Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-01004/USCOURTS-ca10-89-01004-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 365
Nature of Suit: Personal Injury - Product Liability
Cause of Action: 

---

PUBLISH FILED 

United States Co!}rt qf Appeals, 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth C1rcU1t 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

JOEL SIMON, 

Plaintiff- Appellant, 

v. 

WISCONSIN MARINE INC., 

a Wisconsin corporation; and 

RANSOME Is INC • ' 

a Wisconsin corporation, 

Defendants-Appellees 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

OCT 2 11991 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 89-1004 

ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO 

(D.C. NO. 88-B-1772) 

Charles F. Braga of Roath & Braga, Denver, Colorado for PlaintiffAppellant. 

Stephen E. Kapnik of Lohf, Shaiman & Ross, Denver, Colorado, (John 

C. Steele of Lohf, Shaiman & Ross, Denver, Colorado with him on 

the brief) for Defendants-Appellees. 

Before HOLLOWAY and MCWILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, and BRATTON*, 

Senior District Judge. 

HOLLOWAY, Circuit Judge. 

*The Honorable Howard C. Bratton of the District of New Mexico, 

sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 89-1004 Document: 01019291259 Date Filed: 10/21/1991 Page: 1 
This appeal arises from the dismissal, on limitations 

grounds, of a personal injury action brought by plaintiffappellant Joel Simon ("Simon") against defendant-appellee 

Ransome's Inc. ("Ransome's"). 

Simon was injured while using a lawn mower manufactured by 

Ransome's. The injury occurred on September 16, 1986. Simon's 

complaint, alleging negligence and breach of duty in design, was 

stamped as received in the Boulder County, Colorado District Court 

clerk's office on September 16, 1988, although there is 

disagreement about the true date of filing. Ransome's then 

removed the case to the federal district court for the District of 

Colorado. Following removal, Ransome's filed a motion to dismiss 

based on Fed. R. Civ. P. 12b(6), claiming that Simon's complaint 

had been filed after the Colorado statutory two-year period had 

expired. The district court granted defendant's motion in an 

unpublished memorandum opinion and order. 

Plaintiff Simon timely filed a notice of appeal. On appeal 

he argues that the district court erred (1) in not recognizing 

September 15, 1988 as the actual filing date; and (2) in treating 

the two year statute of limitations as barring all actions not 

filed by the day before the two year anniversary of the injury. 

We review de novo the district court's determination of state 

law. Salve Regina College v. Russell, u.s. I 111 s.ct. 1217, 

1221 (1991). We conclude that Colorado's limitation of product 

liability actions to two years after the occurrence of the injury 

includes the anniversary of the date of the injury. It is 

therefore unnecessary to determine whether the complaint was 

2 

Appellate Case: 89-1004 Document: 01019291259 Date Filed: 10/21/1991 Page: 2 
actually filed on September 15 or 16. Either date was timely. 

Accordingly we reverse. 

In Colorado a personal injury claim brought against the 

manufacturer of a product "shall be brought within two years after 

the claim for relief arises and not thereafter." Colo. Rev. Stat. 

§ 13-80-106(1) (1987). This appeal presents the question whether 

the second anniversary of the injury is within the two year filing 

period. Logic, Colorado precedent, and the weight of other 

authority all support the conclusion that an anniversary filing is 

acceptable. 

The ancient rule was that in computing a period of time from 

the occurrence of a given event, the day the event occurred was 

included. See ~' Meridian Life Insurance v. Milam, 188 s.w. 879 

(Ky. 1916). The great weight of modern authority, however, 

excludes the day the event happens and includes the last day of 

the specified period. See Dysart v. Marriot Corp., 103 F.R.D. 15 

(E.D. Pa. 1984), Sanders v. Parks, 718 S.W.2d 676 (Tenn. 1986), 

Nolan v. Kolar, 629 s.w. 2d 661 (Mo. App. 1982), Braggs v. Jim 

Skinner Ford, Inc., 396 S.2d 1055 (Ala. 1981), Lawson v. Conyers 

Chrysler, Plymouth, & Dodge Trucks, Inc., 600 F.2d 465 (5th Cir. 

1979). Indeed the Colorado General Assembly has mandated this 

approach for reckoning most statutory periods. Colo. Rev. Stat. 

§2-4-108 (1987). The Colorado code specifies this procedure for 

periods denominated in days or months but is silent on whether the 

same method is to be used for periods of years. We noted this 

fact in dictum in Schafer v. Aspen Skiing Corp., 742 F.2d 580 

(lOth Cir. 1984). This opinion has caused considerable 

3 

Appellate Case: 89-1004 Document: 01019291259 Date Filed: 10/21/1991 Page: 3 
confusion in the district court. We wish to clarify the point 

here. 

The rules of statutory construction normally hold that, in 

the absence of indications to the contrary, when a statute 

expressly applies a legal rule to one category, it implicitly 

excludes its application to all others. Tennessee Valley 

Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153, 188, 98 S.Ct. 2279, 2298 (1978). 

In this case, however, there are ample indications that Colorado 

did not, in fact, intend to establish a separate rule for 

calculating years. First, no reason has been suggested to explain 

why Colorado might wish as a matter of public policy to accord 

special treatment to those periods denominated in years. Indeed 

there seems no logical purpose at all to having a statutory period 

of a month equal a full month, but a period of a year actually 

equal a year minus one day. Second, the fact that the general 

rule in the overwhelming majority of other jurisdictions is to 

allow anniversary filings argues strongly for the rule's adoption 

in Colorado where statutes provide no guidance on the issue. 

Third and most significant, there is the ample Colorado case law 

which supports the inclusion of the anniversary in computing a 

period of years. 

Although the Colorado Supreme Court has never been called on 

to rely on the validity of an anniversary filing date, it has 

explicitly treated anniversary filings as valid: 

The cause of action accrued on March 28, 1980, the date 

the libel occurred ... However, the one year statute of 

limitations did not expire until March 30, 1981, because 

March 28, 1981 was a Saturday. 

Dillingham v. Greeley Publishing Co. 701 P.2d 27, 28 n.l (Colo. 

1985) (citations omitted). The fact that the anniversary fell on a 

4 

Appellate Case: 89-1004 Document: 01019291259 Date Filed: 10/21/1991 Page: 4 
Saturday could only matter if that date would ordinarily have been 

a date on which filing could occur. Thus Colorado's highest court 

has clearly recognized that anniversary filings are valid. 

Moreover, the Colorado Court of Appeals in a personal injury 

case involving a filing on the second anniversary of the accident 

recently held that: 

[i]n computing any period of time prescribed or allowed 

by statute, the day of an act or event from which the 

designated period of time begins to run is not to be 

included, but the last day of the period is to be 

included. C.R.C.P. 6(a). Accordingly the date of the 

accident should have been excluded from the computation 

of the two-year period. See C.R.C.P. 6(a). 

Cade v. Reqensberqer, 804 P.2d 238, 239 (Colo. Ct. App. 1990), 

cert. denied, 1/28/91; see also Nagy v. Landau, 807 P.2d 1227, 

1228 (Colo. Ct. App. 1990). We must accept the intermediate 

court's holding, which the district judge did not have, as an 

authoritative expression of the State's law. Fidelity Union Trust 

Co. v. Field, 311 U.S. 169, 177-78, 61 S. Ct. 176, 178 (1940). 

The district court believed it had found contrary authority 

in our opinion in Schafer v. Aspen Skiing Corp. There we were 

presented with the question whether a Colorado personal injury 

action which was governed by a three year statute of limitations 

could be filed on the day after the third anniversary of the 

injury. We held that since the cause of action arises on the 

happening of the wrongful act, an action brought one day after the 

three year anniversary of the injury is time barred. 742 F.2d at 

582. In our discussion we noted the explicit statutory provisions 

for reckoning periods of months and the absence of such provisions 

for reckoning periods of years. In doing so we reasoned that a 

period of years would be governed by the old rule and thus include 

5 

Appellate Case: 89-1004 Document: 01019291259 Date Filed: 10/21/1991 Page: 5 
the date of the injury and not include the final day of the 

period. The district court based its holding on this reasoning. 

However, since Schafer's filing took place on the day after the 

anniversary, the question of whether an anniversary filing is 

valid was not actually decided in Schafer. Indeed either of the 

competing theories proposed by the parties here would have 

produced the same result in Schafer. 

In any event, the subsequent Colorado decision in Cade v. 

Regensberger should be followed by us now as we are obliged to 

apply the state law as it is at the time of this decision. See 

Huddleston v. Dwyer, 322 U.S. 232, 236 (1944). Under the Cade 

rationale, 

the first 

the statutory period for bringing this action excluded 

day and included the 'final day of the period. 

Accordingly the dismissal of the action must be reversed and the 

case remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

REVERSED and REMANDED. 

6 

Appellate Case: 89-1004 Document: 01019291259 Date Filed: 10/21/1991 Page: 6