Title: Kambury v. DaimlerChrysler Corp.
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S48459
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: July 18, 2002

Filed:  July 18, 2002
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON

DENNIS KAMBURY,
Personal Representative of the
ESTATE OF 
AMY BETH KAMBURY,
	Respondent on Review,
	v.
DAIMLERCHRYSLER CORPORATION,
a Delaware corporation,
and NORTHWEST JEEP EAGLE, INC.,
an Oregon corporation,
	Petitioners on Review,
	and
DAIMLERCHRYSLER MOTORS CORPORATION,
CHRYSLER CORPORATION,
CHRYSLER MOTORS CORPORATION
and 
DAIMLERCHRYSLER AG,
	Defendants.
(CC 9812-083787; CA A107705; SC S48459)

	En Banc
	On review from the Court of Appeals.*
	Argued and submitted March 14, 2002.
	Peter R Chamberlain, of Bodyfelt Mount Stroup &amp; Chamberlain,
Portland, argued the cause and filed the briefs for petitioner on
review DaimlerChrysler Corporation.  With him on the briefs was
Roger K. Stroup.  John H. Holmes, of Holmes &amp; Rickles, Portland,  
appeared on the petition for review for petitioner Northwest Jeep
Eagle, Inc.
	Robert K. Udziela, of the Law Office of Robert K. Udziela,
Portland, argued the cause and filed the briefs for respondent on
review.
	Megan A. Flynn, of Preston Bunnell &amp; Stone, LLP, Portland,
filed a brief on behalf of amicus curiae Oregon Trial Lawyers
Association.
	DE MUNIZ, J.
	The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.  The case
is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings.
	*Appeal from Multnomah County Circuit Court, Thomas M. Christ, Judge Pro Tempore 173 Or App 372, 21 P3d 1089 (2001).
	DE MUNIZ, J.
	This case requires this court to determine which
limitations period applies in a civil action seeking damages for
the death of a person killed by a defective product.  The trial
court examined the statute specifying a three-year limitation
period for wrongful death actions and the statute providing for a
two-year limitation period for product liability actions, and
concluded that the two-year period applied.  The Court of Appeals
analyzed the same statutes and concluded that the three-year
period applied.  Kambury v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., 173 Or App
372, 21 P3d 1089 (2001).  We conclude that the Court of Appeals
erred.  Accordingly, we reverse and remand for further
proceedings.
		On December 6, 1995, Amy Kambury died when the airbag
in her car deployed.  Nearly three years later, on December 1,
1998, the personal representative of her estate (hereinafter
plaintiff) filed an action alleging product liability,
negligence, and breach-of-warranty claims.  Arguing that the
two-year statute of limitations for product liability claims, ORS
30.905(2), barred all plaintiff's claims, defendants moved for
summary judgment.  The trial court granted that motion. 
Plaintiff then filed an amended complaint alleging product
liability, negligence, breach of warranty, negligent
misrepresentation, and intentional misrepresentation. 
Maintaining that the amended complaint was a recharacterization
of plaintiff's untimely product liability claims, defendants
again moved for summary judgment, arguing that the two-year
statute of limitations under ORS 30.905(2) applied to each of
those claims.  The trial court again granted summary judgment.
On appeal, plaintiff argued that the trial court erred
in granting defendants' motions for summary judgment.  After a
lengthy analysis, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court
judgment.  The Court of Appeals held that the three-year
limitation period set out in ORS 30.020 applied to plaintiff's
product liability claim and remanded the matter for further
proceedings. (1)  Kambury, 173 Or App at 375-83.  This court allowed
review to determine which limitation period applies to a product
liability claim alleging that a defective product caused a
person's death.
		ORS 30.900, Oregon's product liability statute
provides, in part:
		"As used in ORS 30.900 to 30.920, 'product
liability civil action' means a civil action brought
against a manufacturer, distributor, seller or lessor
of a product for damages for personal injury, death or
property damage arising out of:
		"(1) Any design, inspection, testing,
manufacturing or other defect in a product;
		"(2) Any failure to warn regarding a product; or
		"(3) Any failure to properly instruct in the use
of a product."
(Emphasis added.)  Thus, ORS 30.900 provides for a civil action
for death arising out of product design defects, failure to warn
regarding a product, or failure to instruct regarding use of a
product.
	The legislature annexed a limitation period of two
years to the statute that created that product liability civil
action.  ORS 30.905(2) provides:
		"Except as provided in ORS 30.907 and 30.908(1) to
(4) [inapplicable here], a product liability civil
action shall be commenced not later than two years
after the date on which the death, injury or damage
complained of occurs."
(Emphasis added.)
		The first claim of plaintiff's amended complaint
alleges that defendant failed to warn of an unsafe product. 
See ORS 30.900 (product liability civil action is civil action
brought against manufacturer or seller, arising out of "[a]ny
failure to warn regarding a product").  The limitation period set
out in ORS 30.905(2) appears to govern that claim.
		Plaintiff argues, however, that the generally
applicable wrongful death statute, ORS 30.020, defines the
limitation period of the claim.  ORS 30.020 provides, in part:
		"(1) When the death of a person is caused by the
wrongful act or omission of another, the personal
representative of the decedent * * * may maintain an
action against the wrongdoer, if the decedent might
have maintained an action, had the decedent lived,
against the wrongdoer for an injury done by the same
act or omission.  The action shall be commenced within
three years after the injury causing the death of the
decedent is discovered or reasonably should have been
discovered by the decedent, by the personal
representative or by a person for whose benefit the
action may be brought under this section if that person
is not the wrongdoer.  In no case may an action be
commenced later than the earliest of:
		"(a) Three years after the death of the
decedent[.]
Plaintiff maintains that the two statutes -- one setting out a
limitations period of two years and one setting out a limitations
period of three years -- are in conflict and that the conflict 
should be resolved in favor of the application of the three-year
period set out in ORS 30.020.
		In support of that argument, plaintiff contends that
Eldridge v. Eastmoreland General Hospital, 307 Or 500, 769 P2d
775 (1989), and Western Helicopter Services v. Rogerson Aircraft,
311 Or 361, 811 P2d 627 (1991), suggest that the three-year
limitation period set out in ORS 30.020 control all wrongful
death actions, including those pleaded under ORS 30.900.  We
disagree.  
In Eldridge, which was not a product liability case,
the issue was whether a discovery rule applied to wrongful death
actions.  In Western Helicopter, a federal district court,
pursuant to Oregon's certification statute, ORS 28.200 to 28.255,
requested that this court answer the same question posed in this
case, namely, whether the three-year limitation period, rather
than the two-year limitation period, applied to a wrongful death
claim premised on a theory of product liability.  Under the
statutory criteria for exercising this court's discretion to
answer certified questions, one consideration is that "it appears
to the certifying court that there is no controlling precedent in
the decisions of the Supreme Court and the intermediate appellate
courts of this state."  ORS 28.200.  This court concluded that a
Court of Appeals' opinion, Korbut v. Eastman Kodak Co., 100 Or
App 649, 787 P2d 896 (1990), was "controlling precedent" under
that statutory criterion, because Korbut was a decision of the
Court of Appeals.  Western Helicopter, 311 Or at 374.  In so
holding, this court specifically declined to address the question
on the merits, observing that "[c]ertification is not a vehicle
in Oregon for obtaining a Supreme Court decision on a question of
law that already has been decided by the Court of Appeals."  Id.
at 365.  This court stated only that "[w]e have left development
of the law in this regard to the Court of Appeals and see no
reason to depart from that course now."  Id. at 374. (2)  Western
Helicopter thus did nothing more than acknowledge that the Court
of Appeals, correctly or incorrectly, had addressed the issue. 
That acknowledgment does not bind this court when it decides to
resolve the issue at a later time.  For the foregoing reasons, we
conclude that Eldridge does not assist our analysis and Western
Helicopter is not dispositive.  Therefore, we return to the
statutes.
		Because ORS 30.020 and ORS 30.900 both provide recovery
for death, either statute, along with its attendant limitation
period, could be applicable to an action seeking recovery for
death.  Because the limitation periods are different, we must
determine which statute, and therefore which corresponding
limitation period, the legislature intended to apply to wrongful
death actions based on product liability.  To resolve the
apparent statutory conflict, we apply the statutory construction
methodology established in PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries,
317 Or 606, 611, 859 P2d 1143 (1993).  Under that methodology, we
first look to the text of the statute, in its context, because
the best evidence of legislative intent is the text of the
statute itself.  If the intent is clear from the text and
context, further analysis is unnecessary.  Id.  As part of the
first level of a PGE analysis, we adhere to the rule of statutory
construction that a specific statute controls over a general
statute.  See ORS 174.020(2) ("When a general and particular
provision are inconsistent, the latter is paramount to the former
so that a particular intent controls a general intent that is
inconsistent with the particular intent."); PGE, 317 Or at 611
(explaining use of canons of construction in first-level
analysis).
		Consistent with the above mentioned rule of
construction, this court explained in State v. Guzek, 322 Or 245,
268, 906 P2d 272 (1995), that "when one statute deals with a
subject in general terms and another deals with the same subject
in a more minute and definite way, the two should be read
together and harmonized, if possible, while giving effect to a
consistent legislative policy."  See also State ex rel Juv. Dept.
v. M.T., 321 Or 419, 426, 899 P2d 1192 (1995) ("When a general
statute and a specific statute both purport to control an area of
law, this court considers the specific statute to take precedence
over an inconsistent general statute related to the same
subject.").
		ORS 30.020 authorizes recovery for death if the
decedent could have brought an action had the decedent survived,
"for an injury done by the same act or omission."  (Emphasis
added.)  The statute does not confine the emphasized phrase to a
particular source of injury.  
		However, in ORS 30.900 the legislature created a remedy
for death caused by a particular source, specifically product
defects, and provided a two-year period of limitations for those
claims.  In doing so, the legislature has dealt with wrongful
death actions based on product liability in a "more minute and
definite way[.]"  Guzek, 322 Or at 268.  As a result, the product
liability statute of limitations is the more specific statute and
must control over the more general wrongful death statute of
limitations.  Accordingly, the two-year product liability
limitation period set out in ORS 30.905(2) governs plaintiff's
claim for death from a product defect.
		Plaintiff requests that, if this court decides that the
two-year limitations period applies to the product liability
action in this case, then the court should apply that rule
prospectively only.  Plaintiff maintains that he reasonably
relied on statements in this court's prior case law supporting a
three-year limitations period and that applying a new rule would
work an inequitable result in this case.  In Peterson v. Temple,
323 Or 322, 918 P2d 413 (1996), this court announced a new rule
that required mandatory joinder of claims for personal injury and
for property damage arising from a particular set of facts. 
Previously, this court specifically had stated that Oregon law
permitted a plaintiff to split claims and sue separately on
personal injury and property claims.  Gaul v. Tourtellotte, 260
Or 14, 17, 488 P2d 416 (1971); Winters v. Bisaillon, 153 Or 509,
512, 57 P2d 1095 (1936).  This court concluded in Peterson that
the plaintiff reasonably relied on this court's prior statements
that claim-splitting was permissible and, therefore, relieved the
plaintiff from the application of the new rule.  Peterson, 323 Or
at 333-34.
In this instance, by contrast, this court had made no
definitive statements that the three-year wrongful death
limitation period trumped the two-year limitation period for
product liability civil actions.  As previously noted, Eldridge
was not a product liability case and Western Helicopter declined
to address the issue.  Plaintiff could not reasonably rely on
this court's silence, particularly when the product liability
civil action statute on which plaintiff relies explicitly
specifies a two-year limitations period for death arising from
product defects.  Accordingly, we decline to limit our decision
to prospective application only. (3)
		The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.  The
case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings.

1. 	Remand to the trial court was appropriate after
deciding that single issue, despite the existence of the other
claims, because the trial court had concluded that the two-year
statute of limitations for product liability actions applied to
all plaintiff's claims.  Reversal on that single ground thus was
sufficient to undermine the entire judgment below.

2. 	The court explained elsewhere in the opinion: 
		"Where the controlling precedent is an opinion of
the Court of Appeals, we shall review the request for
certification in much the same way we would review a
petition for review of the Court of Appeals decision. 
In those cases in which this court probably would allow
review of the Court of Appeals decision, we likewise
will accept certification."
Id. at 367.  In fact, this court already had denied review in
Korbut.  310 Or 70, 792 P2d 104 (1990).

3. 	In the Court of Appeals, plaintiff presented other
arguments, including an argument that the two-year limitations
period of ORS 30.905(2) does not apply to plaintiff's claims for
negligence, breach of warranty, negligent misrepresentation, and
intentional misrepresentation.  The Court of Appeals did not have
to reach plaintiff's other arguments under its resolution of the
case.  In light of our decision to reverse the decision of the
Court of Appeals, that court must now consider plaintiff's other
arguments.