Kaitlyn Waller v. HHS - seizure disorder and its alleged sequelae (2005)

Kaitlyn Waller was a minor whose petition was filed on her behalf by her mother, Heather Waller. The special master issued a decision on August 23, 2005, determining that petitioner had not proven by a preponderance of the evidence that any vaccination had caused Kaitlyn Waller's seizure disorder and its alleged sequelae.

The case before Judge Hewitt concerned only the timeliness of the subsequent motion for review; the merits of the special master's decision were not reached. Petitioner's counsel filed the motion for review on September 23, 2005 — one day after the statutory deadline.

The 30-day limitations period under 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-12(e)(1) ran from August 23, 2005 (the date the decision was issued), making the deadline September 22, 2005. Petitioner's counsel argued that he had been confused by the court's electronic docketing system: the decision appeared twice on the PACER docket — once under the heading "Date Filed" as August 23, 2005, and again under "Docket Text" as "(Entered: 08/25/2005)." Counsel stated that he had believed the decision was "filed" on August 25 and therefore thought his September 23 filing was early.

Counsel also argued that this discrepancy constituted an "inaccuracy in the Court's docket" and sought relief under RCFC 60(b). Respondent moved to dismiss the motion for review as untimely.

The government noted that petitioner's counsel had extensive experience before the Court of Federal Claims and that the "Date Filed" column — the authoritative column — plainly showed August 23, 2005, as did the caption on the face of the special master's decision. Judge Hewitt, writing for the Court of Federal Claims on December 8, 2005, dismissed the motion for review as untimely.

The court held that the 30-day limitation period in § 12(e)(1) is jurisdictional, runs from the date the special master's decision is issued and filed with the clerk, and cannot be extended. There was no "inaccuracy in the Court's docket": the docket displayed both the filing date and the entry date, as it does in the ordinary course, and no reasonable reading of the docket could treat the entry date as the filing date.

The court also rejected petitioner's request for relief under RCFC 60(b). Unlike Bernhardt v.

Secretary of HHS, No. 00-592V, where a court-sanctioned change in legal process had caused unforeseen harm to a petitioner who had filed a timely motion, no change in legal process occurred in Waller's case — counsel's confusion was of his own making and was avoidable by simply reading the face of the decision. Moreover, it is well-settled that RCFC 60(b) cannot extend a statutory period of limitation (Widdoss v.

Secretary of HHS, 989 F.2d 1170 (Fed. Cir. 1993); Mahaffey v.

Secretary of HHS, 368 F.3d 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2004); Decker v.

Secretary of HHS, 51 Fed. Cl. 288 (2001)), and the Patton II exception permitting RCFC 60(b) for non-merits relief did not apply because petitioner was seeking review of the merits of the special master's decision.