Nguyen v. Est of Thin Thi Ta, et al

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 19-10934
Summary Calendar

KHUE NGUYEN,

Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

ESTATE OF THIN THI TA, Hai Phu Nguyen as Heir and Administrator;
THAO XUAN TA,

Defendants - Appellees

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Texas
USDC No. 4:18-CV-801

Before CLEMENT, ELROD, and OLDHAM, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
Khue Nguyen sued various defendants for the breach of a Vietnamese
partnership agreement and the wrongful seizure of the business’s assets. The
district court granted summary judgment to defendants. We affirm.
I.
In 1982, Nguyen’s mother, Ha Thi Thu Thuy, entered into a partnership
with Ta Van Viet to establish a business in Vietnam named “Snow White.” Viet

*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not
be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5
TH
CIR. R. 47.5.4.
United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
April 8, 2020

Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
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No. 19-10934
2
died in 1989, and Thuy purchased his business interests from his heirs, the
defendants. Those heirs purported to evict Thuy from Snow White’s
manufacturing facility in November 2012, and they held onto the business’s
assets.
The same month, Thuy entered a dispute-resolution process operated by
the local Vietnamese government. That process was unsuccessful. Thuy later
assigned her interest in Snow White (including its assets, and any claims
against defendants) to Nguyen. And, in September 2018, Nguyen brought this
lawsuit in federal district court.
The district court granted summary judgment to defendants. Among
other things, the district court found Nguyen’s claims untimely. The district
court held that Texas’s statute of limitations applies to Nguyen’s Vietnamese-
law causes of action—a holding the parties do not dispute on appeal. Under
Texas law, the district court found that the claims accrued no later than 2012.
And, because the most generous applicable limitations period was four years,
the claims were time-barred. Nguyen timely appealed. Reviewing the grant of
summary judgment de novo, see Morrow v. Meachum, 917 F.3d 870, 874 (5th
Cir. 2019), we agree with the district court.
II.
The longest statute of limitations applicable to Nguyen’s claims is the
four-year period for contract actions. See T
EX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE
16.004(a). In Texas, “[i]t is well-settled law that a breach of contract claim
accrues when the contract is breached.” Stine v. Stewart, 80 S.W.3d 586, 592
(Tex. 2002). As Nguyen concedes, the breach of the partnership agreement—
Thuy’s eviction from Snow White’s facility—took place in November 2012. That
is when the contract claims accrued. Those claims therefore became time-
barred in November 2016, nearly two years before Nguyen filed this lawsuit.
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No. 19-10934
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Nguyen offers various reasons why the limitations period was tolled and
his claims are still timely. None has merit.
He first notes that equitable tolling is available when “a claimant
actively pursue[s] his judicial remedies but filed a defective pleading during
the statutory period, or where a complainant was induced or tricked by his
adversary’s misconduct into allowing filing deadlines to pass.” Bailey v.
Gardner, 154 S.W.3d 917, 920 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2005, no pet.). But he does
not claim that he filed a defective pleading during the four-year period, or that
he was tricked into filing late.
Nguyen also insists that the partnership contract governing Snow White
required the parties to submit their dispute to the local Vietnamese
government’s dispute-resolution procedure. In Nguyen’s view, this either
delayed accrual until after the Vietnamese procedure was finished or tolled the
limitation period during that procedure. But the contract provides only that
the parties must “[f]ollow strictly all current laws and rulings of the State and
of the local government.” Even assuming that this clause, as a matter of
Vietnamese law, required submission to the local government’s dispute-
resolution procedure, there is no contractual provision that tolls the limitation
period while the proceedings were ongoing. And although Texas law provides
for the tolling of a limitation period when the plaintiff files a lawsuit, see Sun
v. Al’s Formal Wear of Houston, Inc., 14-96-01516-CV, 1998 WL 726479, at *6
(Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Oct. 15, 1998, no pet.), Nguyen cites no
Texas-law authority for tolling during non-judicial dispute resolution.
AFFIRMED.
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