no dispute that the Complaint was filed within three years after plaintiffs signed the Agreements. Plaintiffs further insist that Holiday Isle’s failure to include in the Agreements language apprising them of their statutory revocation rights nullifies the two-year period set forth in § 1703(c) and entitles them to the more lenient three-year period provided by § 1711(b).
Judging by the paucity of authority presented by the parties and the dearth of helpful case law brought to light by the undersigned’s own research, this legal question has not been definitively resolved by any published federal decision.
Nonetheless, after careful scrutiny of the statutory language, the limited interpretive guidance available, and the parties’ contentions, the Court concludes that defendant has the better argument. As an initial matter, the ILSFDA is quite clear that if a property report is required and is not provided to the purchaser in advance of execution of the purchase agreement, “such contract or agreement may be revoked at the option of the purchaser ... within two years from the date of such signing.” 15 U.S.C. § 1703(c). Simply stated, if plaintiffs wanted to rescind their purchase agreements with Holiday Isle because of the latter’s failure to furnish them with a property report before they signed those Agreements, they had two years in which to do so. Yet plaintiffs did not timely avail themselves of that right.
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ORDER
WILLIAM H. STEELE, District Judge.
This matter comes before the Court on the Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (doc. 9) filed by defendant Holiday Isle, LLC. The Motion has been briefed and is ripe for disposition at this time.
I. Relevant Background.
The relevant underlying facts are straightforward and undisputed. Plaintiffs Celestine F. Taylor, Richard Murray, III, John and Lisa Murray, Arthur Fitzner, and John and Tracy Gardner all entered into agreements with defendant Holiday Isle, LLC to purchase enumerated condominium units of a development being constructed by Holiday Isle in Mobile County, Alabama. Uncontroverted record facts reflect that each plaintiff signed Pre-Con-struction Purchase and Escrow Agreements (the “Agreements”) with Holiday Isle between February 22, 2005 and March 3, 2005.
Each plaintiff paid a substantial earnest money deposit or arranged for delivery of a standby letter of credit to Holiday Isle, to be held by an escrow agent pending closing.
On June 5, 2007, plaintiffs’ counsel transmitted a letter to Holiday Isle on behalf of all plaintiffs in this case purporting to exercise their right to rescind the Agreements pursuant to the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1701
et seq.
(“ILSFDA”). Among other things, the June 5 letter asserted that Holiday Isle had violated 15 U.S.C. § 1703, which requires a property report to be provided to the purchaser in advance of that purchaser executing the sales agreement, and which further requires certain contractual language that was omitted by Holiday Isle. On that basis, the June 5 letter stated, “please be advised that [plaintiffs] hereby rescind the Contracts pursuant to ILSFDA [and] demand a return of their earnest money or a release of their letters of credit.” (Doc. 9, Exh. F.) When Holiday Isle declined to honor this request, plaintiffs filed suit in this District Court on October 30, 2007.
In their Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and Damages (doc. 1), plaintiffs delineate four causes of action, including a claim under the ILSFDA and pendent state-law claims for breach of contract, conversion and declaratory judgment. The sole cause of action at issue for purposes of the Motion for Partial Summary Judgment is Count One, in which plaintiffs
allege,
inter alia,
that they “are entitled to and have rescinded the Contracts pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1703(c) and (d).” (Complaint, ¶53.)
The finite, discrete issue presented by Holiday Isle’s Motion for Summary Judgment is whether plaintiffs’ rescission claim is timely. Holiday Isle maintains that plaintiffs missed the two-year deadline for rescinding the Agreements, and that Count One is therefore properly dismissed. Plaintiffs oppose the Motion on the grounds that Count One is governed by a three-year statute of limitations, not the two-year period for rescission established by § 1703(c).
II. Analysis.
The lone legal issue presented by Holiday Isle’s Rule 56 Motion concerns the meaning of and interplay between two distinct provisions of the ILSFDA, to-wit: 15 U.S.C. §§ 1703(c) and 1711(b).
Section 1703 provides that if a property report is required and has not been provided to the purchaser in advance of execution of the purchase agreement, “such contract or agreement may be revoked at the option of the purchaser or lessee
within two years from the date of such signing,
and such contract or agreement shall clearly provide this right.” 15 U.S.C. § 1703(c) (emphasis added). By contrast, section 1711 provides that “[n]o action shall be maintained ... to enforce a right created under subsection (b), (c), (d), or (e) of section 1703 of this title
unless brought within three years after the signing of the contract or lease.”
15 U.S.C. § 1711(b) (emphasis added).
As the Court understands it, Holiday Isle’s position is that rescission is an available remedy under the ILSFDA only if a plaintiff invokes such remedy within two years after he or she signs the purchase agreement. Here, of course, it is uncontested that plaintiffs did not exercise their right of rescission within the two-year window, as they signed their agreements in February or March 2005, but did not notify Holiday Isle of the rescission until June
2007, approximately 27 months later. According to defendant, then, plaintiffs’ failure to rescind their contracts within the two-year period provided by § 1703(c) renders Count One time-barred. Plaintiffs’ interpretation of the ILSFDA is different. They assert that the three-year limitations period set forth in § 1711(b) preserves the timeliness of their rescission claims, inasmuch as there is no dispute that the Complaint was filed within three years after plaintiffs signed the Agreements. Plaintiffs further insist that Holiday Isle’s failure to include in the Agreements language apprising them of their statutory revocation rights nullifies the two-year period set forth in § 1703(c) and entitles them to the more lenient three-year period provided by § 1711(b).
Judging by the paucity of authority presented by the parties and the dearth of helpful case law brought to light by the undersigned’s own research, this legal question has not been definitively resolved by any published federal decision.
Nonetheless, after careful scrutiny of the statutory language, the limited interpretive guidance available, and the parties’ contentions, the Court concludes that defendant has the better argument. As an initial matter, the ILSFDA is quite clear that if a property report is required and is not provided to the purchaser in advance of execution of the purchase agreement, “such contract or agreement may be revoked at the option of the purchaser ... within two years from the date of such signing.” 15 U.S.C. § 1703(c). Simply stated, if plaintiffs wanted to rescind their purchase agreements with Holiday Isle because of the latter’s failure to furnish them with a property report before they signed those Agreements, they had two years in which to do so. Yet plaintiffs did not timely avail themselves of that right. By waiting approximately 27 months before attempting to revoke the Agreements for failure to comply with the property report requirement, plaintiffs failed to abide by the two-year window for rescission as provided on the face of § 1703(c).
Plaintiffs do not dispute this construction of § 1703(c), nor do they maintain that they actually rescinded the Agree-
merits within the time frame established by that section. Instead, they argue that the two-year period for rescission as specified in § 1703 is trumped by the three-year limitations period for filing a lawsuit as provided by § 1711. In other words, plaintiffs would have this Court hold that a plaintiffs failure to rescind an agreement in a timely manner under § 1703(c) is cured as long as he or she files a lawsuit for rescission within the temporal limits of § 1711(b). Nothing in the statutory language would support reading § 1703(c)’s two-year limit as being merely optional or aspirational for a purchaser. Certainly, it is accurate that plaintiffs may bring a suit in law or equity to enforce a right created under § 1703(c) “within three years after the signing of the contract.” 15 U.S.C. § 1711(b). It is likewise correct that plaintiffs in this case filed suit (including their rescission claim) against Holiday Isle within that requisite three-year period. But the Court cannot adopt plaintiffs’ reductionist reasoning that § 1711 renders their rescission claims timely as long as they are brought within three years, even where plaintiffs have failed to comply with § 1703(c)’s two-year period for rescinding the Agreements. Plaintiffs would effectively excise from the ILSFDA the language in § 1703(c) setting a two-year period for a purchaser to rescind an agreement for want of a property report. In addition to authorizing purchasers to disregard that two-year requirement with impunity, such a construction would contravene the fundamental principle that, to the extent possible, “the rules of statutory construction require courts to give meaning to every word and clause in a statute.”
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen v. CSX Transp., Inc.,
522 F.3d 1190, 1195 (11th Cir.2008);
see also Nunnally v. Equifax Information Services, LLC,
451 F.3d 768, 773 (11th Cir.2006) (“It is a cardinal principle of statutory construction that a statute ought, upon the whole, to be so construed that, if it can be prevented, no clause, sentence, or word shall be superfluous, void, or insignificant.”) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
Is it possible, then, to harmonize the two-year period set forth in § 1703(c) with the three-year limitations period established by § 1711(b)? The Court believes it is. The two provisions may be construed in a coherent and congruent fashion as follows: Section 1703(c) provides that a purchaser must exercise revocation rights within two years. If the developer/seller refuses to honor the purchaser’s timely rescission of the purchase agreement under § 1703(c), then the purchaser has a third year (pursuant to § 1711(b)) in which to file suit to enforce that right of rescission. But if the purchaser fails to rescind the contract within those first two years, as required by § 1703(c), that right of rescission is extinguished by the plain operation of that section, such there would no longer be any § 1703(c) right to enforce via the three-year limitations period provided by § 1711(b).
Stated differently, the most logical reading of these provisions, and the only one that gives effect to the disparate time limits set forth in each of them, is that a plaintiffs rescission claim requires compliance with
both
§ 1703(c)’s two-year limit for exercising the right of rescission
and
§ 1711(b)’s three-year limit for filing suit based on the seller’s refusal to honor said rescission.
Thus, plaintiffs’ compliance with § 1711(b) is of no consequence, and cannot revive their time-barred rescission rights if they failed to satisfy § 1703(c) by rescinding the Agreements with Holiday Isle within a two-year period.
Plaintiffs’ argument that the three-year period in § 1711(b) negates the two-year period in § 1703(c) having been rejected, their fallback position is that they should not be held to the two-year period in § 1703(c) because Holiday Isle failed to include in the Agreements the requisite notice of their right to rescind. The statute provides that if a property report is required by the ILSFDA and the seller fails to furnish it to the buyer before the agreement is signed, “such contract or agreement may be revoked at the option of the purchaser or lessee within two years from the date of such signing,
and such contract or agreement shall clearly provide this right.”
15 U.S.C. § 1703(c) (emphasis added). It is undisputed that the Agreements prepared by Holiday Isle and executed by plaintiffs did not notify plaintiffs of their right to rescind the Agreements within two years if no property report had been provided. The crucial question for purposes of Holiday Isle’s Rule 56 Motion is what the legal effect of that omission is.
Although it is difficult to glean plaintiffs’ precise reasoning from their brief, their position is apparently that Holiday Isle’s failure to provide notice to plaintiffs of their right to rescind within two years excuses plaintiffs’ non-exercise of that rescission right within the § 1703(c) period. But nothing in the ILSFDA states that failure to disclose the right to rescind in the purchase agreement obviates, tolls or extends the two-year deadline for rescission.
Nothing in the statute says that
the two-year period prescribed by § 1703(c) runs from the date that purchasers discovered or should have discovered they had a right to rescind. Plaintiffs would thus apparently have this Court en-graft new language onto the relevant provisions of the ILSFDA by judicial fiat, substituting its judgment for that of the legislature. Courts are quite naturally leery of interpreting statutes in a manner that effectively tacks on new language that Congress did not see fit to include.
See generally Harris v. Garner,
216 F.3d 970, 976 (11th Cir.2000) (“We will not do to the statutory language what Congress did not do with it, because the role of the judicial branch is to apply statutory language, not to rewrite it.”). Nor have plaintiffs identified persuasive case authority that has construed the ILSFDA in the manner they advocate here.
As a matter of statutory construction, then, the Court cannot concur with plaintiffs’ suggestion that a developer’s failure to provide notice of the right of rescission in a purchase agreement eliminates the two-year requirement for rescission under § 1703(c).
In the alternative, plaintiffs posit that enforcing the two-year rescission period when the developer failed to provide the notice required by § 1703(c) would effectively render the notice requirement meaningless, enabling developers to flout it with no adverse repercussions and thereby to frustrate Congressional intent. But plain
tiffs read the statute too narrowly. The ILSFDA confers upon purchaser the right “to bring any action at law or in equity against the seller ... to enforce any right under subsection (b), (c), (d), or (e) of section 1703 of this title.” 15 U.S.C. § 1709(b). Of course, section 1703(c) requires sellers to disclose the rescission right to purchasers before a contract is signed. Thus, § 1709(b) would plainly allow a purchaser to bring a claim for damages based on a seller’s failure to provide the statutorily required notice of rescission. The point is that the ILSFDA does provide a remedy for a seller’s violation of the § 1703(c) notice requirement, albeit perhaps not the remedy that plaintiffs want (to wit, resuscitation of rescission rights that plaintiffs allowed to lapse). Contrary to plaintiffs’ assertion, then, enforcing the statutory two-year rescission period in these circumstances is not tantamount to writing the notice requirement out of the ILSFDA.
Additionally, the Court recognizes the possibility that a developer’s failure to provide the required notice of rescission rights might conceivably support a viable equitable tolling argument.
See generally Arce v. Garcia,
434 F.3d 1254 (11th Cir.2006) (“The basic question to be answered in determining whether, under a given set of facts, a statute of limitations is to be tolled, is one of legislative intent whether the right shall be enforceable ... after the prescribed time.”) (citations and internal quotations omitted). That said, equitable tolling is an extraordinary remedy that obliges plaintiffs to satisfy their burden of showing “extraordinary circumstances” that are both beyond their control and unavoidable even with diligence.
See id.
at 1261;
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers,
522 F.3d at 1197 (reciting general principles concerning application of equitable tolling). Plaintiffs in this case have failed to meet their burden of establishing a valid basis for equitably tolling the two-year statutory period for rescission.
III. Conclusion.
For all of the foregoing reasons, defendant’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (doc. 9) is granted, and plaintiffs’ claims for rescission in Count One of the Complaint are dismissed.