Case Name: Glynn Richard DAVIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant-Appellee
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1981-04-20
Citations: 642 F.2d 328
Docket Number: No. 77-1942
Parties: Glynn Richard DAVIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant-Appellee.
Judges: Before MERRILL, TANG and SCHROEDER, Circuit Judges.
Reporter: Federal Reporter 2d Series
Volume: 642
Pages: 328–333

Head Matter:
Glynn Richard DAVIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 77-1942.
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Argued and Submitted Dec. 12, 1979.
Decided April 20, 1981.
Rehearing and Rehearing In Banc Denied May 28, 1981.
Blaine Evans, Boise, Idaho, and Avrm G. Alder, Freedman, Borowsky & Lorry, Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiff-appellant.
William Kanter, Civil Division, Washington, D.C., for defendant-appellee.
Before MERRILL, TANG and SCHROEDER, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
MERRILL, Circuit Judge:
Background
The Sabin Type III oral polio vaccine was administered to appellant Davis as part of a nationwide campaign initiated by the government of the United States to eradicate paralytic poliomyelitis (polio) in this country. Mass immunization centers Were established in cooperation with state and local medical authorities, and the campaign was widely publicized. The Division of Biologic Standards (DBS) of the National Institutes of Health, a part of the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare, was charged with testing and licensing manufacture of the vaccine, pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 73.110 et seq.
The vaccine was administered to appellant Davis at one of these centers in March, 1963. Within thirty days, appellant was paralyzed from the waist down and exhibited other symptoms of polio. Davis brought suit against the manufacturer of the drug, Wyeth Laboratories, Inc., in 1964.
In the course of that litigation, in October, 1965, defendant Wyeth Laboratories, Inc., noticed the deposition of Dr. Ruth Kirschstein, the chief of the pathology section of the laboratory of Viral Immunology, DBS, accompanied by a subpoena duces tecum ordering her to bring to the deposition, inter alia, all records of DBS relating to lot No. 03503 of the Sabin Type III oral polio vaccine. The vaccine ingested by Davis was from this lot. Appellant's attorney was present at this deposition. Dr. Kirsch-stein brought with her records documenting the results of a single neurovirulence test; the results fell within acceptable limits.
Appellant alleges that not until 1973 did he learn from an attorney representing a plaintiff in another suit that DBS had conducted another neurovirulence test on lot No. 03503, and that the results of that test did not fall within the acceptable range. In April, 1973, appellant filed a notice of claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) 28 U.S.C. § 1346 et seq., and in April, 1974, brought the instant action in the court below.
The district court granted summary judgment for the United States, holding that Davis' suit was barred by the two-year statute of limitations which applies to all actions brought under the FTCA. 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b).
Davis appeals, contending that either: (1) the cause of action did not accrue until he learned, in 1973, of the facts indicating the government's responsibility for his paralysis; or (2) the statute was tolled by the government's fraudulent concealment of the results of the second test.
We affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment.
Accrual of the Action
A two-year statute of limitations applies to all suits brought under the FTCA. 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b). Appellant contends, however, that under the so-called "discovery rule" applied in medical malpractice cases, the cause of action did not accrue and the statute did not begin to run until he learned, in 1973, of the results of the second neurovirulence test. United States v. Kubrick, 444 U.S. 111, 100 S.Ct. 352, 62 L.Ed.2d 259 (1979), is cited in support of the proposition that the action accrues when the plaintiff learns, or, in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have learned, of his injury and of the actions that caused it. 444 U.S. at 123-24, 100 S.Ct. at 360-61. While the present case is not technically one involving medical malpractice, it is in many ways similar to such an action, and we will assume, arguendo, that it should be assimilated to the category of medical malpractice for statute of limitations purposes. Nonetheless, we conclude that appellant's claim is barred by the statute.
The general rule in tort law is that the claim accrues at the time of the plaintiff's injury. In the area of medical malpractice this has been felt to be unduly harsh in those cases where the fact of injury remains undisclosed. The rule accordingly has widely been modified to provide that a claim does not accrue until the injury has manifested itself. Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, 69 S.Ct. 1018, 93 L.Ed.2d 1282 (1949). The Restatement (Second) of Torts § 899, Comment e, quoted in United States v. Kubrick, supra, 444 U.S. at 120 n.7, 100 S.Ct. at 358 n.7, reflects this change:
"In a wave of recent decisions [it has been held] that the statute must be construed as not intended to start to run until the plaintiff has in fact discovered the fact that he has suffered injury or by the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered it."
In Kubrick, the Court assumed that the discovery rule should be further modified to provide that accrual does not occur, and thus that the statute of limitations does not commence to run, until the plaintiff has discovered, or, in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered, both his injury and its cause. The Court noted that "the United States was prepared to concede as much for present purposes," id. at 120-21, 100 S.Ct. at 358-59.) The question presented was whether the rule should be still further extended to defer accrual until the plaintiff had, or, in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have had, knowledge of the defendant's negligence. The Court approached this question as one involving the construction of § 2401(b). It stated:
"[We] are not free to construe it so as to defeat its obvious purpose, which is to encourage the prompt presentation of claims. [Citations omitted]. We should regard the plea of limitations as a 'meritorious defense, in itself serving a public interest.' [Citations omitted]."
Id. at 117, 100 S.Ct. at 357.
The Court then made it plain that it was not prepared to go further than the government concession. It refused to defer accrual until fault as well as injury and cause had been discovered; it would not hold that "the statute is not to run until the plaintiff is led to suspect negligence." Id. at 124, 100 S.Ct. at 124.
With knowledge of the fact of injury and its cause the malpractice plaintiff is on the same footing as any negligence plaintiff. The burden is then on plaintiff to ascertain the existence and source of fault within the statutory period. It follows that diligence or lack of diligence in these efforts is irrelevant. In the absence of fraudulent concealment it is plaintiff's burden, within the statutory period, to determine whether and whom to sue. Kubrick makes this plain. Once a plaintiff knows that harm has been done to him, he must, the Court states, "determine within the period of limitations whether to sue or not, which is precisely the judgment that other tort claimants must make. If he fails to bring suit because he is incompetently or mistakenly told that he does not have a case, we discern no sound reason for visiting the consequences of such error on the defendant by delaying the accrual of the claim until the plaintiff is otherwise informed or himself determines to bring suit, even though more than two years have passed from the plaintiff's discovery of the relevant facts about injury." Id.
In the present case, appellant was aware in April, 1963, that he had been injured and that the Sabin vaccine was the likely cause of his injury. With knowledge of the fact of injury and its cause, appellant was at the time of his injury placed on the same footing as other negligence plaintiffs. The claim, then, accrued at the time of injury and the statute started to run. It was up to him to "determine within the period of limitations whether to sue or not." Id.
We conclude that in the absence of fraudulent concealment, appellant's claim against the United States was barred by limitations.
Fraudulent Concealment
Appellant contends that even if the cause of action accrued prior to 1973, the statute was tolled by the government's fraudulent concealment of the results of the second test during the October, 1965, deposition of Dr. Kirschstein. This argument fails, since the two-year period had already elapsed.
Appellant also argues that certain press releases and reports by the government indicating that there was no probable link between the taking of the vaccine and subsequent polio cases amounted to fraudulent concealment. This contention is meritless. It may well be that the government was negligent in maintaining and publishing records. However, failure of the government to ascertain and publish the fact of its negligence is hardly sufficient to constitute fraudulent concealment. See Rutledge v. Boston Woven Hose & Rubber Co., 576 F.2d 248, 250 (9th Cir. 1978).
We conclude that appellant's action was barred by the applicable statute of limitations. The decision of the district court granting summary judgment is affirmed.
. This mass immunization program is described in Davis v. Wyeth Laboratories, Inc., 399 F.2d 121, 123-25 (9th Cir. 1968), a previous action brought by this plaintiff against the manufacturer of the vaccine he ingested. The district court initially gave judgment for the manufacturer; this court reversed and remanded. The parties settled out of court before the case went to trial a second time.
. Each lot of vaccine was subjected to various tests by DBS. The so-called neurovirulence test, at issue here, involved administering the vaccine to thirty monkeys. After a seventeen-to-twenty-day observation period, the monkeys were destroyed and the brain or spinal cord of each monkey, depending on which had been injected with the vaccine, was removed and the tissue examined under a microscope for lesions. Lesions were graded on a scale of severity from one to four; if the number of monkeys developing lesions and the severity of the lesions fell within DBS standards, the lot was deemed to have satisfied the neurovirulence test.
. The test results revealed by Dr. Kirschstein at the October, 1965, deposition indicated that one monkey had developed lesions classified "one" and another monkey had developed lesions classified "three"; these results were within the acceptable range under the DBS standards.
. Griffin v. United States, 351 F.Supp. 10 (E.D.Pa.1972), aff'd 500 F.2d 1059 (3d Cir. 1974).
. One monkey developed lesions classified "four"; appellant contends that this was not within the acceptable range under the DBS standards.
. The statute was amended in 1970 to provide that a tort claim against the United States shall be barred unless written notice is provided to the appropriate federal agency within two years or unless a suit is instituted within six months of the mailing of notice of final agency action. Previously, the statute had simply required that an action be begun within two years of the time when it accrued. As will be apparent, the result in the present case is the same under either form of the statute.
. See Hammond v. United States, 388 F.Supp. 928, 932 (E.D.N.Y.1975).
. This rule is followed in this and most other circuits. Hungerford v. United States, 307 F.2d 99, 102 (9th Cir. 1962). Accord, Exnicious v. United States, 563 F.2d 418 (10th Cir. 1977); Bridgford v. United States, 550 F.2d 978 (4th Cir. 1977); Jordan v. United States, 503 F.2d 620 (6th Cir. 1974); Toal v. United States, 438 F.2d 222 (2d Cir. 1971).
. At the very latest, he was certainly aware that the vaccine was the cause in 1964, when he brought suit against Wyeth Laboratories alleging that such was the case.
. These press releases and reports might have served also as additional notice to appellant of the government's involvement in his claim.