On Aug. 5, 2022, Timothy Scruggs boarded a New Jersey Transit (NJT) bus in Philadelphia. As he walked down the aisle, the bus began moving, causing Scruggs to lose his balance and fall against a broken seat, sustaining an injury. Two years later, on Aug. 5, 2024, Scruggs filed a lawsuit against NJT, a New Jersey public entity, in the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia. Scruggs did not file a lawsuit in New Jersey for another 7 weeks. Defendant NJT filed a motion to dismiss Plaintiff Scruggs’ New Jersey complaint for violating New Jersey’s Tort Claims Act’s (TCA) statute of limitations of 2 years. Plaintiff opposed. The issue in Scruggs v. N.J. Transit Corp., 2026 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1006 (App. Div. May 13, 2026), was whether equitable tolling applied to a lawsuit against a public entity under the TCA.
Equitable tolling is, as it name suggests, an equitable remedy where the “interests of justice, morality, and common fairness” will excuse the clear violation of a time-limitation period. While limitations periods are typically gray deadlines that are subject to equitable tolling, this is generally not the case against a public entity as it is to a private entity or when it would be in direct conflict with the relevant statute, such as the TCA.
The TCA’s guiding principle is that immunity from tort liability is the general rule, and liability the exception and supporting case law demands it be strictly construed. The TCA bars a claimant from recovering against a public entity if “two years have elapsed since the accrual of the claim.”
Nevertheless, the trial court denied NJT’s motion to dismiss, finding that suit filed in Philadelphia tolled the 2 year TCA statute of limitations in New Jersey. NJT asked the trial court to reconsider its opinion, stating it had misapplied the equitable remedy. The trial court reconsidered its opinion and reversed itself, agreeing that the TCA must be strictly construed. Scruggs appealed.
The Appellate Division agreed with the trial court on its reversal, confirming that there was no place for equitable tolling in the TCA’s statute of limitations. The appellate court pointed to the plain reading of the TCA’s limitation language and how it “expressly precludes” a claimant from asserting a cause of cation more than 2 years after the date of injury. The court expressly indicated that equitable tolling was not available to actions against public entities, such as NJT, under the TCA because the legislature made it clear that courts must strictly construe the TCA.
