No repose from the FDIC

The Texas Securities Act has a five-year statute of repose.  The issue in FDIC v. RBS Securities was whether that statute was preempted by a 3-year “extender” provision in FIRREA, which “works by hooking any claims that are alive at the time of the FDIC’s appointment as receiver and pulling them forward to a new, federal, minimum limitations period — six years for contract claims, three years for tort claims.”  No. 14-51055 (Aug. 10, 2015).

The Fifth Circuit concluded that the Texas statute of repose was preempted, and reversed a judgment on the pleadings in a securities fraud suit arising out of the failure of Guaranty Bank, holding: “The text, structure, and purpose of the FDIC Extender Statute all evince a Congressional intent to grant the FDIC a three-year grace period after its appointment as receiver to investigate potential claims. Therefore, the statute displaces any limitations period that would interfere with that reprieve — whether characterized as a statute of limitations or as a statute of repose.”   The Court distinguished the analysis of a CERCLA limitations provision in CTS Corp. v. Waldburger, 134 S. Ct. 2175 (2014), finding that “many of the considerations that the [Supreme] Court found disfavored preemption in CTS suggest preemption when applied to the FDIC Extender Statute.”