Title: Powell v. City of Haysville
Citation: 203 Kan. 543, 455 P.2d 528
Docket Number: 45,349
State: Kansas
Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court
Date: June 14, 1969

203 Kan. 543 (1969)
455 P.2d 528
CECIL J. POWELL, Appellant,
v.
THE CITY OF HAYSVILLE, KANSAS, Appellee.
No. 45,349

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed June 14, 1969.
Patrick L. Dougherty, of Wichita, argued the cause, and Payne Ratner, Louise Mattox, Payne H. Ratner, Jr., Cliff W. Ratner, R.R. Barnes and Edmond L. Kinch, all of Wichita, were with him on briefs for the appellant.
Byron Brainerd, of Wichita, argued the cause, and Walter A. Sawhill, Warren R. Southard, Lawrence Weigand, Lawrence E. Curfman, Charles W. Harris, Orval J. Kaufman, Donald A. Bell, J.L. Weigand, Jr., Spencer L. Depew, Paul M. Buchanan, John R. Stallings, Brian G. Grace, and Windell G. Snow, all of Wichita, were with him on the briefs for the appellee.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
KAUL, J.:
Plaintiff-appellant instituted this action for damages for personal injuries against his employer, The City of Haysville, defendant-appellee. Plaintiff has appealed from a summary judgment entered in favor of defendant.
Plaintiff attacks the summary judgment on two grounds: First, that it was entered in violation of procedural requirements of K.S.A. 60-256 (c) and, second, it was based on an erroneous finding that plaintiff did not comply with the requirements of K.S.A. 12-105 before bringing the action. Plaintiff further claims the trial court erred in sustaining an objection to interrogatories which plaintiff had propounded to defendant.
Plaintiff was employed by defendant in 1960. His work was in defendant's water conditioning and purification plant where he worked around and with the chemicals alum, lime and chlorine. Plaintiff's employment continued until March 31, 1966. On April *544 13, 1966, plaintiff entered St. Joseph Hospital and was dismissed on April 20, 1966.
On June 14, 1966, plaintiff's counsel addressed a letter to the city clerk of the City of Haysville. The letter stated that plaintiff was totally disabled, as a result of inhaling chemical dust over a long period of time, and that notice was being made pursuant to K.S.A. 12-105.
On oral argument it was conceded that the date of plaintiff's letter to the city clerk was June 14, rather than July 14, 1966, as found by the trial court. The finding of the trial court in this regard appears to have been based on plaintiff's oral motion to amend in which he mistakenly fixed the date of his communication as July 14.
Plaintiff first filed the action against McKesson and Robbins Chemical Company, who supplied defendant with chlorine gas. Plaintiff later filed an amended petition naming the City of Haysvills as a defendant. He alleged the city failed to furnish him a safe place to work in that he was assigned to work around alum, lime and chlorine gas, and as a result developed pulmonary emphysema. He further alleged he became aware in April 1966 that he was suffering a lung ailment, permanent in nature.
Defendant answered alleging plaintiff had failed to state a cause of action, had assumed the risk of his employment, was guilty of contributory negligence, and that the action was barred for failure to comply with K.S.A. 12-105 and/or K.S.A. 14-441 (Repealed by Laws of 1968, Ch. 375, Sec. 19.)
The action was subsequently dismissed as to McKesson and Robbins Chemical Company.
On July 24, 1967, defendant filed a motion for summary judgment which was initially overruled. At a pretrial conference, on November 29, 1967, defendant's motion for summary judgment was orally renewed and sustained. After noting appearances and granting plaintiff leave to amend his petition by alleging service of notice, pursuant to 12-105, supra, the pretrial order and judgment in pertinent part read:
Plaintiff next filed a motion asking the trial court to set aside the summary judgment. With this motion plaintiff filed an affidavit stating that although he learned he had pulmonary emphysema in August, 1965, he was not informed until April of 1966, that his condition was connected with lime, alum and chlorine.
On December 13, 1967, the trial court overruled plaintiff's motion to set aside the summary judgment and this appeal followed.
Although plaintiff did not object at the pretrial conference to defendant's motion for summary judgment on the grounds of insufficient notice or that it was oral, he now claims the motion should not have been entertained. We further observe that these grounds were not raised in plaintiff's subsequent motion to set aside the summary judgment.
The identical question was before this court in two recent cases, in each, of which, the issue was determined adversely to plaintiff's contention. (Collins v. Meeker, 198 Kan. 390, 424 P.2d 488, and Green v. Kaesler-Allen Lumber Co., 197 Kan. 788, 420 P. 2. 1019.)
In considering the point in the Collins case it was stated:
We turn next to the controlling question whether there remained *546 a genuine issue of fact at the time summary judgment was entered. The determination of this issue depends upon the application of 12-105, supra, to the pleadings, depositions and interrogatories in this case, construed in the light most favorable to plaintiff, as the party opposing the motion. (Herl v. State Bank of Parsons, 195 Kan. 35, 403 P.2d 110.)
K.S.A. 12-105, insofar as pertinent to our consideration, provides:
The crux of plaintiff's argument is that the time contemplated in the statute did not commence to run until after the full nature and cause of his injury became known to him, which he fixes in his notice as April 13, 1966, when his condition was diagnosed as permanent lung damage from pulmonary emphysema producing total permanent disability. Plaintiff further asserts the summary judgment, based on the premise that he had knowledge of the nature and cause of his physical condition in July or August 1965, necessitated a finding of fact which was in good faith disputed. In other words, the only issue framed on appeal is whether there is a good faith question of fact as to plaintiff's knowledge of his injury and the cause thereof when he was hospitalized in 1965.
In his deposition plaintiff described his work and the events leading up to his hospitalization in 1965. When he commenced his employment in 1960; plaintiff knew he would be required to work with alum, lime and chlorine. The method of operation of defendant's water plant remained the same during the term of plaintiff's employment. Two or three times each day plaintiff was required to empty eight to ten fifty pound sacks of lime into a hopper, which fed the lime into the water purification plant. Plaintiff stated that he would use from thirteen to twenty-five fifty pound sacks of lime per day. He would cut the sacks and dump the lime into the hopper; dust would roll up out of the hopper and choke plaintiff to the point where sometimes he would have to run outside for fresh air. He stated that sometimes when he dumped two or three sacks he would have to get out; that he was "choked up, smothered down." He also stated that he got worse and worse the more he emptied lime and alum into the hopper.
*547 Every other day plaintiff dumped a hundred pound sack of alum into the hopper and he stated that his reaction to the alum was just the same as with the lime dust.
Every ten days to two weeks plaintiff was required to change bottles of chlorine gas. About two years after plaintiff started working in the water plant a union, which connected the chlorine bottle with the plant, broke, gas escaped which plaintiff smelled, he shut the bottle off and got out as quickly as possible. Plaintiff stated that after smelling the gas he could not breathe; it took him three to four hours in the fresh air to recover and it made him sick, causing him to vomit. He described the effect of the chlorine gas as being just like the lime dust, "He just couldn't breathe."
In August of 1965 (hospital records show it to be July) plaintiff became aware of a lung problem and was hospitalized. In his deposition plaintiff described the events as follows:
"Q. How long were you in St. Joe Hospital?
"A. As near as I can recall, eight days.
"Q. Who treated you there?
"A. Dr. Purinton.
"A. Yes, I went back to work.
"A. Yes, yes."
After his 1965 hospitalization, plaintiff returned to work and continued until March 31, 1966, when he became totally disabled, according to "The doctor's advice." Plaintiff stated his physical condition which caused his disability was pulmonary emphysema and that his lung condition occurred as near as he could tell in August of 1965, when he experienced lung problems for the first time.
Plaintiff also admited that he knew he had an asthmatic condition in 1958, before he commenced his employment with defendant.
From his own testimony it is quite apparent plaintiff knew, at least by July 1965, he had a lung condition and that it continued *548 to get worse "the more he dumped lime and alum into the hopper," and culminated in his choking attack, which required seven days hospitalization in 1965.
A diagnosis of plaintiff's condition in 1965, the causes thereof and the medical advice given, are set out in the deposition of plaintiff's physician, Dr. Lew L. Purinton, as follows:
"A. Yes, we discussed it a number of times.
"Q. All right.
"A. This is my recollection.
*549 "A. You are referring to the first hospitalization?
"Q. Referring to the first hospitalization.
After he was released from the hospital on August 2, 1965, plaintiff was not seen by Dr. Purinton until he was again hospitalized on April 12, 1966. With reference to any change in plaintiff's lung condition during the interim, Dr. Purinton testified:
When asked again concerning any change in plaintiff's condition, the doctor testified:
Plaintiff asserts that his affidavit filed in support of his motion to set aside the summary judgment creates a fact question in that he denied he was told of a connection between his lung condition and his work with lime, alum and chlorine. The effect of his affidavit is an attempt to impeach the testimony of his own doctor. Further, plaintiff's own testimony conclusively shows that he knew his exposure to dust, under the conditions he related, adversely affected his condition and caused the severe attack in 1965.
Except under conditions not prevailing here, plaintiff may not by his subsequent affidavit impeach his previous testimony upon deposition or the testimony of his attending physician and sole medical expert. (Amerine v. Amerine, Executor, 177 Kan. 481, 280 P.2d 601, and Steele v. Woodmen of the World, 115 Kan. 159, 222 Pac. 76.)
Since the enactment in 1903 of the precursor of K.S.A. 12-105, this court has repeatedly held the timely filing of a statement required *550 by the statute to be a condition precedent to maintaining a suit against a municipality.
The mandatory compliance with the requirements of K.S.A. 12-105, as a condition precedent to the maintenance of an action against the city to recover personal injury or property damage, is discussed in depth, and decisions dealing with the subject are reviewed, in the recent case of Workman v. City of Emporia, 200 Kan. 112, 434 P.2d 846, and need not be restated. It suffices to say that on the record before us here the trial court correctly ruled that plaintiff had failed to meet the requirements of the statute.
Plaintiff cites and relies heavily on the cases of Morris v. Dines Mining Co., 174 Kan. 216, 256 P.2d 129; Kitchener v. Williams, 171 Kan. 540, 236 P.2d 64, and Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, 93 L. Ed. 1282, 69 S. Ct. 1018, 11 A.L.R.2d 252. These cases deal with the application of statute of limitations; Morris and Kitchener with respect to a common-law tort action and Urie with respect to an action brought under the Federal Employers' Liability Act. The thrust of the decision in each case is that the statute of limitations does not commence to run so as to bar an action until the complaining party has suffered substantial damage as in Kitchener or the injury became ascertainable as in Urie and Morris, as distinguished in point of time from when a defendant's first negligent act occurred.
Both Morris and Urie suffered silicosis allegedly resulting from exposure to dust.
In fixing time with respect to the statute of limitations under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, the United States Supreme Court in Urie adopted the rule as follows:
The nature of plaintiff's ailment was manifest and its connection with his employment was fully known to him in 1965, when he could have instituted an action.
Plaintiff complains the trial court erred in sustaining an objection of defendant to interrogatories propounded during the course of pretrial discovery proceedings. Apparently, the objection was sustained on the grounds that the interrogatories were too indefinite and framed to elicit answers which would not be admissible in evidence *551 under K.S.A. 60-451. The issue raised by plaintiff is not precisely framed by the record before us. Apparently, the interrogatories in question concerned whether the city had made alterations or repairs to the water plant subsequent to April 1, 1966. It appears from the record that some interrogatories, dealing with the same subject, were subsequently submitted to, and answered by, defendant. In any event, plaintiff fails to show how he was prejudiced, as the issue of negligence on the part of defendant was not resolved or considered by the trial court in rendering the summary judgment appealed from.
The judgment is affirmed.