Liu v. Tufts Medical Center Inc et al

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
YU-FEN LIU,
Plaintiff,
v.
TUFTS MEDICAL CENTER, INC.
ET AL
Defendants.
No. 25-cv-10252-DLC
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
ON DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO DISMISS
CABELL, U.S.M.J.
I. Introduction
Plaintiff Yu-Fen Liu contends that Tufts Medical Center, Inc.
(“Tufts”) and several of its medical and security personnel
(collectively, “the defendants”) violated her rights during the
course of treatment she sought there in November 2019. (D. 1).
Tufts moved on behalf of all defendants to dismiss Liu’s initial
complaint on the grounds that her claims are barred under the
doctrine of res judicata, are not viable, and are time barred.
(D. 6). While the motion was under consideration, Liu filed a
motion for leave to file an amended complaint. (D. 14). Tufts in
response has moved to strike the proposed amended complaint as
futile or in the alternative to dismiss it for the same reasons
stated in its motion to dismiss the initial complaint. (D. 18).
For the reasons explained below, the court finds that both
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complaints are or would be subject to dismissal for lack of subject
matter jurisdiction and on other grounds. The court will therefore
allow the motion to dismiss and deny the motion for leave to amend.
II. Relevant Background
On November 24 and 25, 2019, Liu was treated at Tufts’
emergency department for chest pain and a rash. Based on the
treatment she received during that visit, she filed a medical
malpractice claim against Tufts and Dr. Leah I. Kaplan on March 4,
2022, in the Middlesex Superior Court, seeking a little under ten
million dollars in damages. (D. 7-1). The superior court
subsequently dismissed the case with prejudice for failure to
prosecute because the plaintiff failed to post a $6,000 bond
pursuant to M.G.L. c. 231, § 60B.1 (D. 7-4). A dismissal for
failure to prosecutes operates as an adjudication on the merits.
See Mass. R. Civ. P. 41(b); Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(b).
Liu did not appeal the superior court’s dismissal. Rather,
on November 22, 2022, she initiated another lawsuit in the
Middlesex Superior Court. Like the first matter, the complaint
was based on the plaintiff’s November 2019 visit and named Tufts
1 Under section 60B, a medical malpractice claim must initially be referred to
a three-person state tribunal consisting of a superior court justice, a licensed
physician, and an attorney. The tribunal will then ideally convene a hearing
within 15 days after the defendants’ answer has been pled to hear evidence and
determine if the evidence is sufficient to raise a legitimate question of
liability. If the tribunal concludes the evidence is not sufficient, the
plaintiff must post a $6,000 bond to continue with her claim or else face
dismissal of the action. See M.G.L. c. 231, § 60B; McCusker v. United States,
706 F. Supp. 3d 175 178 (D. Mass. 2023).
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and Dr. Kaplan as defendants, but it also named several other Tufts
medical and security personnel. The complaint asserted claims for
medical fraud, assault, false imprisonment, battery, negligence,
and violation of her civil rights. (D. 7-5).
On June 21, 2023, the superior court found that the
plaintiff’s claims were barred because of the prior state court
action and dismissed the claims with prejudice. (D. 7-7). The
plaintiff appealed the dismissal to the Massachusetts Appeals
Court (“MAC”), which affirmed the dismissal on June 6, 2024. (D.
7-9). The plaintiff then appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme
Judicial Court (“SJC”), which affirmed the MAC’s dismissal and
denied further appellate review on August 2, 2024. (D. 7-10).
Against that backdrop, the plaintiff commenced this action
about 6 months later, on January 31, 2025. (D. 1). Like both
state court matters, the complaint seeks relief and damages based
on the plaintiff’s November 2019 visit to Tufts. The complaint
names as defendants the exact same defendants in the second state
court action and asserts claims for medical fraud, false
imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress,
violation of her Fourth Amendment rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983,
failure to train and supervise, failure to discipline, violation
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, violation
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of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and a claim for assault,
battery and general negligence.2 Id.
III. Legal Standard
Tufts argues that the case should be dismissed for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
12(b)(1) and for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). “When faced with motions to dismiss
under both 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6), a district court, absent good
reason to do otherwise, should ordinarily decide the 12(b)(1)
motion first.” Northeast Erectors Ass’n v. Sec’y of Lab., 62 F.3d
37, 39 (1st Cir. 1995).
When considering a motion to dismiss for lack of subject
matter jurisdiction, the party invoking the jurisdiction of a
federal court “carries the burden of proving its existence.” Muniz
v. Miller, No. 23-cv-11075-DJC, 2024 WL 624827, at *1 (D. Mass.
Feb. 14, 2024). If a party seeking to invoke federal jurisdiction
fails to show the basis for that jurisdiction, the court must grant
the motion to dismiss. Murphy v. Bernier, 735 F.Supp.3d 55, 59-
60 (D. Mass. 2024).
2 It bears noting that the proposed amended complaint essentially serves to
reduce the scope of the asserted claims. It withdraws the claims of medical
fraud, false imprisonment, and assault, battery and general negligence, while
adding a section 1983 claim that appears to allege a violation of the plaintiff’s
Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights based on the improper
modification of the plaintiff’s health records. (D. 13).
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On a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim pursuant
to Rule 12(b)(6), the court must “construe the complaint liberally,
treat[] all well-pleaded facts as true and indulg[e] all reasonable
inferences in favor of the plaintiff.” Aversa v. United States,
99 F.3d 1200, 1209-10 (1st Cir. 1996). However, the court is “not
bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual
allegation.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).
As explained below, the complaint is subject to summary
dismissal for at least three reasons: (1) the court lacks subject
matter jurisdiction to hear the plaintiff’s claims; (2) even if it
did have jurisdiction, the claims are barred under the doctrine of
res judicata; and (3) the claims would in any event be time barred.
IV. Discussion
A. Subject Matter Jurisdiction
Under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, a district court may not
exercise jurisdiction “over any action that is effectively or
substantially an appeal from a state court’s judgment.” Badillo-
Santiago v. Naveira-Merly, 378 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 2004). The
doctrine’s rationale flows from the premise that the only federal
court with the authority to review a final state-court judgment
(outside of the habeas context) is the Supreme Court. Lance v.
Dennis, 546 U.S. 459, 463 (2006); Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic
Industries Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 292 n.8 (2005).
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The doctrine applies to “(1) a party who lost in a [final]
state-court judgment that (2) was rendered before the federal
action commenced, where (3) the party complains of injuries caused
by the state-court judgment and (4) invites district court review
and rejection of those judgments.” DuLaurence v. Telegen, 94 F.
Supp. 3d 73, 79 (D. Mass. 2015). In this regard, a claim need not
directly assert that it is attempting to appeal or attack a state
court decision in order to fall within the scope of the Rooker-
Feldman doctrine. Id. at 80. Rather, Rooker–Feldman “forecloses
lower federal court jurisdiction where the issues in the case are
‘inextricably intertwined’ with controversies adjudicated by a
state court.” Vazquez v. Reo Properties Corp. (In re Vazquez),
467 B.R. 550, 553 (Bankr. D.P.R. 2012). Claims are “inextricably
intertwined . . . if the federal claim succeeds only to the extent
that the state court wrongly decided the issues before it.” Id.
at 553 (citing Sheehan v. Marr, 207 F.3d 35, 39–40 (1st Cir.
2000)).
The present case falls squarely within Rooker-Feldman’s
purview: the plaintiff lost in a final state court judgment where
the superior court dismissed her complaint with prejudice on claim
preclusion grounds and the MAC and SJC affirmed the dismissal, all
of which took place several months before the plaintiff commenced
this action. True, the plaintiff does not ostensibly ask the court
to overturn or nullify the adverse state court judgment, but
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Rooker-Feldman still applies with force where this court would
have to find that the superior court, MAC, and SJC wrongly disposed
of the case in order to permit the plaintiff to litigate her
claims. Similarly, while the federal complaint may assert some
claims different from those asserted in the prior state action,
Rooker-Feldman “is about substance, not form.” See Wilson v.
Shumway, 264 F.3d 120 (1st Cir. 2001) (finding Rooker-Feldman
applicable to plaintiff’s section 1983 and ADA claims). In that
vein, it is clear that regardless of the specific claims asserted,
the plaintiff seeks to litigate anew the events of November 24 and
25, 2019. Accordingly, the court finds that it lacks subject
matter jurisdiction to hear the plaintiff’s claims and will
therefore dismiss the complaint. See e.g., Tyler v. Supreme
Judicial Court of Massachusetts, 914 F.3d 47, 50-52 (1st Cir. 2019)
(affirming dismissal for lack of jurisdiction under Rooker-Feldman
doctrine); Mulligan v. Vail-Summit Orthopaedics, P.C., No. 24-
40038-DHH, 2024 WL 5046928, at *3 (D. Mass. Dec. 9, 2024) (same).
B. Res Judicata
Independently, the complaint’s claims are barred by the doctrine
of res judicata. Res judicata precludes a party that has fully
litigated a claim on the merits from relitigating that claim in
another court. See Degiacomo v. City of Quincy, 476 Mass. 38, 41,
63 N.E.3d 365 (2016) (Res judicata “dictate[s] that an opposing
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party in a particular action, as well as the court, is entitled to
be free from attempts to relitigate the same claim.).
Under Massachusetts law, res judicata includes both claim
preclusion and issue preclusion. Heacock v. Heacock, 402 Mass.
21, 23 n. 2, 520 N.E.2d 151 (1988). Claim preclusion, which the
court finds to be applicable here, “makes a valid, final judgment
conclusive on the parties and their privies, and prevents
relitigation of all matters that were or could have been
adjudicated in the action.” Kobrin v. Board of Registration in
Medicine, 444 Mass. 837, 843, 832 N.E.2d 628 (2005) (quoting
O'Neill v. City Manager of Cambridge, 428 Mass. 257, 259, 700
N.E.2d 530 (1998)). For claim preclusion to apply, the respective
parties must be identical or in privity with the parties in the
prior action, the causes of action must be the same or arise from
the same nucleus of operative facts, and there must have been a
final judgment on the merits in the prior action. Goldstein v.
Galvin, 719 F.3d 16, 23 (1st Cir. 2013).
All of these elements are present here: (1) the parties in
this case are identical to the parties in the prior state court
action; (2) the causes of action here, while somewhat different
from those asserted in state court, undisputedly arise out of the
same nucleus of operative facts, namely the events of November 24
and 25, 2019; and (3) there was a final judgment on the merits in
the prior action where the superior court dismissed the plaintiff’s
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claims with prejudice and the SJC ultimately affirmed. It follows
that the plaintiff’s claims are thus barred by the doctrine of res
judicata and may not go forward.
C. Untimeliness
Finally, even assuming the court enjoyed jurisdiction over the
plaintiff’s claims, and the claims moreover were not barred on
claim preclusion grounds, they would still fail because they were
not filed within the applicable limitations periods. A cause of
action accrues when a plaintiff knows or reasonably should have
known that they were injured as a result of the defendant’s
conduct. See, e.g., Genereux v. American Beryllia Corp., 577 F.3d
350, 359-60 (1st Cir. 2009). Here, the complaint alleges that on
November 26, 2019, the plaintiff’s “entire back, face and mouth
were swollen” to the extent she sought treatment at Boston Medical
Center, and she acknowledges that “[t]he November 24-25, 2019,
incidents triggered awareness of injuries by November 26, 2019.”
(D. 6, 21). This acknowledgment effectively dooms the plaintiff’s
claims here.
First, the plaintiff’s section 1983 and ADA claims are subject
to the statute of limitations period for personal injury actions
in the state where the claims are brought. Nieves v. McSweeney,
241 F.3d 46, 51 (1st Cir. 2001) (§ 1983); Downs v. Mass. Bay
Transp. Auth., 13 F.Supp.2d 130, 136 (D. Mass. 1998) (ADA). Under
Massachusetts law, “actions . . . to recover for personal injuries
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. . . shall be commenced only within three years next after the
cause of action accrues.” M.G.L. c. 260, § 2A. Applied here,
this means the claims would need to have been filed by November 26,
2022, to be timely. As the plaintiff did not commence this matter
until January 31, 2025, more than two years after the statute of
limitations ran, the claims are untimely and would be subject to
dismissal.
The plaintiff’s section 1981 claim3 enjoys a longer
limitations period but still suffers the same fate. Section 1981
discrimination claims are subject to a four-year statute of
limitations beginning when the cause of action accrues. Garmon v.
Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp., 844 F.3d 307, 318 n.8 (1st Cir. 2016);
28 U.S.C. § 1658(a). Because the plaintiff did not assert her
section 1981 claim within four years of the cause of action
accruing, which is to say by November 26, 2023, the claim would
also be time barred.
Finally, the plaintiff’s various tort claims are subject to
a three-year limitations period and thus would also face dismissal
as untimely filed. M.G.L. c. 260, § 2A.
To be sure, the plaintiff argues that her state court cases
tolled the limitations period for her federal claims, relying for
3 The section 1981 claim stems from the defendants’ alleged refusal to provide
the plaintiff with a Mandarin interpreter and discriminatory comments made
toward Mandarin interpreters from China while she was hospitalized at Tufts on
November 24 and 25, 2019. (D. 1).
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support on Rodriguez-Garcia v. Municipality of Caguas, 354 F.3d
91, 97 (1st Cir. 2004). However, as the defendants point out, the
holding in Rodriguez-Garcia was narrow and limited to the
interpretation of a rule in Puerto Rico that does not have an
analogue in Massachusetts. As the Rodriguez-Garcia court
expressly stated, “[t]he American common law rule is that generally
the filing of a prior judicial action does not toll the statute of
limitations. Puerto Rico has chosen a different rule, permitting
such tolling. That rule gives rise to this appeal.” Rodriguez-
Garcia, 354 F.3d at 93. The plaintiff’s reliance on Rodriguez-
Garcia is thus unavailing.
Further, the First Circuit has noted that equitable tolling
is “the exception rather than the rule; resort to its prophylaxis
is deemed justified only in extraordinary circumstances.” Delaney
v. Matesanz, 264 F.3d 7, 14 (1st Cir. 2001). “Even where
available, equitable tolling is normally appropriate only when
circumstances beyond a litigant’s control have prevented [her]
from filing on time.” Id. at 15. The plaintiff does contend in
that regard that the COVID-19 pandemic, and other factors like her
being bedridden and having trouble finding suitable doctors,
qualify as “extraordinary circumstances” justifying equitable
tolling, but the court does not agree. While not trivializing the
plaintiff’s particular set of challenges, this is not a case where
a plaintiff for reasons beyond her control failed to file claims
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timely. Indeed, the plaintiff did timely file these claims (or
variations of them), and twice at that. What is sought here is
simply a third bite at the apple. That is not warranted on this
record.
V. Conclusion
In light of the foregoing, the defendant’s motion to dismiss
the complaint (D. 6) is GRANTED; and the plaintiff’s motion for
leave to file a proposed amended complaint (D. 14) is DENIED as
futile where it would be subject to dismissal for the same reasons
as the original complaint. All other pending motions will be
denied as moot and this case will be dismissed in its entirety.
So Ordered.
/s/ Donald L. Cabell
DONALD L. CABELL, U.S.M.J.
DATED: March 27, 2026
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