On January 22, 2018, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in Artis v. District of Columbia, which concluded 28 U.S.C. § 1367, the statute governing the supplemental jurisdiction of federal courts, operated to toll indefinitely the statute of limitations applicable to a state law claim over which the federal district court exercised supplemental jurisdiction while the case was in federal court. This decision on its face is intended to give civil rights plaintiffs more flexibility in returning to state court after the federal claims over which original jurisdiction was exercised are dismissed. However, it also increases exposure to claims for public entity defendants in Colorado, who must now keep more rigorous track of the various accrual periods, statutes of limitation, and “stop the clock” effect of the pendency of federal court proceedings, possibly including the course of any federal appellate proceedings.
