Rush, C.J.
Nine days before the applicable statute of limitations expired, Benjamin Smith’s attorney filed a lawsuit against Franklin Township Community School Corporation. The school moved to dismiss Smith’s complaint, arguing that he failed to provide the pre-suit notice required by a recently enacted law. Smith didn’t respond to that motion. And when the court dismissed the complaint, Smith didn’t appeal that decision. Rather, months later, Smith challenged the legal basis underlying the dismissal in the last of a series of Trial Rule 41(F) filings that requested reinstatement of the case.
We find that Smith cannot use a Rule 41(F) filing to collaterally attack the merits of the dismissal order. He failed to preserve a substantive challenge to that decision, and thus the court acted within its discretion when it denied Smith’s motion for reinstatement. We affirm.
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Smith maintains that he met Rule 41(F)’s requirements. He argues that he is entitled to reinstatement of the case because the trial court improperly dismissed his complaint due to a misinterpretation of the law. The School responds that Smith’s arguments are not properly before us because he failed “to make them in a timely and procedurally appropriate manner.” We agree with the School.
Reinstatement is extraordinary relief. Natare Corp. v. Cardinal Accounts, Inc., 874 N.E.2d 1055, 1060 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007). To that end, a motion for reinstatement is not a substitute for a direct appeal, nor is it intended to address the legal basis of a judgment. See State ex rel. Peoples Nat’l Bank & Tr. Co. of Washington v. Dubois Circuit Court, 250 Ind. 38, 41, 233 N.E.2d 177, 178 (1968); Estate of Mills-McGoffney v. Modesitt, 78 N.E.3d 700, 705 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017). In other words, a party cannot delay raising available arguments and later rely on Trial Rule 41(F) to lodge a collateral attack against the merits of a trial court’s decision. Cf. In re Paternity of P.S.S., 934 N.E.2d 737, 740–41 (Ind. 2010) (applying legal principle in Trial Rule 60(B) context); Dillman v. State, 16 N.E.3d 445, 447 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014) (Trial Rule 59); Kindred v. Townsend, 4 N.E.3d 793, 797 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014) (preliminary injunction). Yet that is precisely what Smith attempted when—in his third and final request for reinstatement—he challenged the propriety of the court’s dismissal. This means that, regardless of the merits of Smith’s claims, they are not properly before us.
Recounting this case’s tangled procedural history highlights why Smith cannot use Trial Rule 41(F), or this subsequent appeal, to challenge the legal basis underlying the court’s order of dismissal. Recall that, after the School moved to dismiss Smith’s complaint, he did not file a response. In fact, Smith merely filed a letter he had sent to the School that attempted to show after-the-fact compliance with CAPSA’s pre-suit notice requirements. The School indicated—in a court conference call with counsel present—that this later-filed notice was insufficient. Without the benefit of any response or argument from Smith to the contrary, the trial court determined that he failed to satisfy the statute’s pre-suit notice requirements. And, as CAPSA requires, the court dismissed the case without prejudice. [Footnote omitted.] I.C. § 34-13-3.5-7.
That decision, which disposed of Smith’s claim against the School, was a final, appealable order. App. R. 2(H)(1). Though labeled a dismissal without prejudice due to CAPSA, the case was effectively dismissed with prejudice because the statute of limitations on Smith’s claim expired months earlier. At that point, Smith could have filed a timely notice of appeal to challenge the order of dismissal. App. R. 9(A)(1). But he didn’t.
Instead, two months later, Smith turned to Trial Rule 41(F) in an attempt to reinstate the complaint. Over a six-week period, he filed three documents invoking the rule. In the final filing—but for the first time—he challenged the merits of the dismissal. [Footnote omitted.] Specifically, Smith disputed the legal basis underlying the trial court’s order, which he argued constituted “good cause” for reinstatement. Yet each of the claims of error was based on grounds that were known or knowable at the time of the dismissal. In other words, Smith used a Rule 41(F) filing to collaterally attack the trial court’s order. This is impermissible.
Though Smith forfeited his right to appellate review, adopting his argument would essentially allow him limitless appeals. See App. R. 9(A)(5); cf. Kindred, 4 N.E.3d at 796. We will not permit a party to forgo raising known arguments at the time a trial court dismisses a complaint only to later invoke Trial Rule 41(F) under the guise of establishing “good cause” for reinstatement. And the fact that the statute of limitations effectively rendered the dismissal with prejudice does not change the result. See Polk-King v. Discover Bank, 120 N.E.3d 1051, 1058 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019) (finding that the expiration of a claim’s limitations period did not amount to good cause for the “extraordinary relief of reinstatement” under Rule 41(F)).
In sum, Trial Rule 41(F) requires, when a case is dismissed without prejudice, that a reinstatement request is made “within a reasonable time” and for “good cause.” Given the timing and substance of Smith’s ultimate Rule 41(F) filing, he cannot meet either requirement. Rather, Smith’s request was actually an impermissible collateral attack on the trial court’s dismissal order, and so the court did not abuse its discretion in denying Smith’s motion.
Conclusion
We affirm the judgment of the trial court.
David, Massa, Slaughter, and Goff, JJ., concur.