Opinion ID: 2633326
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: John's Heating's argument

Text: John's Heating contends that the superior court committed legal error on remand and that its findings of fact establish as a matter of law that the lawsuit is time-barred by the applicable two-year statute of limitations, AS 09.10.070(a). [20] John's Heating does not challenge the superior court's fact findings establishing that the Lambs did not know before January 1993 that the furnace might be responsible for their symptoms and that their prior inquiry was reasonable. It instead advances a more subtle and complex attack. Relying on the superior court's statement that the Lambs were put on inquiry notice more than two years before they filed suit, [21] it reasons that our case law and remand instructions obliged the superior court to determine whether the interval between January 1993 and the second anniversary of the inquiry notice date allowed a reasonable time in which to file suit. It asserts that it is entitled to judgment because the superior court could not have made the findings that would have been necessary to render the Lambs' complaint timely. Thus, John's Heating reasons that the court would have been required to find that the Lambs had reasonable time in which to sue between January 1993, when their inquiry became successful, and the second anniversary of the inquiry notice date. Although John's Heating does not specify the date when it thinks the Lambs were put on inquiry notice, it necessarily assumes that it was more than two years before December 23, 1993, when the Lambs filed suit. John's Heating derives its multi-part analysis from Cameron v. State [22] and John's Heating Service v. Lamb. [23] To support its contention that the Lambs exceeded the reasonable time for filing suit, John's Heating asserts that eight and one-half months (the interval between the January 31, 1993 revelation and the second anniversary of Galloway's October 15, 1991 service call) left the Lambs plenty of time in which to sue. It refers us to a March 15, 1993 letter written by the Lambs' lawyer notifying a realty company that the Lambs intended to bring claims for exposure to carbon monoxide in the house. From this John's Heating reasons both that the Lambs had the assistance of counsel months before the complaint was filed and that their lawyer understood the instrument of harm. It also asserts that the Lambs bore the burden on the issue but failed to explain why they did not file suit before December 23, 1993.