Opinion
1 CA-CV 22-0486
03-28-2023
JESSICA PLOOF, Plaintiff/Appellant, v. STATE OF ARIZONA, et al., Defendants/Appellees.
Mills + Woods Law PLLC, Phoenix By Thomas A. Connelly, Robert T. Mills, Sean A. Woods Co-Counsel for Plaintiff/Appellant Gillespie, Shields, Goldfarb &Taylor, Phoenix By DeeAn Gillespie Strub, Sandra T. Daussin Co-Counsel for Plaintiff/Appellant Arizona Attorney General's Office, Phoenix By Julie M. Rhodes, Daniel P. Schaack Counsel for Defendants/Appellees State of Arizona, et al.
Not for Publication - Rule 111(c), Rules of the Arizona Supreme Court
Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County No. CV2020-017046 The Honorable Joan M. Sinclair, Judge
Mills + Woods Law PLLC, Phoenix
By Thomas A. Connelly, Robert T. Mills, Sean A. Woods
Co-Counsel for Plaintiff/Appellant
Gillespie, Shields, Goldfarb &Taylor, Phoenix
By DeeAn Gillespie Strub, Sandra T. Daussin
Co-Counsel for Plaintiff/Appellant
Arizona Attorney General's Office, Phoenix
By Julie M. Rhodes, Daniel P. Schaack
Counsel for Defendants/Appellees State of Arizona, et al.
Judge Daniel J. Kiley delivered the decision of the Court, in which Presiding Judge Maria Elena Cruz and Judge James B. Morse Jr. joined.
MEMORANDUM DECISION
KILEY, JUDGE.
¶1 Jessica Ploof challenges the superior court's dismissal, on statute of limitations grounds, of her negligence claims against the State of Arizona, the Department of Child Safety and its current and former directors (collectively, "DCS"), and DCS employees Meagan Tafoya, Paige Szymkowski, Sarah Greenway, Claudia Hoff, and Nick Breeding (all defendants collectively, the "State Defendants"). For the reasons stated below, we reverse the dismissal and remand for further proceedings.
FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
¶2 The complaint sets forth the following allegations which, for the purpose of this appeal, we assume to be true. See Chalpin v. Snyder, 220 Ariz. 413, 418, ¶ 18 (App. 2008).
¶3 Jessica is the mother of H.P., a minor child born in 2014. Since childhood, Jessica has struggled with an intellectual disability. She has an IQ of 65 and has been diagnosed as mentally disabled.
Because Jessica Ploof and her mother share the same last name, we will refer to them, with respect, by their first names for clarity and convenience.
¶4 Before DCS's involvement, Jessica and H.P. lived with Jessica's mother, Brendi Ploof, who assisted Jessica in caring for her child. Among other things, Brendi, a certified nursing assistant, assisted Jessica with H.P.'s medical care, attending all of H.P.'s medical appointments with Jessica and helping her make medical decisions for him. After H.P. was diagnosed with a developmental disability at five months old, Brendi helped Jessica arrange for him to receive developmental disability services, including physical therapy and speech therapy, and, later, to be enrolled in a Head Start preschool.
¶5 None of H.P.'s therapists, medical professionals, or Head Start teachers ever notified DCS of any concerns regarding H.P.'s health or well-being.
¶6 Jessica also had a close relationship with her maternal aunt, Sherri Walford. Walford, a frequent guest in the home that Brendi, Jessica, and H.P. shared, never saw cause for concern that Jessica neglected or mistreated H.P. Walford even allowed Jessica to babysit her own grandchildren.
¶7 A former boyfriend of Jessica's, angered by her decision to end their relationship in December 2016, threatened to level false allegations against Jessica out of spite. Soon thereafter, on December 20 and 21, DCS received two anonymous calls alleging that Jessica was neglecting H.P.
¶8 On December 21, Tafoya and another DCS employee went to the home to investigate the anonymous allegations. Jessica denied the allegations. Tafoya realized, while speaking with Jessica, that she has an intellectual disability. Tafoya nonetheless found no reason to remove H.P. from his mother's care; she later reported that H.P. was "dressed appropriately" and "free from any visible injuries" and that the "home was free from any safety hazards." Tafoya did, however, ask Jessica to submit to substance abuse testing. Jessica complied, and the test results came back positive for alcohol, marijuana, and methamphetamine.
¶9 Upon learning of the positive test results, Tafoya scheduled a Team Decision Meeting ("TDM") on January 11, 2017 to discuss a safety plan for H.P. In the interim, H.P. continued to remain in Jessica's care.
¶10 At the TDM on January 11, Tafoya asked Jessica to participate in substance abuse treatment and parenting classes. Jessica agreed. Tafoya also asked Brendi to undergo a drug screening test the following day, January 12. Brendi agreed.
¶11 The following day, however, Brendi was unexpectedly called into work. She called Tafoya to explain that she would be unable to undergo a drug test that day but promised to do so as soon as she could.
¶12 That same day, and based on no new information other than the maternal grandmother's failure to complete a drug test, Tafoya removed H.P. from the home on the grounds that he was "in imminent danger." Tafoya's supervisor, Greenway, approved the removal of H.P. from the home, but no DCS representative sought or obtained a warrant or other court order authorizing the removal. Moreover, no DCS representative sought or obtained any of H.P.'s medical, therapy, or Head Start records to determine whether H.P. was being neglected or mistreated in any way.
¶13 At the post-removal hearing, Szymkowski provided false testimony to justify removing H.P. from Jessica's custody. Among other things, Szymkowski falsely claimed that Jessica had refused to participate in services offered by DCS when, in fact, Jessica had agreed to do so.
¶14 The juvenile court found H.P. dependent as to Jessica. See Jessica P. v. Dep't of Child Safety, 249 Ariz. 461, 466, ¶ 12 (App. 2020).
¶15 The services DCS offered Jessica during the ensuing dependency proceedings failed to reasonably accommodate her disability as required by law. Jessica did not understand why DCS had taken H.P. from her or what DCS wanted from her. Nonetheless, she complied with all of DCS's directives, including by participating in substance abuse treatment, undergoing drug testing with negative results, and submitting to psychological evaluations.
¶16 Moreover, despite its statutory obligation to prioritize kinship placement, DCS denied Walford's request that her great-nephew be placed in her care during the dependency proceedings, instead placing H.P. with an unrelated foster family. When H.P. exhibited distress and disruptive behaviors upon being placed with strangers, DCS responded by denying Jessica visitation with her son due to a professed concern that allowing him time with his mother would cause him to "act out more."
¶17 DCS commissioned Dr. James Thal to conduct a psychological evaluation of Jessica in July 2017. After completing his evaluation, Thal issued a report recommending that Brendi be appointed as H.P.'s guardian to, in effect, "co-parent" with Jessica. Later that year, Szymkowski commissioned Thal to conduct a psychological evaluation of Brendi, after which he again recommended that Brendi be appointed as guardian for H.P. and that she co-parent H.P. with Jessica.
¶18 When Szymkowski read Thal's report, she called him to express her "concerns" about the purportedly "substandard condition" of Brendi's home and H.P.'s purported "poor overall condition when he came into care." Szymkowski had no first-hand knowledge to support these alleged "concerns," which were contrary to the findings of the DCS representatives who had personally visited the home back in December. Despite Szymkowski's lack of first-hand knowledge, Thal promised to "review" his findings in light of the concerns she expressed. Asking DCS to "shred [his] original report," Thal later issued a revised report in which, for the first time, he professed to have "alarming" concerns about H.P.'s wellbeing in Brendi's care. In his revised report, Thal recommended termination, not reunification.
¶19 Dr. S. Bryce Bennett conducted a bonding/best interest assessment and concluded, in a report issued on June 18, 2018, that H.P. appeared "relaxed" and "comfortable" with his mother and maternal grandmother. Acknowledging that Jessica has an intellectual disability, Dr. Bennett noted that Jessica and Brendi "worked as a team" in caring for H.P. and determined that Brendi "likely has the ability to parent H.P."
PROCEDURAL HISTORY
¶20 In August 2018, DCS filed a motion in the dependency case to terminate Jessica's parental rights on grounds of mental deficiency, see A.R.S. § 8-533(B)(3), and the child's out-of-home placement for 15 months or longer, see A.R.S. § 8-533(B)(8)(c). After a trial, the juvenile court found that DCS proved both grounds for termination by clear and convincing evidence and that termination of Jessica's parental rights was in H.P.'s best interests. The court entered a termination order on August 2, 2019. Jessica appealed the termination order, and we affirmed. Jessica P., 249 Ariz. at 464, ¶ 1. The Arizona Supreme Court vacated and remanded our decision. Jessica P. v. Dep't of Child Safety, CV-20-0241-PR, 2020 WL 8766053, at *1 (Ariz. Dec. 15, 2020) (minute order). On March 18, 2021, we issued a decision affirming the termination order, with the mandate following on April 27, 2021. Jessica P. v. Dep't of Child Safety, 251 Ariz. 34, 36, ¶ 2 (App. 2021).
¶21 On December 23, 2020, while the appeal of the termination order was pending, Jessica filed her complaint in this case, alleging that the State Defendants and Thal violated her civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and were grossly negligent in initiating and maintaining the dependency case. The State Defendants removed the matter to federal district court and then moved to dismiss Jessica's complaint. The district court dismissed Jessica's claims arising under federal law and remanded her state-law negligence claims to the superior court. Jessica appealed the district court's dismissal order to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals; her appeal is currently pending.
¶22 The State Defendants then moved to dismiss Jessica's negligence claims under Arizona Rule of Civil Procedure ("Rule") 12(b)(6), asserting that they were barred by Arizona's one-year statute of limitations for claims against public entities or public employees. See A.R.S. § 12-821. The State Defendants asserted that "the latest date on which [Jessica's] state law claims could have accrued is[] June 18, 2018," the most recent date referenced in the complaint. Because Jessica "did not file her Complaint until . . . more than two years later," they argued, her claims are barred by A.R.S. § 12-821.
¶23 Jessica opposed the State Defendants' motion to dismiss, asserting that her claims could not possibly have accrued on June 18, 2018 because the complaint does not allege that "any wrongful acts . . . occurred on that date." Instead, she asserted, the complaint simply identifies June 18, 2018 as the date on which Dr. Bennett completed his bonding/best interest assessment. In any event, Jessica argued that her claims are not time-barred because, inter alia, the statute of limitations was tolled under A.R.S. § 12-502 due to her mental condition.
¶24 The superior court granted the motion to dismiss, finding Jessica's claims were time-barred and their accrual had not been tolled. Assuming, without deciding, that June 18, 2018 is "the accrual date" for Jessica's claims because it is the most recent date expressly identified in the complaint, the court held that the complaint's filing date of December 23, 2020 was "past the one-year statute of limitations." The court acknowledged that A.R.S. § 12-502 "tolls the statute of limitations for the period while a person is 'of unsound mind'" but held that Jessica had "not met her burden of proof" to establish the statute's applicability. Citing Doe v. Roe, 191 Ariz. 313, 323, ¶ 33 (1998) for the proposition that "[u]pon a moving party's prima facie showing that no genuine issue of material fact exists, the [non-moving] party bears the burden of producing sufficient evidence that an issue of fact does exist," the court found that Jessica had not presented "sufficient evidence" that she was of unsound mind to establish an issue of fact.
¶25 The court subsequently entered judgment pursuant to Rule 54(b) in favor of the State Defendants, and Jessica timely appealed. We have jurisdiction under A.R.S. § 12-120.21(A)(1).
DISCUSSION
¶26 Jessica appeals the trial court's dismissal of her complaint, asserting that dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) was improper because her complaint does not establish that her claims are time-barred, and, in any event, the complaint "allege[s] more than sufficient facts to place the 'unsound mind' tolling rule at issue."
¶27 We review de novo the superior court's dismissal of a complaint under Rule 12(b)(6). Coleman v. City of Mesa, 230 Ariz. 352, 355, ¶ 7 (2012). "In reviewing the complaint, we assume the truth of all facts alleged and construe them in the light most favorable to" the non-moving party. Albers v. Edelson Tech. Partners L.P., 201 Ariz. 47, 50, ¶ 7 (App. 2001). We will affirm the dismissal of the complaint "only if the plaintiff would not be entitled to relief under any set of facts pleaded in the complaint that are susceptible of proof." Id.
¶28 A defendant may properly raise a limitations defense in a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) if the complaint, on its face, conclusively shows that the claim is time-barred. Republic Nat'l Bank of N.Y. v. Pima County, 200 Ariz. 199, 204, ¶ 20 (App. 2001) (citing Ross v. Ross, 96 Ariz. 249, 252 (1964)). We will affirm the dismissal of a complaint on limitations grounds only if a review of the complaint makes clear that the claim is untimely. See id. at 205, ¶ 22 (reversing dismissal of complaint because court could not determine, "[b]ased on the allegations of the complaint," when cause of action accrued); Vega v. Morris, 183 Ariz. 526, 531 (App. 1995) (reversing dismissal of complaint on limitations grounds because "there is nothing on the face of the complaint that indicates" when cause of action accrued).
¶29 The State Defendants presented no matters outside the pleadings in support of their motion to dismiss, nor did Jessica do so in her response. See Ariz. R. Civ. P. 12(d) ("[A] motion under Rule 12(b)(6) . . . must be treated as one for summary judgment" if "matters outside the pleadings are presented to, and not excluded by, the court[.]"). Further, the superior court never put the parties on notice of its intent to treat the motion to dismiss as one for summary judgment. See Gatecliff v. Great Republic Life Ins. Co., 154 Ariz. 502, 508 (App. 1987) (explaining that courts cannot consider matters outside the pleadings in resolving motion to dismiss without giving parties "some indication . . . that it is treating the Rule 12(b)(6) motion as one for summary judgment"). Accordingly, in resolving the State Defendants' motion to dismiss, the superior court was required to limit its consideration to the allegations in the complaint. Young v. Rose, 230 Ariz. 433, 438, ¶ 25 (App. 2012) ("In deciding [a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6)], courts look only to the pleading itself[.]") (cleaned up).
The State Defendants attached to their motion to dismiss a copy of the district court's order dismissing Jessica's federal-law claims. The district court's dismissal order did not, however, constitute a matter "outside the pleadings" for purposes of Rule 12(d), and the State Defendants' attachment of the order did not require the superior court to convert the motion to one for summary judgment. See Coleman, 230 Ariz. at 356, ¶ 9 ("A complaint's exhibits, or public records regarding matters referenced in a complaint, are not 'outside the pleading,' and courts may consider such documents without converting a Rule 12(b)(6) motion into a summary judgment motion.") (citation omitted).
¶30 In granting the State Defendants' motion to dismiss, however, the superior court relied on Doe v. Roe, a summary judgment case. Its reliance on Doe was misplaced. Doe's holding that a party opposing summary judgment must come forward with evidence establishing a genuine issue of fact, Doe, 191 Ariz. at 323, ¶ 33, does not apply to a plaintiff responding to a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). Because the State Defendants did not support their Rule 12(b)(6) motion with matters outside the pleadings, Jessica was not required to come forward with affidavits or other evidence to defeat the motion. Instead, she was required to show only that, viewed in the light most favorable to her as the non-moving party, the allegations of her complaint could, if true, establish the timeliness of her claims. See Luchanski v. Congrove, 193 Ariz. 176, 179, ¶ 17 (App. 1998) ("When a complaint is the target of a [R]ule 12(b)(6) motion, the court must assume the truth of all of the complaint's material allegations, accord the plaintiffs the benefit of all inferences which the complaint can reasonably support, and deny the motion unless certain that plaintiffs can prove no set of facts which will entitle them to relief upon their stated claims.") (emphasis added) (citation omitted).
¶31 In holding that Jessica failed to present "sufficient evidence" to establish grounds for equitable tolling, the superior court cited McCloud v. State, 217 Ariz. 82 (App. 2007) for the proposition that "[t]he party opposing a motion to dismiss based on a statute of limitations defense bears the burden of proving the statute has been tolled." 217 Ariz. at 85, ¶ 8 (citation omitted). To the extent the superior court interpreted McCloud to require the non-moving party to respond to a Rule 12(b)(6) motion on limitations grounds with evidence proving the timeliness of her claims, we disagree.
¶32 In McCloud, the superior court dismissed, as time-barred, a personal injury claim that the plaintiff filed against the State more than a year after the underlying motor vehicle accident. Id. at 84, ¶¶ 1, 3. On appeal, we affirmed the superior court's determination that the affidavit that the plaintiff submitted in response to the State's Rule 12(b)(6) motion was insufficient to excuse the untimely filing of her complaint. Id. at 89, ¶ 20.
In response to the State's Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the plaintiff in McCloud submitted the affidavit of her attorney stating that medical difficulties and other personal issues prevented him from timely filing the complaint. Id. at 85, 89, ¶¶ 4, 18. Noting that the attorney's affidavit "does not suggest he was so disabled . . . that he could not have taken steps to ensure his client was protected," we concluded that the superior court "did not abuse its discretion by declining to apply the doctrine of equitable tolling." Id. at 89, ¶¶ 18, 20.
¶33 Although we found the affidavit the plaintiff submitted in that case insufficient to justify applying equitable tolling principles to save her untimely complaint from dismissal, nothing in McCloud holds that a plaintiff responding to a Rule 12(b)(6) motion is always required to come forward with an affidavit or other evidence outside the pleadings to establish the timeliness of her claim. Indeed, such a holding would be irreconcilable with our Supreme Court's instruction that "Arizona courts look only to the pleading itself" when "adjudicating a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss." Cullen v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co., 218 Ariz. 417, 419, ¶ 7 (2008). Although a plaintiff may respond to a Rule 12(b)(6) motion with affidavits or other evidence outside the pleadings (as the plaintiff in McCloud did), the plaintiff may choose instead to rest on the allegations in the complaint. If the latter, dismissal "is appropriate only if" a review of the complaint establishes "as a matter of law" that the plaintiff "would not be entitled to relief under any interpretation of the facts susceptible of proof." Swenson v. County of Pinal, 243 Ariz. 122, 125, ¶ 5 (App. 2017) (cleaned up). In determining whether the complaint survives dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), in other words, the court considers only whether the allegations of the complaint could, if true, warrant application of equitable tolling to delay the accrual of her claim. See Verduzco v. Am. Valet, 240 Ariz. 221, 225, ¶ 9 (App. 2016) ("The test is whether enough is stated [in the complaint] to entitle the pleader to relief on some theory of law susceptible of proof under the allegations made.") (emphasis added) (citation omitted).
¶34 Although Jessica's failure to present evidence to establish the timeliness of her complaint did not, by itself, warrant granting the Rule 12(b)(6) motion, we may affirm the dismissal of a complaint on any ground supported by the record. R.O.I. Props. LLC v. Ford, 246 Ariz. 231, 235, ¶ 13 (App. 2019). We turn, then, to whether the complaint conclusively establishes, on its face, that Jessica's claims are time-barred such that they could properly be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6).
¶35 The State Defendants do not contend on appeal, as they did before the superior court, that the complaint's reference to June 18, 2018 establishes that date as the accrual date for Jessica's claims. Instead, they suggest several alternative accrual dates, with the most recent being the date on which the juvenile court issued its termination order. Jessica disputes all of the alternative accrual dates that the State Defendants now propose, insisting that none of her claims could have accrued until the termination order was affirmed on appeal, which did not occur until after she filed her complaint in this case.
The complaint identifies June 18, 2018 as the date on which Dr. Bennett issued his bonding/best interest assessment. Because the complaint alleges nothing about Dr. Bennett's report that was unfavorable to Jessica, the date he issued his report did not trigger the accrual of any of Jessica's claims. See Com. Union Ins. Co. v. Lewis & Roca, 183 Ariz. 250, 254 (App. 1995) (recognizing cause of action does not accrue until plaintiff sustains appreciable, non-speculative harm).
¶36 We need not determine the accrual date of Jessica's claims, however, because the complaint, on its face, alleges sufficient facts to establish the potential applicability of the tolling provisions of A.R.S. § 12502.
¶37 A.R.S. § 12-502 provides in part that,
[i]f a person entitled to bring an action . . . is at the time the cause of action accrues . . . of unsound mind, the period of such disability shall not be deemed a portion of the period limited for commencement of the action.
¶38 A person is considered to be of unsound mind if the person is "unable to manage her affairs or to understand her legal rights or liabilities." Kopacz v. Banner Health, 245 Ariz. 97, 101, ¶ 15 (App. 2018) (cleaned up).
¶39 In determining whether A.R.S. § 12-502 applies to defeat a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the court considers only whether the allegations of the complaint, if true, establish the potential applicability of equitable tolling. See Cervantes v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., 656 F.3d 1034, 1045 (9th Cir. 2011) ("A [trial] court may dismiss a claim if the running of the [limitations] statute is apparent on the face of the complaint," but "only if the assertions of the complaint, read with the required liberality, would not permit the plaintiff to prove that the statute was tolled.") (cleaned up). As long as the complaint alleges facts which, if later proven, may justify tolling of the accrual of the plaintiff's cause of action, the complaint is sufficient to survive dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6). See Bride v. Basin W. Inc., CV-22-08075-PCT-DJH, 2022 WL 17486812, slip op. at *2 (D. Ariz. Dec. 7, 2022) (denying motion to dismiss personal injury claim as time-barred and holding that, "for purposes of overcoming a 12(b)(6) challenge," complaint's allegations that (1) plaintiff suffered traumatic brain injury as a result of defendant's negligence, (2) plaintiff continues to suffer mental limitations and memory issues, and (3) plaintiff's mother is "assist[ing] in the necessary decisions in this lawsuit" were sufficient to establish "that principles of equitable tolling may render [plaintiff's] claims timely under Arizona law"); see also Turnage v. Britton, 29 F.4th 232, 244 (5th Cir. 2022) ("Failure to file within the statute of limitations justifies dismissal . . . when it is evident from the plaintiff's pleadings that the action is barred" unless complaint "raise[s] some basis for tolling or the like.") (cleaned up).
¶40 Jessica's complaint alleges that (1) she "has an IQ of 65 and has been diagnosed as mentally disabled"; (2) her "intellectual disability" makes it "difficult for her to understand and make sense of things"; (3) her mother has provided extensive assistance to her in caring for H.P., including accompanying her to all of H.P.'s medical appointments and helping her make medical decisions for him; (4) after H.P. was removed from her care, she "did not understand why DCS was involved" in her life or "what DCS'[s] allegations against her were"; and (5) Thal testified that she was "fundamentally confused about why her child was taken from her." Taken as true and in the requisite light most favorable to Jessica as the non-moving party, these allegations are sufficient to establish the potential applicability of A.R.S. § 12-502. The complaint is therefore sufficient to survive a timeliness challenge under Rule 12(b)(6). See Gordon Grado M.D., Inc. v. Phx. Cancer &Blood Disorder Treatment Inst. PLLC, 603 F.Supp.3d 799, 817 (D. Ariz. 2022) (stating that a complaint cannot be dismissed on statute of limitations grounds "unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts that would establish the timeliness of the claim").
¶41 The State Defendants argue that other allegations in the complaint refute any claim that Jessica was of unsound mind within the meaning of A.R.S. § 12-502. Pointing out that the complaint alleges that Jessica provided appropriate care for H.P. and participated as a party in the dependency proceedings, the State Defendants contend that the allegations of the complaint, taken as true, show that she was able to both manage her daily affairs and understand her legal obligations, and so she could not have been of unsound mind under A.R.S. § 12-502. See Tavilla v. Cephalon, Inc., 870 F.Supp.2d 759, 772 (D. Ariz. 2012) ("The definition [of unsound mind under A.R.S. § 12-502] is in the disjunctive," and a person is of unsound mind if he is "unable to manage his daily affairs or to understand his legal rights or liabilities.") (citation omitted).
¶42 Admittedly, some of the allegations in the complaint, if true, would tend to rebut Jessica's claim to be of unsound mind. But a court resolving a Rule 12(b)(6) motion must resolve conflicting inferences from the complaint's allegations in favor of the non-moving party. Baker v. Dolphin Beach Rental &Mgmt., LLC, 224 Ariz. 523, 524 n.1 (App. 2010) ("In reviewing motions to dismiss pursuant to [Rule 12(b)(6)], we accept well-pled factual allegations in the complaint as true and resolve any conflicting inferences in favor of the non-moving party."). Because Jessica's complaint includes allegations which, if true, could establish that she was of unsound mind such that A.R.S. § 12-502 applies to toll the accrual of her causes of action, it cannot be said that her claims are untimely "under any interpretation of the facts susceptible of proof." Chalpin, 220 Ariz. at 418, ¶ 18 (citation omitted). Taken as true and in the light most favorable to Jessica as the non-moving party, the allegations in the complaint are sufficient to survive dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6). Bride, CV-22-08075-PCT-DJH, slip op. at *2; see also Rice v. Santander Bank, N.A., 196 F.Supp.3d 146, 153-54 (D. Mass. 2016) (in suit challenging mortgage foreclosure, denying motion to dismiss on limitations grounds because "the facts pleaded in the complaint [about mortgagor's mental incapacity] are sufficient to warrant tolling of the limitations period," and "a complaint should ordinarily survive a motion to dismiss based on a statute-of-limitations defense unless the pleader's allegations leave no doubt that an asserted claim is time-barred") (cleaned up).
CONCLUSION
¶43 We reverse the superior court's judgment granting the State Defendants' motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) and remand for further proceedings consistent with this decision. Jessica may recover her taxable costs incurred in this appeal upon compliance with Arizona Rule of Civil Appellate Procedure 21.