Case Name: James CORSEY, Plaintiff-Appellant-Relator, v. The STATE of Louisiana, Through the DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Defendants-Appellees-Respondents
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1979-10-08
Citations: 375 So. 2d 1319
Docket Number: No. 63931
Parties: James CORSEY, Plaintiff-Appellant-Relator, v. The STATE of Louisiana, Through the DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Defendants-Appellees-Respondents.
Judges: SUMMERS, C. J., dissents for the reasons assigned.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 375
Pages: 1319–1328

Head Matter:
James CORSEY, Plaintiff-Appellant-Relator, v. The STATE of Louisiana, Through the DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Defendants-Appellees-Respondents.
No. 63931.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Oct. 8, 1979.
Joseph S. Russo, Jefferson, for plaintiff-applicant.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., J. Marvin Montgomery, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant-respondent.

Opinion:
TATE, Justice.
The plaintiff Corsey was a prisoner at the state penitentiary. He sues the state department of corrections for personal injuries sustained on June 18,1972. He did not file suit so as to interrupt prescription until June 25, 1974. Since this legal demand was made more than one year after the tortious injury was sustained, La.Civ.C. arts. 3536, 3537, his suit was dismissed as prescribed. 366 So.2d 964 (La.App. 1 Cir. 1978).
We granted certiorari, 368 So.2d 127 (February 23,1979). We desired to consider whether prescription could run against the plaintiff (a prisoner within the total control of the defendant state agency) when, due solely to the defendant's negligence, the tort-caused physical and mental (brain) injuries to the plaintiff so mentally incapacitated him that he lacked any understanding of what had happened to him and of his possible legal remedies until July 1973, when he began to recover an awareness of the events and of his condition.
For the reasons set forth more fully below, we hold that, under these facts, prescription did not begin to run against the plaintiff until July 1973. Therefore, his legal demand of June 1974 was timely. In so holding, we rely upon the principle that prescription does not run against a party who is unable to act (a principle often denoted by the maxim contra non valentem agere nulla currit praescriptio). The principle is especially applicable in the present instance, where the plaintiff's inability to act is due to the defendant's willful or negligent conduct.
I.
The specific issue before us is whether the year within which the plaintiff must bring his tort action for personal injuries negligently caused by the defendant, La. Civ.C. arts. 3536, 3537, is interrupted or suspended during the period in which, due to the defendant's negligent conduct, the plaintiff had incurred such mental incapacity as to be unable to assert a legal demand to recover for such injuries.
Article 3521 of our Civil Code provides, "Prescription runs against all persons, unless they are included in some exception established by law [i.e., legislation]." (Italics ours.) Despite the express statutory provision, our Louisiana jurisprudence has recognized a limited exception where in fact and for good cause a plaintiff is unable to exercise his cause of action when it accrues. French jurisprudence (despite an identical provision in the French Civil Code) likewise recognizes this exception. Comment, The Scope of the Maxim Contra Non Valentem in Louisiana, 12 Tul.L.Rev. 244 (1938); Planiol, Civil Law Treatise, Volume 1, Section 2704-05, Volume 2, Section 678 (LSLI translation, 1959).
The exception is founded on the ancient civilian doctrine of contra non valentem agere nulla currit praescriptio, predating and within the penumbras of modern civilian codes, and it has been recognized from Louisiana's earliest jurisprudence. Comment, 12 Tul.L.Rev. 244, cited above; Henson v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 363 So.2d 711 (La.1978); Hyman v. Hibernia Bank & Trust Co., 139 La. 411, 71 So. 598 (1916); McKnight v. Calhoun, 36 La.Ann. 408 (1884); Quierry's Ex'r & Faussier's Ex'rs, 4 Mart. (O.S.) 609 (1817).
II.
As the cited comment notes, 12 Tul. L.Rev. at 253-54, this court in Reynolds v. Batson, 11 La.Ann. 729, 730-31 (1856), authoritatively lays down the three categories of situations in which our early jurisprudence held that the principle contra non valentem applied so as to prevent the running of liberative prescription: (1) Where there was some legal cause which prevented the courts or their officers from taking cognizance of or acting on the plaintiff's action ; (2) Where there was some condition coupled with the contract or connected with the proceedings which prevented the creditor from suing or acting ; and (3) Where the debtor himself has done some act effectually to prevent the creditor from availing himself of his cause of action
Modern jurisprudence also recognizes a fourth type of situation where contra non valentem applies so that prescription does not run: Where the cause of action is not known or reasonably knowable by the plaintiff, even though his ignorance is not induced by the defendant. (This principle will not except the plaintiff's claim from the running of prescription if his ignorance is attributable to his own willfulness or neglect; that is, a plaintiff will be deemed to know what he could by reasonable diligence have learned. Cartwright v. Chrysler Corporation, 255 La. 598, 232 So.2d 285 (1970); Summerall v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 366 So.2d 213 (La. App. 2 Cir. 1978).)
See: Henson v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 363 So.2d 711 (La.1978); Lakefront Land Co. v. Department of Highways, 212 La. 16, 31 So.2d 280 (La.1947); Brulatour v. Teche Sugar Co., 209 La. 717, 25 So.2d 444 (La.1946); Walter v. Caffal, 192 La. 447, 188 So. 137 (1939); McGuire v. Monroe Scrap Material Co., 189 La. 573, 180 So. 413 (La.1938); Succession of Williams, 168 La. 1, 121 So. 171 (La.1929); McClendon v. State, Through Dept, of Corrections, 357 So.2d 1218 (La.App. 3 Cir. 1978); Brown v. State, Through Dept. of Corrections, 354 So.2d 633 (La.App. 1 Cir. 1978) ; Aegis Insurance Co. v. Delta Fire & Casualty Co., 99 So.2d 767 (La.App. 1 Cir. 1957). See also: Dean v. Hercules, Incorporated, 328 So.2d 69 (La.1976).
This fourth or more modern situation, which has been judicially characterized as a contra non valentem exception to the running of prescription, is generically similar to instances provided by statute where prescription does not begin to run until the claimant has knowledge of his cause of action. In these, the cause of action does not mature (so prescription does not begin to run) until it is known or at least knowable.
The fourth situation is thus generically somewhat distinguishable from the earlier three situations first recognized to justify exceptions to prescription on the basis of contra non valentem. In them (as in the present case, as we will show), the cause of action had accrued, but nevertheless the plaintiff was prevented from enforcing it by some reason external to his own will— the courts closed by wartime conditions, some contract or administrative condition preventing his access to the courts, or some conduct of the defendant which prevented him from availing himself of his judicial remedy.
In concluding our general discussion of the application of contra non valentem, we should finally note that the Louisiana jurisprudence, as does the French, distin guishes between personal disabilities of the plaintiff (which do not prevent prescription from running) and an inability to bring suit for some cause foreign to the person of the plaintiff (which does suspend its running).
Thus, a person whose ignorance of his cause of action or inability to assert it is the result of his own mental incapacity cannot claim the benefits of this rule unless he has been interdicted. Israel v. Smith, 302 So.2d 392 (La.App. 3 Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 303 So.2d 183 (La.1974); Buvens v. Buvens, 286 So.2d 144 (La.App. 3 Cir. 1973), Lassere v. Lassere, 255 So.2d 794 (La.App. 4 Cir. 1972), cert. denied, 257 So.2d 434 (La.1972). Perrodin v. Clement, 254 So.2d 704 (La.App. 3 Cir. 1971). Cf., Vance v. Ellerbe, 150 La. 388, 90 So. 735 (1922).
Likewise, a plaintiff cannot invoke contra non valentem to escape the running of prescription based merely upon his inability to attend to his affairs because of his personal illness, Ayres v. New York Life Ins. Co., 219 La. 945, 54 So.2d 409 (1951) — at least when this illness arises independently of any fault on the part of the defendant.
III.
In the present instance, we are not, strictly speaking, concerned with whether the plaintiff Corsey's cause of action had accrued or matured at the time of the incident, for it had: the damage was immediately discernible to a person of ordinary diligence and capacity. Nor are we concerned with his mental competency per se, since (as he was not interdicted) he is a person subject to having prescription run against his cause of action.
Here, however, unlike mere mental incompetency (which will not suspend prescription), the defendant's own tort has produced the plaintiff's mental and physical inability to file suit during the period of tort-caused incompetency. The values at issue are not similar to those which control in cases of mere mental incompetency; they are more analagous to those which permit invocation of contra non valentem to suspend prescription because the defendant has concealed information or has otherwise prevented the plaintiff from bringing the action within the prescriptive delay.
Due to the defendant's wrongful conduct, until July 1973 the plaintiff was unable because of the tort-caused mental incompetency to know he had a cause of action or to have the mental ability to pursue it. We hold that, consequently, prescription did not begin to run against the plaintiff (under the facts stipulated for purpose of the exception pleading prescription) until July, 1973.
The fault or wrongful conduct of the defendant which prevents the plaintiff from suing timely is a traditional contra non valentem reason to except the plaintiff's claim from prescriptive extinguishment (see footnotes 7 and 11 above). We find this principle here applicable.
It is true that the usual case in which contra non valentem was applied on this ground has involved conduct of the defendant preventing the plaintiff's pursuit of his claim — conduct separate from the wrongful conduct giving rise to the claim itself. We have not previously been confronted by a case in which the same wrong doing that gave rise to the cause of action also made it impossible for the plaintiff to avail himself of his legal remedy because of the tort-caused mental incapacity. Nevertheless, we can discern no rational distinction which would justify us to apply contra non valentem in the former case, but not in the latter.
As Justice Provosty stated for this court in the Hyman v. Hibernia Bank & Trust, 139 La. 411, 417, 71 So. 598, 600 (1916), an "exception must be recognized, we think, in a case like the present, where the inability of the plaintiff to act was brought about by the practice of the defendant. Otherwise, the defendants would be profiting by their own wrong — a thing inadmissible in law."
To permit prescription to run under the present facts would permit a defendant with custody and control over a person he had tortiously injured to profit by his subsequent laxity in medical treatment, when (as here stipulated) the injured person's recovery of mental faculties was retarded beyond the prescriptive period. The plaintiff in these circumstances is doubly helpless to file suit by virtue both of his mental incapacity and also of his removal from the solicitous attention of relatives and friends who might act in his stead.
Decree
For the reasons assigned, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeal which sustained the defendants' exception of prescription; the case is remanded to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
SUMMERS, C. J., dissents for the reasons assigned.
MARCUS, J., dissents and assigns reasons.
BLANCHE, J., recused.
. The plaintiff had joined in a class action in federal court on June 25, 1974, which was dismissed in November, 1975, upon a stipulation that prescription had been tolled by the federal suit. His individual claim was filed timely thereafterwards, assuming it was not prescribed at the time he joined in the federal class action.
. The defendants stipulated, for purposes of determining this question of law with respect to prescription, that plaintiff was mentally incapacitated until July 1973, due to defendant's negligence. They have reserved the right to introduce evidence on the question of plaintiff's actual mental capacity during this time, should their exception of prescription be overruled.
. A factor in our decision, however, is that under the showing the plaintiff was in the custody of the defendant agency during the entire period prescription was suspended, so that no one else was aware of the plaintiffs cause of action or could assert it on his behalf.
. The cited Comment notes that, based on the Code article now found as Article 3521 of the 1870 Civil Code, this court overruled or ignored decisions recognizing the contra non valentem exception to prescription from 1867 until 1881, until these decisions were themselves overruled. See 12 Tul.L.Rev. at 250. The contra non valentem principle, although exceptional in nature, has been consistently recognized in Louisiana except during this interval.
. See, e. g., Quierry's Ex'r v. Faussier's Ex'rs, 4 Mart. (O.S.) 609 (1817).
. See, e. g., Orleans Parish School Board v. Pittman Construction Co., 261 La. 665, 260 So.2d 661 (1972); Dalton v. Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union No. 60, 240 La. 246, 122 So.2d 88 (1960).
. See, e. g., Hyman v. Hibernia Bank & Trust Co., 139 La. 411, 71 So. 598 (1916). Ultimately, we will rest our decisions on the last (above-italicized) reason for application of contra non valentem to the present facts — that prescription cannot run against a plaintiff who is prevented by the debtor's conduct from knowing of or acting upon his cause of action.
.The intermediate court accepted the defendant's argument that McClendon and Brown, above-cited (which did apply contra non valen-tem ) and Dagenhart v. Roberston Truck Lines, Inc., 230 So.2d 916 (La.App. 1 Cir. 1970) (which did not) have held that the doctrine of contra non valentem does not apply unless (a) the cause of action has not manifested itself with sufficient certainty and (b) the defendant has concealed information or practiced deception lulling the plaintiff into inaction. We do not read these cases so restrictively: the language describes the usual factual situations in which this exception to prescription is applied; but it does not cite nor attempt to overrule decisions relating to other generic situations to which the doctrine has uniformly been held to be applicable.
. Our statutory law provides the same rule in certain explicit situations. For example, prescription runs in an action for damage to land, timber or property from "the date knowledge of such damage is received by the owner thereof." La.Civ.C. art. 3537. Medical malpractice actions must be brought within one year of "the alleged act, omission or neglect, or within one year from the date of discovery of the alleged act, omission or neglect." La.R.S. 9:5628. A disavowal of paternity suit "must be filed within one hundred eighty days after the husband learned or should have learned of the birth of the child;" La.Civ.C. art. 189 (1976).
. The Comment, cited above, at 12 Tul.L.Rev. 245 summarizes the French holdings: "[A] disability which is personal to the individual who is being prescribed against, such as feeblemind-edness, prodigality, insanity which has not been established by interdiction, absence, or even ignorance of the cause of action, will not arrest the course of prescription. However, if the ignorance of the creditor or owner is due to the fault of the adverse party, the latter is not permitted to avail himself of the prescription which has run." (Italics ours.)
. If the plaintiff has been interdicted, however, he is not really invoking the jurisprudential exception, in being freed from the effects of prescription. Rather he is enjoying the protection of La.Civ.C. arts. 3522 and 3554 which provide that persons under interdiction cannot be prescribed against.
. This is the only case found in which a plain- . tiff made the claim that the plaintiff Corsey makes today — that the defendant's negligently injurious behavior left him mentally incapacitated to bring suit. The court of appeal rejected the proposed application of contra non valen-tem, citing various cases in which (unlike the present) the plaintiffs mental incapacity was totally unrelated to the actions of the defendant. This decision was relied upon by the First Circuit in upholding the defendants' exception of prescription in the action before us. 366 So.2d 964, 966 (1978). The decision is overruled to the extent that it is inconsistent with the views we express today.