Whether the separate accrual rule should apply to commissions earned by insurance agents and collected monthly by the insurance company, compelling accrual of a new statute of limitations with each newly-computed monthly installment

QUESTION PRESENTED The case involves application of the “separate accrual rule” to commissions earned by the Petitioners and collected each month by the Respondent from various insurance companies around the country, for the benefit of the Petitioners. Petitioners are insurance agents who have offered primarily Medicare-mandated insurance products to customers in the States of Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina. Respondent is a North Carolina corporation. The question is whether, in a statute” context, the “separate accrual rule” should apply, compelling accrual of a new statute of limitations commencement date with each newly-computed, monthly installment received by the Respondent. The United States District Court in Nashville and the Sixth Circuit have ruled that the agents’ alleged contractual agreement requires application of North Carolina law (which does not adopt the separate accrual rule), to all of the agents’ claims (with a three-year statute of limitations defeating the claim) since the agents became aware of what they describe as “minor discrepancies” several years before the suit was filed. Since the agents’ claims involve not only breach of contract, but violation of various Tennessee insurance statutes, and Medicare regulations that compel regular accountings, Petitioners believe the present rulings are erroneous. Without confining the interpretive context to the specific statutes involved, the United States Supreme Court has previously determined that each newlycomputed monthly installment commences the running of a new period of limitations for that discrete installment through application of the “separate accrual rule.” Petitioners respectfully insist that the ii rulings of the trial court and the Sixth Circuit are in conflict with the following concise description of the separate accrual rule, and that its application should not be limited to the context of the copyright statute and the ERISA statutes which were involved in the cases of Petrella v. Inc., 134 S. Ct. 1962 (2014) and the earlier Bay Area Laundry and Dry Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corporation of California, Inc., 118 S. Ct. 542 (1997). Petitioners have repeatedly emphasized throughout the litigation that most of their insurance products (such a Humana) are governed by Medicare regulations, which compel regular accountings and payments to the agents. The parties’ North Carolina contract should not defeat that mandatory application of the federal Medicare regulations. The reasoning adopted in the attached opinion (