So, if you think you might soon be a party to a lawsuit, you should consider buying some time with a toll deal. You get some of the benefits of a process strategy without any cost. On the other hand, in a dispute, this “discovery phase” can be costly, frustrating and time-consuming. Thus, a toll agreement may offer a potential plaintiff the opportunity to both save money and obtain more information from the defendant than they would otherwise be willing to offer. You are undoubtedly starting to see how it happened. The parties continued to extend the toll agreement until the grievor finally filed a complaint on April 13, 2018 in the Northern District of California. Was the complaint time-barred? The answer was clearly yes, because when the applicant became a party to the toll agreement, her complaint was already inoperative. Under the toll agreement, the applicant`s lawyer should be firmly involved in all limitation matters. Information gathered informally in the course of negotiations should not be subject to costly requests for investigation. Id. to *2 (added highlighting). In the end, the text put forward becomes important because the applicants` lawyer concluded the toll contract on 9 August 2013, but did not transmit the applicant`s name until 3 February 2014, more than two years according to the applicant`s procedure (and therefore started the toll).

Id. at *2. Since this is a private agreement between the parties, unless the agreement is ambiguous, a court will not look beyond the agreement document to determine which claims the parties intend to preserve. Broad language in the toll agreement could preserve unrelated or even unknown rights. Too narrow a language may limit the remedies available for litigation. Consultation with a lawyer is necessary to properly define the scope of the dispute to be settled. . . .