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Quinn v. Stafford :: 1987 :: Supreme Court of Georgia Decisions :: Georgia Case Law :: Georgia Law :: US Law :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Georgia Case Law › Supreme Court of Georgia Decisions › 1987 › Quinn v. Stafford
Quinn v. Stafford
257 Ga. 608 (1987)
362 S.E.2d 49
QUINN v. STAFFORD et al. LEVY & SMITH, P.C. et al. v. STAFFORD et al.
44760, 44783.
These cases are here on certiorari. Quinn v. Stafford, 183 Ga. App. 227 (358 SE2d 619) (1987). The question for decision is whether the Court of Appeals correctly applied the provisions of a 1985 Act which amended OCGA § 9-3-71, relating to the statute of limitations applicable to medical-malpractice actions. This case concerns an uncodified provision in the 1985 Act creating a one-year grace period within which actions barred prior to July 1, 1986, by the 1985 Act on its effective date, July 1, 1985, but not barred by the prior medical-malpractice statute of limitations enacted in 1976, would not be barred prior to July 1, 1986. The Court of Appeals held that under the reasoning of our decision in Allrid v. Emory University, 249 Ga. 35 (285 SE2d 521) (1982), even though this action was barred by both the 1976 and 1985 statutes of limitation prior to July 1, 1986, the action necessarily survived until July 1, 1986, since the action existed on the effective date of the 1985 Act. For reasons which follow, we hold that the Court of Appeals' reliance on our Allrid decision is misplaced, and that the uncodified grace-period provision in the 1985 Act is, in fact, nonsensical, as well as inapplicable here under the plain language of the statute. Consequently, we reverse.
1. Prior to 1976, the statute of limitations for medical-malpractice *609 actions was contained in the general tort statute of limitations, former Code Ann. § 3-1004; under this statute, medical-malpractice actions and other personal-injury actions were required to be brought "within two years after the right of action accrue[d]." And, under our case law, a personal-injury action is held to "accrue" when an actionable injury is first sustained. Shessel v. Stroup, 253 Ga. 56, 57 (316 SE2d 155) (1984), citing Everhart v. Rich's, Inc., 229 Ga. 798, 801 (194 SE2d 425) (1972).
In this Act, the General Assembly enacted a new Code Chapter 3-11, relating to limitations on medical-malpractice actions. Section 3-1101 of the 1976 Act (Code Ann. § 3-1101 (OCGA § 9-3-70)) contained the definition of an "[a]ction for medical-malpractice." Also enacted was Code Ann. § 3-1102 (OCGA § 9-3-71), which stated, "Except as otherwise provided in this Chapter, an action for medical malpractice shall be brought within two years after the date on which the negligent or wrongful act or omission occurred." As noted in Allrid v. Emory University, supra, this medical-malpractice statute of limitations was, to an extent, extremely harsh in its application, in that its enforcement would bar medical-malpractice actions altogether in those cases in which the injury or death was not sustained within two years of the date on which the negligent or wrongful act or omission occurred.
However, in the 1976 Act, the General Assembly also enacted an ameliorative grace-period provision, as well as a non-revival provision. Code Ann. § 3-1105 (OCGA § 9-3-74). This grace-period provision stated, "No action for medical malpractice which would be barred before July 1, 1977, by the provisions of this Code Chapter but which would not be so barred by the provisions of Code Title 3, in force immediately prior to July 1, 1976, shall be barred until July 1, 1977." However, the obverse of the following provision is that no medical-malpractice action which, prior to July 1, 1976, had been barred by the 1976 medical-malpractice statute of limitations would be revived, and such a non-revival provision was also enacted in Code Ann. § 3-1105.
In Allrid, we further held that a statute of limitations is remedial in nature, and the legislature can constitutionally provide for the retrospective *610 application of such a remedial statute "`provided a time be fixed subsequent to the passage of the statute which allows citizens affected by it a reasonable time to protect their rights.'" Allrid, supra, 249 Ga. at p. 37, citing Jaro, Inc. v. Shields, 123 Ga. App. 391, 392 (181 SE2d 110) (1971). We then concluded that the one-year grace-period provision contained in the 1976 Act was reasonable and, therefore, passed constitutional muster, since "[n]o cause of action which existed on July 1, 1976, the effective date of Code Ann. § 3-1102, was immediately barred by the statute. Every such cause of action survived for at least the grace period of one year." (Emphasis in original.) Allrid, supra, 249 Ga. at p. 37.
Shessel v. Stroup, supra, was a medical-malpractice action in which the injured party had not been killed. In Shessel, the plaintiff complained that a serialization procedure was negligently performed on her, and, as a result, she subsequently became pregnant. There, we held that the 1976 medical-malpractice statute of limitations also violated the Equal Protection Clause in those medical-malpractice actions in which the alleged negligence produced no injury until more than two years after such alleged negligence occurred.
(a) Section 1 of this Act repealed the 1976 enactment of § 9-3-71, and inserted in lieu thereof a new § 9-3-71, subsection (a) of which reads as follows: "Except as otherwise provided in this article, an action for medical malpractice shall be brought within two years after the date on which an injury or death arising from a negligent or wrongful act or omission occurred." Subsection (b) of § 9-3-71 provides that, notwithstanding the two-year statute of limitations contained in subsection (a), "[i]n no event may an action for medical malpractice be brought more than five years after the date on which the negligent or wrongful act or omission occurred." "Subsection (b) of this Code section is intended to create a five-year statute of ultimate repose and abrogation." OCGA § 9-3-71 (c).
(b) Section 3 of the 1985 Act, which was not codified, purports to establish both a non-revival provision and a grace-period provision.
*611 The first sentence of Section 3 constitutes the non-revival provision, and this sentence states, "No action for medical malpractice which, prior to July 1, 1985, has been barred by the provisions of Title 9, relating to actions, shall be revived by this Act." Thus, if a medical-malpractice action were barred prior to July 1, 1985, under the 1976 statute, by reason of the fact that there had been a passage of more than two years from the date of the allegedly negligent act or omission, the enactment of the 1985 statute, only requiring the action to be brought within two years after the date of the injury or death, would not revive the action.
In this regard, the Court of Appeals noted that the plaintiff had conceded that this action was barred by the 1976 enactment of § 9-3-71, in that the action was not filed within two years of the allegedly negligent or wrongful act or omission. However, the Court of Appeals *612 accepted the plaintiff's argument that this action was not barred by the 1985 enactment of § 9-3-71, on grounds that the second sentence of Section 3 of the 1985 Act allows any action in existence as of July 1, 1985, the effective date of the 1985 Act, to be timely filed any time prior to July 1, 1986.
As acknowledged by the Court of Appeals in this case, the uncodified grace-period provision, by its terms, is inapplicable here, since this action was barred prior to July 1, 1986, by both the 1976 and the 1985 statutes of limitation. However, also inapplicable is the uncodified non-revival provision contained in Section 3 of the 1985 Act. As previously stated, the non-revival provision states that no *613 medical-malpractice action barred by the 1976 statute on July 1, 1985, the effective date of the 1985 Act, will be revived. The present action was barred under the 1976 statute of limitations as of August 3, 1985, and, therefore, does not come within the ambit of this non-revival provision.