Zavala ex rel. Ruiz v. United States

EUGENE A. WRIGHT, Circuit Judge:

We decide here whether to toll the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) two-year statute of limitation for a minor plaintiff whose father allegedly abandoned him during the limitation period.

I

Francisco Zavala, now nine years old, was born severely brain damaged at Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital. His father, Roberto, was a serviceman. His mother, Rosa, sought treatment at Pendleton beginning in mid-1979 for epileptic seizures. A civilian physician had told her to stop her seizure medication when she became pregnant. The Pendleton doctors knew she had stopped taking it,…