Fareportal, Inc. v. Kumar

── Fareportal, Inc. v. Kumar ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Date: April 29, 2026 Category: General NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS APR 29 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT FAREPORTAL, INC., No. 24-4523 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellant, 4:21-cv-02841-YGR v. MEMORANDUM* NISHITH KUMAR, AKA Nishith Varma, Defendant - Appellee, and HNA GROUP (INTERNATIONAL) CO., LTD., HNA CAPITAL, LTD., JASON CHEN, LEI SHI, Defendants. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, District Judge, Presiding Submitted April 20, 2026** San Francisco, California Before: S.R. THOMAS, CHRISTEN, and FORREST, Circuit Judges. * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).  After filing other related complaints, Plaintiff-Appellant Fareportal, Inc. brought six claims against its former employee pro se Defendant-Appellee Nishith Kumar, alleging that it received new evidence of Kumar’s wrongdoing. The district court granted judgment on the pleadings for Kumar on five of the six claims, reasoning that those claims were untimely—mostly because Fareportal already knew of Kumar’s asserted misdeeds.1 The district court also denied Fareportal leave to amend. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings. 1. Judgment on the Pleadings. We review the grant of judgment on the pleadings under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c) de novo. Webb v. Trader Joe’s Co., 999 F.3d 1196, 1201 (9th Cir. 2021). “A judgment on the pleadings is properly granted when, taking all the allegations in the pleadings as true, a party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Lyon v. Chase Bank USA, N.A., 656 F.3d 877, 883 (9th Cir. 2011) (citation omitted). The complaint must contain “sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim of relief that is plausible on its face.” Harris v. County of Orange, 682 F.3d 1126, 1131 (9th Cir. 2012) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). We need not “accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.” Id. (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678). 1 The sixth claim, for violation of the New Jersey Computer Related Offenses Act, was found timely and severed. The district court has since transferred that claim to the District of New Jersey. 2 24-4523  The district court correctly granted judgment on the pleadings to Kumar on Fareportal’s Civil RICO, Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), and California trade- secret claims. These claims were not timely as filed. Fareportal’s RICO claim began to run in 2016, when its previous complaint demonstrated that Fareportal knew of the injury that forms the basis of its RICO claim. Similarly, Fareportal has not adequately alleged new facts supporting either its DTSA or California trade-secrets claim since 2016. Additionally, neither the discovery rule nor equitable tolling applies to save these claims. As to the RICO claim, the discovery rule does not apply because Fareportal knew about its trade-secrets injury in 2016. See Pincay v. Andrews, 238 F.3d 1106, 1109 (9th Cir. 2001). And whil