Opinion ID: 1102212
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: liberative prescription

Text: In their argument before us, Drs. Rabito, Breaux, and Krefft contend that instead of applying the general rules of prescription provided in the Civil Code, this case should have been resolved with the more specific rules enunciated in the Medical Malpractice Act. Simply stated, they urge that the lower courts should not have simultaneously applied the principles of interruption and suspension of prescription. We agree. Liberative prescription is a mode of extinguishing a legal claim that has not been filed by a creditor during a time period stipulated by law. La.Civ.Code art. 3447; G. Baudier-Lacantinerie & A. Tissier, TRAITE THEORIQUE ET PRATIQUE DE DROIT CIVIL, No. 25 (4th ed.1924), reprinted in 5 CIVIL LAW TRANSLATIONS at 15 (La. St. Law Inst. Trans.1972). The basis for prescription may be said to rest on three major policies. First, it promotes social and legal stability. Id., supra, No. 27, at 16-17. Second, prescription is based partially on a presumption of payment. Id., supra, No. 32, at 21. Third, when prescription extinguishes a debt it is usually because of the negligence of the creditor. [4] Prescription runs against all persons unless an exception is established by legislation. La.Civ.Code art. 3467. When a petition reveals on its face that prescription has run, the plaintiff bears the burden of establishing that the claim has not prescribed. Wimberly v. Gatch, 93-2361 (La.4/11/94), 635 So.2d 206. The three legislative principles on which plaintiff can rely to meet that burden are suspension, interruption, and renunciation. Id. Because prescription adversely affects creditors, prescription may be suspended in favor of creditors who cannot enforce their claims. Suspension of prescription constitutes a temporary halt to its running. One doctrinal source aptly describes suspension as a period of time in which prescription slumbers. G. Baudier-Lacantinerie & A. Tissier, supra, No. 415, at 221-22. Prescription is suspended for as long as the cause of suspension continues. After the cause for the suspension ends, the prescriptive time begins running and the time which precede[d] the suspension is added to the time which follows it to compose the necessary period; only the period of the suspension is deducted. Id. At the root of the principle of suspension is the recognition that a creditor should not lose his legal claim during a period when enforcement of the claim is prevented. Id., Nos. 368, 389, at 193, 207-08. In contrast to suspension, interruption not only stops the running of prescription, it annuls the commenced prescription so that after the interruption ceases, a new prescription must commence. Id., No. 415, at 221. Furthermore, unlike suspension which requires no act by the creditor, interruption results from an act by a creditor or a debtor's renunciation. La.Civ.Code arts. 3462-66. In the case sub judice, it is clear that the one-year prescriptive period found in La.Civ. Code art. 3492 governs plaintiff's wrongful death action against Drs. Rabito, Breaux, and Krefft. La.Civ.Code art. 3492; Taylor v. Giddens, 618 So.2d 834 (La.1993). Accordingly, the prescriptive period in the case before us commenced on August 20, 1991, the date of Mr. LeBreton's death. [5] It is likewise clear that plaintiff's initial filing of her law suit in district court on August 18, 1992, and her filing of the request for a medical review panel on August 19, 1992, were both filed within the one-year prescriptive period. As stated earlier, plaintiff's law suit in district court was dismissed without prejudice on July 20, 1993, after the defendants raised the dilatory exception of prematurity. Although the medical review panel notified plaintiff's attorney on August 14, 1996, of its decision, the plaintiff did not re-file her law suit until February 3, 1997, well beyond the ninety-day suspensive period provided by La.R.S. 40:1299.47(A)(2)(a). The lower courts, after considering these facts, found that because of interruption caused by the filing of the plaintiff's law suit as provided by La.Civ.Code art. 3462 and its later dismissal without prejudice, plaintiff had one-year after the expiration of the suspensive period spelled out in La.R.S. 40:1299.47(A)(2)(a) within which to file suit. [6] Rules of statutory construction provide that where two statutes deal with the same subject matter, they should be harmonized if possible; however, if there is a conflict, the statute specifically directed to the matter at issue must prevail as an exception to the statute more general in character. State ex rel. Bickman v. Dees, 367 So.2d 283 (La.1978); Esteve v. Allstate Ins. Co., 351 So.2d 117 (La.1977). Actions for medical malpractice against certain health care providers, such as the defendants herein, are governed by special laws, Part XXIII of Chapter 5, Miscellaneous Health Provisions of La.R.S. 40:1299.41, et seq. and La.R.S. 9:5628, which delineate the liberative prescription applicable to actions for medical malpractice under Title 40. It specifically provides, inter alia, that the filing of a medical malpractice claim with the board only suspends the time within which suit must be instituted in a district court. On the other hand, if the general codal articles of 3466 and 3472 apply, as the lower courts found in the present case in keeping with the Hernandez decision, then the prescription and suspension provisions provided in the Medical Malpractice Act will be written out. Therein lies the conflict. If we let this ruling stand, we will condone and encourage the technique of unnecessarily prolonging malpractice litigation by a lesser standard. The party who improperly files a premature medical malpractice suit without first filing the claim with the board for a medical review panel, and whose suit is subsequently dismissed without prejudice, gains an additional year of prescription in addition to the suspended time provided by the Medical Malpractice Act, within which to file the suit anew. La.R.S. 40:1299.47(B)(1)(a)(i) provides: No action against a health care provider covered by this Part, or his insurer, may be commenced in any court before the claimant's proposed complaint has been presented to a medical review panel established pursuant to this Section. (Emphasis added). As we recognized in Everett v. Goldman, 359 So.2d 1256 (La.1978), this provision requires that a patient must provoke a medical review panel and receive an opinion from it before he can file suit in a court of law. Id. at 1263. If a medical review panel is timely confected, La.R.S. 40:1299.47(A)(2)(a) complements La.R.S. 40:1299.47(B)(1)(a)(i) by specially providing that [t]he filing of the request for a review of a claim shall suspend the time within which suit must be instituted,... until ninety days following notification... to the claimant or his attorney of the issuance of the opinion by the medical review panel.... (Emphasis added). Thus, the plaintiff in the present case had available the suspension of prescription for ninety days as provided in La.R.S. 40:1299.47(A)(2)(a). Simply stated, the filing of a medical malpractice claim with a medical review panel triggered the suspension of prescription specially provided by the Medical Malpractice Act, rather than the interruption of the liberative prescriptive period generally provided in the Civil Code. See Bordelon v. Kaplan, 96-1205 (La.App. 3 Cir. 3/5/97), 692 So.2d 581; Wimberly v. Schumpert Med. Ctr., 25,957 (La.App. 2 Cir. 8/17/94), 641 So.2d 1016, writ denied, 94-2311 (La.12/19/94), 648 So.2d 401. Accordingly, we find that the holding of Hernandez v. Lafayette Bone & Joint Clinic, 467 So.2d 113 (La.App. 3 Cir.1985) is not supportable, since it does not take into consideration the special rules formulated specifically for medical malpractice claims and is, therefore, overruled. Having so found, we further determine that the lower courts in the present case erred as a matter of law in finding that plaintiff's prematurely filed law suit could be simultaneously utilized with the special medical malpractice legislation to defeat the defendants' peremptory exception of prescription. As elaborated upon hereafter, we find that our determination comports with the rationale for suspension espoused by G. Baudier-Lacantinerie & A. Tissier, as well as Plainiol. In 1 M. Plainiol, TRAITE ELEMENTAIRE DE DROIT CIVIL, No. 2698 (12 th ed.1939), reprinted in TREATISE ON THE CIVIL LAW at 594 (La.St.L.Trans.1959), Plainiol explained that suspension of prescription is a measure of equity, invented through regard for certain persons who are not in a position to interrupt prescription when it is running against them. In this statement Plainiol recognized that suspension exists as an equalizer to litigants who find themselves in those instances where interruption of prescription is not available. In the present case, by virtue of the legislative enactment calling for the necessity of a medical preview panel prior to submission of the case to the district court, the legislature by special provision for the inclusion of suspension excluded the applicability of interruption of prescription. Keeping in mind Plainiol's explanation for the underlying need for the principle of suspension, it is evident that the Louisiana Medical Malpractice Act took cognizance of the need to suspend prescription and fully protects plaintiffs who would otherwise suffer the detrimental effect of liberative prescription. Because the Medical Malpractice Act prohibits the filing of a medical malpractice claim against a qualified health care provider prior to panel review, the act specifies that the filing of a request for review before a panel suspends prescription. La.R.S. 40:1299.47(A)(2)(a). Moreover, as provided by statute, the filing of the complaint prevents prescription from lapsing during the pendency of the review process and further suspends prescription from the time of filing until ninety-days following notification to the claimant or his attorney of the panel opinion. Id. After reviewing these special provisions, it is clear that the legislature has equitably provided for suspension to aid the plaintiff in the medical malpractice arena who is prevented by law from the outset from filing suit against the qualified health care provider. Simply applying the rules of suspension provided in the Medical Malpractice Act to the case before us, plaintiff's claim remained unaffected by prescription from August 19, 1992, through November 13, 1996, a period of fifty-one months. Thus, considering the doctrinal underpinnings for the existence of the rules of suspension, it is evident that there is no need for the general rules of interruption of prescription to combine with suspension to synergistically benefit the plaintiff. [7] We further find that our ruling also serves the judicial system by eliminating an advantage which Hernandez granted to those litigants who failed to follow the proper procedural sequence in medical malpractice litigation. As applied by Hernandez, those litigants who did not first submit their claim to a medical malpractice review panel as provided in La.R.S. 40:1299.47(B)(1)(a)(i) before filing suit in district court benefitted from their error by receiving an additional year after suspension had run within which to file their suit. Under our ruling herein, this anachronistic benefit exists no longer.