Opinion ID: 2641040
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Preamendment Version of the PCRA Applies

Text: ¶12 The Utah Code articulates a general presumption against retroactivity. UTAH CODE § 68-3-3. By statute, “‘a provision of the Utah Code is not retroactive, unless the provision is expressly declared to be retroactive.’” State v. Clark, 2011 UT 23, ¶ 11, 251 P.3d 829 (quoting UTAH CODE § 68-3-3). In this case, there is no expression of retroactivity in the 2012 amendments, and no other basis for applying the amended provisions exists. Accordingly, we find the preamendment version of the statute controls. ¶13 Under our case law, “the parties’ substantive rights and liabilities are determined by the law in place at the time when a cause of action arises,” while their procedural rights and responsibilities are governed by “the law in effect at the time of the procedural act” at issue. Id. ¶¶ 12, 14 (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, if survivability is a matter of substance, then that question is governed by the law in place when Mr. Gressman’s claim arose. If it is a procedural matter, on the other hand, then subsequent enactments (like the 2012 amendments) could be deemed to apply. ¶14 We view the 2012 amendments in question as clearly substantive. The amended provisions foreclose postjudgment interest for financial assistance payments and cut off such payments altogether after the death of the defendant-petitioner. See UTAH CODE §§ 78B-9-402(14), -405(8) (2012). They accordingly “enlarge, eliminate, or destroy vested or contractual rights” and do not merely dictate “the practice and procedure or the legal machinery by which the substantive law is determined or made effective.” Brown & Root Indus. Serv. v. Indus. Comm’n of Utah, 947 P.2d 671, 675 (Utah 1997) 1 (...continued) In addition, any payments already being made under Section 78B-9- 405 shall cease upon the death of the petitioner.” UTAH CODE § 78B- 9-402(14) (2012). In 2013, after briefing and oral argument in this appeal had been completed, the legislature amended the PCRA once again. The 2013 amendment provides that a factual innocence claim survives the death of a petitioner and that financial assistance payments shall be remitted to a surviving spouse if the petitioner was married at the time the petitioner was found guilty and remained continuously married until the petitioner’s death. Id. § 78B-9-402(14) (2013). 5 GRESSMAN v. STATE Opinion of the Court (internal quotation marks omitted). We therefore hold that Mr. Gressman’s petition is governed by the law in effect in 2008, not by the 2012 amendments enacted during the pendency of this action. ¶15 In arguing the contrary, the State seeks to invoke a narrow exception to the retroactivity ban for amendments that merely clarify existing law, insisting that the bill introducing the amendments announced that it “ma[de] clarifying amendments to factual innocence provisions.” 2012 Utah Laws 896. We decline to invoke this exception. ¶16 Though our case law has occasionally referred to “amendments clarifying statutes” as an “exception” to the retroactivity ban, see, e.g., Keegan v. State, 896 P.2d 618, 620 (Utah 1995), we have never applied them as such. Instead, our retroactivity case law has invoked this “exception” only in connection with statutory amendments that we have characterized as procedural.2 2 Due S., Inc. v. Dep’t of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 2008 UT 71, ¶ 14, 197 P.3d 82 (determining that an amendment affecting a standard of review was retroactive because it was a clarification and because “the standard of review is a matter of procedural, rather than substantive, law” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Kilpatrick v. Wiley, Rein & Fielding, 2001 UT 107, ¶ 59, 37 P.3d 1130 (applying an amendment retroactively because the court considered the amendments to be both a clarification and procedural because they did not affect the plaintiffs’ “vested or contractual right[s]”); Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp. v. Utah State Tax Comm’n, 953 P.2d 435, 440 (Utah 1997) (applying an amendment retroactively because it was a “clarifying amendment . . . to a procedural statute”); State v. Higgs, 656 P.2d 998, 1001–02 (Utah 1982) (holding that remedial amendments that affect only procedure or practice applied retroactively); McGuire v. Univ. of Utah Med. Ctr., 603 P.2d 786, 788 (Utah 1979) (relying on Foil v. Ballinger to hold that an amendment to a procedural statute had retroactive effect); Foil v. Ballinger, 601 P.2d 144, 150–51 (Utah 1979) (determining that amendments to a procedural statute are retroactive, particularly when “a remedial statute [is] passed to clarify an earlier procedural enactment”); cf. State v. Angilau, 2011 UT 3, ¶ 1 n.2, 245 P.3d 745 (noting that an amendment applied retroactively after “both parties . . . stipulated that [the] statutory issues are . . . moot”); Gohler v. Wood, 919 P.2d 561, 563 n.2 (Utah 1996) (applying a statute retroactively where the parties all conceded that the statute was a clarification with retroactive effect); Hamblin v. City of Clearfield, 795 P.2d 1133, 1136 (Utah 1990) (giving a statute “retroactive” effect where the analysis (continued...) 6 Cite as: 2013 UT 63 Opinion of the Court And when our cases discuss the “clarifying amendment exception,” it is always in tandem with or as a counterpart to our analysis of the above-noted distinction between substance and procedure. See Foil v. Ballinger, 601 P.2d 144, 151 (Utah 1979) (“The principle [that amendments to procedural statutes apply to accrued, pending and future actions] applies with particular force to a remedial statute passed to clarify an earlier procedural enactment.”).3 That limitation is entirely appropriate. The governing statute, after all, makes no express room for an exception for clarifying amendments per se. The sole exception spelled out explicitly by statute requires an express provision for retroactivity. See UTAH CODE § 68-3-3. ¶17 In any event, the 2012 amendments cannot be construed as a mere clarification. “An amendment serves as a clarification when it corrects a discrepancy or merely amplif[ies] . . . how the law should have been understood prior to [the amendment].” Salt Lake Cnty. v. Holliday Water Co., 2010 UT 45, ¶ 43, 234 P.3d 1105 (alterations in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). In past cases, we have decided whether an amendment is a mere clarification by asking whether it alters or explains language already present in the original statute or whether the amendment added new language or subsections that “did not exist in any form before the amendments were made.” Id. ¶ 44. An amendment that does the former is more likely clarifying in nature; one that does the latter is not. See id. ¶18 The 2012 amendments concerning survivability fall in the latter category. The amendments set up a bifurcated survival scheme, wherein a basic claim for expungement survives a claimant’s death, but claims for monetary assistance payments abate. 2 (...continued) under the previous version of the statute was “the same as [the] analysis under the . . . amendment”). 3 See Keegan, 896 P.2d at 620 (“[A]n exception exists for amendments clarifying statutes, which are applied retroactively, so long as they do not enlarge, eliminate, or destroy vested or contractual rights.” (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)); Rocky Mountain Thrift Stores, Inc. v. Salt Lake City Corp., 784 P.2d 459, 461–62 (Utah 1989) (alluding to the clarifying amendment exception but stating that “[a] later statute or amendment should not be applied in a retroactive manner to deprive a party of his rights or impose greater liability upon him.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 7 GRESSMAN v. STATE Opinion of the Court See UTAH CODE § 78B-9-402(14) (2012). Nothing in the prior version of the PCRA could possibly be construed as contemplating this bifurcated system. The 2012 amendment establishes an entirely new framework, not a clarification of an old one. ¶19 The preamble to the amendment, relied on heavily by the State, is not to the contrary. Though the preamble describes the bill as “mak[ing] clarifying amendments to factual innocence provisions,” it goes on to specify the changes made, in a manner differentiating clarifying changes from substantive ones. 2012 Utah Laws 896. For instance, it states that the bill “clarifies the requirement of a hearing if the state does not stipulate to factual innocence” and “clarifies that all proceedings are governed by Utah Rules of Civil procedure, Rule 65C.” Id. In describing the amendments related to survivability, however, the preamble in no way paints them as merely clarifying. Instead, it states that the bill “disallows prejudgment interest on payments made to a person after a finding of factual innocence” and “provides that assistance payments on a claim of factual innocence are extinguished upon the death of the petitioner.” Id. Thus, the preamble recognizes that some of the amendments are clarifications and some are not—and places the survivability provision in the latter category. ¶20 For these reasons, we determine that the 2012 amendments discussing the survivability of factual innocence claims are not retroactive.4 Rather, survivability for purposes of this case is governed by the versions of the PCRA and Utah’s survival statute in effect when Mr. Gressman’s claim arose. A cause of action arises “when it becomes remediable in the courts,” which normally occurs when “all elements of a cause of action come into being.” Davidson Lumber Sales, Inc. v. Bonneville Inv., Inc., 794 P.2d 11, 19 (Utah 1990). This case is unusual, however, in that Mr. Gressman did not have a remediable factual innocence claim until the legislature first created the cause of action in 2008. See 2008 Utah Laws 2298–2300. Therefore, Mr. Gressman’s claim did not arise until that time, and we look to 4 Mr. Gressman argues that the State is estopped from claiming that the 2012 amendments are retroactive because it assured the legislature that the amendments would not apply to Mr. Gressman’s claim but would apply only to future cases. Because we determine that the 2012 amendments are not retroactive, we decline to address this argument. However, we do consider the State’s conduct in arguing to this court that the amendment is retroactive, after assuring the legislature that the amendment would not be retroactive, to be troubling. 8 Cite as: 2013 UT 63 Opinion of the Court the 2008 versions of the PCRA and the survival statute to decide whether Mr. Gressman’s factual innocence claim survives his death. 2. The Preamendment PCRA Does Not Provide for the Survival of Mr. Gressman’s Claims ¶21 The applicable version of the PCRA does not speak to survivability. As the State notes, the statute does contemplate a claimant “who has been convicted of a felony offense” petitioning the court “for a hearing to establish that the person is factually innocent of the crime or crimes of which the person was convicted.” See UTAH CODE § 78B-9-402(2)(a) (2008). And the statutory remedies—financial assistance payments, expungement, an innocence letter, and access to certain services and programs—are aimed at the wrongfully convicted person. See id. § 78B-9-405(1)(a), (6), (7) (2008). But those provisions answer only the threshold question of who the primary claimant is; they say nothing of significance on the secondary question of whether such claimant’s interests survive death and may be asserted by a representative. On its face, then, the PCRA seems not to speak to the question of survivability. ¶22 The legislative history relied on by the district court is not to the contrary. At most, that history indicates only that members of the legislature generally analogized the PCRA’s compensation scheme to “a workers compensation system” and suggested that it was patterned after the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund of 2001. But that tells us nothing of consequence to the survivability of the statutory factual innocence claim under the PCRA. The PCRA’s compensation provisions may be analogous to workers compensation and the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund in some respects, but they are distinguishable in another, more salient sense: workers compensation statutes and the 9/11 fund expressly provide for survivability, while the PCRA does not.5 Absent some specific provision for survivability in the PCRA, we cannot rely on general references to other claims that do survive death to import the same principle into the PCRA. We accordingly find no basis in the 5 Compare UTAH CODE § 34A-2-106(1)(a) (“[T]he injured employee, or in case of death, the employee’s dependents, may claim compensation[.]”), and Final Report of the Special Master for the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001, at 22–23, available at www.justice.gov/final_report.pdf, with UTAH CODE § 78B-9-405 (2008). 9 GRESSMAN v. STATE Opinion of the Court PCRA—or in its legislative history—to support a holding for survivability. C. Utah’s Survival Statute Preserves Mr. Gressman’s Claims ¶23 Because the PCRA does not address the survival of Mr. Gressman’s claims, we examine Utah’s general survival statute to determine whether it supplants the common law rule of abatement in this case. We find that it does. ¶24 The common law rule of abatement of personal tort claims has been modified to one extent or another by survival statutes, which have been adopted by most states. PROSSER AND KEETON ON THE LAW OF TORTS § 126 (W. Page Keeton et al. eds., 5th ed. 1984). Utah’s survival statute provides that “[a] cause of action arising out of personal injury to a person . . . does not abate upon the death of the wrongdoer or the injured person.” UTAH CODE § 78B-3-107(1)(a). In determining whether a statutory claim under the PCRA constitutes a cause of action for “personal injury to a person,” we look to analogous common law claims. See PROSSER AND KEETON ON THE LAW OF TORTS, supra, § 126 (Federal statutory claims under statutes without survival provisions “either survive or not according to whether a similar action would survive under state law.”); Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 387–89 (2007) (finding that the common law tort of false imprisonment “provides the proper analogy” for determining the accrual date of a statutory section 1983 cause of action). As previously noted, the closest common law analogs to Mr. Gressman’s statutory factual innocence claim are false imprisonment and malicious prosecution. Supra ¶ 9. ¶25 Under the common law, both false imprisonment and the malicious prosecution of a criminal action are categorized as torts against the person (as opposed to torts against property) because these torts infringe upon an individual’s personal liberty interests.6 The Restatement (Second) of Torts groups false imprisonment with other personal torts, such as battery and the negligent infliction of bodily harm, because false imprisonment similarly implicates an invasion of the “interests of personality.” RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF 6 In addition to personal torts and property torts, Utah recognizes injury to reputation as a third category of tortious conduct. UTAH CONST. art. I, § 11 (“All courts shall be open, and every person, for an injury done to him in his person, property or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law . . . .”). We do not decide here whether reputational torts, such as defamation, fall within the ambit of Utah’s survival statute. 10 Cite as: 2013 UT 63 Opinion of the Court T ORTS , Chapter 2, Introductory Note (1965); see also PROSSER AND KEETON ON THE LAW OF TORTS, supra, § 11 (The tort of false imprisonment “protects the personal interest in freedom from restraint of movement.”); id. § 125A (categorizing false imprisonment, along with battery and negligence, as a tort “affecting the person,” rather than a tort “against real property”). Utah has also long recognized false imprisonment as an “injur[y] to the person” along with assault and battery. Mason, 24 P. at 796 (internal quotation marks omitted). And although the malicious prosecution of a civil suit is considered a property tort, the malicious prosecution of a criminal action is similarly categorized as a personal injury tort. Wild v. Rarig, 234 N.W.2d 775, 791–92 (Minn. 1975); Woodford v. McDaniels, 81 S.E. 544, 546 (W. Va. 1914) (“An action for malicious prosecution . . . is an action for a personal injury.”). ¶26 In accord with this long-standing division between personal torts and property torts, other states have interpreted statutory references to actions for “personal injury,” “injury to the person,” or similar references to personal torts to include actions for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution. Merimee v. Brumfield, 397 N.E.2d 315, 318 (Ind. Ct. App. 1979) (Interpreting the term “personal injuries” in a survival statute, the Indiana Court of Appeals held that “[t]here is considerable authority for the proposition that the term ‘personal injuries’ is a broader, more comprehensive and significant term than the term ‘bodily injury.’ It includes malicious prosecution [and] false imprisonment.”); Rivera v. Double A Transp., Inc., 727 A.2d 204, 207–08 (Conn. 1999) (A twoyear statute of limitations on actions “to recover damages for injury to the person” applied to an action for false imprisonment because “the term ‘injury,’ . . . under both the common and legal usage of the term, includes harm to the mind as well as to the body.”); Morton v. W. Union Tel. Co., 41 S.E. 484, 485 (N.C. 1902) (Interpreting the term “injury to the person” in a survival statute, the North Carolina Supreme Court held that “[p]ersonal injuries may be either bodily or mental, but, whether one or the other, they infringe upon the rights of the person, and not of property.”); Ex parte Holsonback, 182 So. 28, 29–30 (Ala. 1938) (malicious prosecution claim survives under a statute providing for the survival of “all personal actions, except for injuries to the reputation”); Fricke v. Geladaris, Inc., 533 A.2d 971, 971, 973 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 1987) (malicious prosecution claim survives under a statute providing for the survival of an action for any “trespass done to the person”). ¶27 In addition, the United States Supreme Court has held that a statutory section 1983 action, which provides a remedy for 11 GRESSMAN v. STATE Opinion of the Court individuals wrongfully imprisoned or prosecuted under the color of law, is best defined as a personal injury tort claim for the purpose of selecting the appropriate statute of limitations. Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 277–78 (1985), superseded by statute, Judicial Improvements Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101–650, 104 Stat. 5114, as recognized in Jones v. R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., 541 U.S. 369, 377–78 (2004). The Court reasoned that because a section 1983 action provides a remedy for the violation of rights “guaranteed to the person[,] [i]n the broad sense, every cause of action under § 1983 which is well-founded results from personal injuries.” Id. at 278 (internal quotation marks omitted). ¶28 Because common law analogs to a factual innocence claim under the PCRA are commonly included in the definition of actions for “personal injury” or “injury to the person” under survival statutes, and because a similar federal statutory claim has been defined as a personal injury action for the purposes of statutes of limitations, Mr. Gressman’s statutory claim survives because it is an action for “personal injury to a person.” See UTAH CODE § 78B-3- 107(1)(a). ¶29 The dissent reaches a contrary conclusion, reasoning that the phrase “personal injury to a person” could be read broadly to include all actions that are personal in nature or narrowly to include only bodily injury claims. Infra ¶ 59. The dissent prefers the narrow interpretation, concluding that the addition of the phrase “to a person” to the term “personal injury” connotes “physical harm to a claimant’s ‘person.’”7 Infra ¶ 61. Thus, while the dissent concedes 7 The dissent notes that Black’s Law Dictionary acknowledges both a narrow and a broad definition of “personal injury,” defining the term as both (1) “In a negligence action, any harm caused to the person, such as a broken bone, a cut, or a bruise” and (2) “Any invasion of a personal right, including mental suffering and false imprisonment.” BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 857 (9th ed. 2009); see infra ¶ 59 n.1, n.2. But the narrow definition is confined to negligence actions, while Utah’s survival statute includes both intentional torts and negligence, indicating that the broader definition would be more appropriate here. Moreover, the edition of Black’s Law Dictionary that was current when Utah first adopted the term “personal injury” in its survival statute clarified that the broader definition of “personal injury” generally applied to statutes: “[Personal injury] is chiefly used in this connection [defined narrowly] with actions of tort for negligence . . . . But the term is also used (usually in statutes) (continued...) 12 Cite as: 2013 UT 63 Opinion of the Court that Mr. Gressman’s claim is for “personal injury,” it concludes that this claim is not for “personal injury to a person.” Infra ¶ 57. We disagree for two principal reasons. ¶30 First, the history and context of the adoption of the current version of the survival statute demonstrates that the legislature did not intend that the statute be confined to actions for physical injury. Prior to 1991, Utah’s general survival statute provided for the survival of actions “arising out of physical injury to the person.” UTAH CODE § 78-11-12 (1987) (emphasis added). In 1991, the legislature changed the word “physical” to “personal” so that the statute provided for the survival of actions “arising out of personal injury to the person.” 1991 Utah Laws 401 (emphasis added). The dissent argues that this change was of no consequence and that the legislature merely changed a statute that clearly provided for the survival of only physical injury claims to a less clear iteration of the same principle. Infra ¶ 66. But this reading nullifies the legislature’s amendment and improperly assumes this substantive change was an idle act. See 73 AM. JUR. 2D Statutes § 214 n.3 (2012) (“An amendment to a statute making a material change bespeaks a legislative intent to change the meaning of the statute.”). ¶31 In light of the well-established principle that a statutory reference to “personal injury” claims includes all personal torts (as opposed to property torts), the legislature’s 1991 amendment evidences an intent to expand the types of actions that would survive. See supra ¶¶ 26. Moreover, statutes of limitations for personal injury claims are widely recognized to include all personal tort claims—not just claims involving physical injury—further demonstrating the legislature’s intent to expand the scope of the survival statute. See 51 AM. JUR. 2D Limitation of Actions § 123 (2011) (“A claim which is personal injury in nature, for purposes of [a statute of limitations for personal injuries], need not involve a direct 7 (...continued) in a much wider sense, and as including any injury which is an invasion of personal rights [such as] malicious prosecution [and] false imprisonment . . . .” BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 786 (6th ed. 1990); see also Martin v. Derenbecker, 40 So. 849, 851 (La. 1906) (“It might, perhaps, be argued that the application of the words ‘personal injuries,’ as used in the statute, should be confined to cases of physical injury to the person of the wife; but we take those words to be used in their commonly accepted sense, and, thus used, as meaning any injuries which are personal to the wife, and as including injuries to feelings . . . .”). 13 GRESSMAN v. STATE Opinion of the Court physical injury, and may encompass a broad range of infringements of personal rights.” (footnote omitted)); 54 C.J.S. Limitations of Actions § 97 (2005) [renumbered as § 116 in the electronic version] (“Statutes limiting actions for injuries done to the person include actions for injuries done to the individual, as distinguished from injuries done to his or her property,” and govern “various particular actions, such as actions for infliction of mental or emotional distress” and “violation of civil rights.” (footnote omitted)) And in the context of insurance contracts, the term “personal injury” also includes more than just physical injury, encompassing injuries caused by false arrest and civil rights violations. 46 C.J.S. Insurance § 1368 (2007) (“The term ‘personal injury’ is broader and more comprehensive than the term ‘bodily injury’ and is synonymous with ‘injury to person.’” (footnote omitted)); Benjamin v. Amica Mut. Ins. Co., 2006 UT 37, ¶¶ 32–33, 140 P.3d 1210 (personal injury insurance policy covered liability for false imprisonment); Vargas v. Hudson Cnty. Bd. of Elections, 949 F.2d 665, 672 (3d Cir. 1991) (personal injury insurance policy covered liability for civil rights violations). ¶32 Indeed, the legislature’s definition of the term “personal injury” in a contemporary statute indicates that it intended to alter the meaning of the survival statute when it changed “physical injury” to “personal injury.” At the time the legislature amended the survival statute, Utah’s governmental immunity statute defined the phrase “personal injury” to mean “an injury of any kind other than property damage,” demonstrating that the legislature recognized that “personal injury” referred to all personal torts as opposed to property torts. UTAH CODE § 63-30-2(6) (1989). ¶33 Second, we disagree with the dissent’s conclusion that the phrase “to a person” indicates the legislature intended to limit the application of the survival statute to physical injury claims. Both a claim for false imprisonment and a claim for negligent infliction of a physical injury seek redress for harm done “to a person.” Thus, this phrase does nothing to distinguish one from the other. If anything, the repetition of the root word “person” in the phrase “personal injury to a person” emphasizes the inclusion of all personal tort claims in the survival statute. Indeed, the most common statutory phrases used to reference personal tort claims are “personal injury” and “injury to the person.” See supra ¶ 26. The 1991 amendment to the survival statute simply conflated these two phrases to create the term “personal injury to the person.” 1991 Utah Laws 401. A subsequent 2008 amendment changing the article “the” to the article “a,” such that the statute now reads “personal injury to a person,” was deemed by the legislature to be merely stylistic and 14 Cite as: 2013 UT 63 Opinion of the Court did not change the statute’s double reference to personal torts. 2008 Utah Laws 396; UTAH CODE ANN. § 78B-3-107, Amendment Notes (2012) (stating the 2008 amendments were stylistic). ¶34 The essence of the dissent’s reading of the phrase “to a person” is that “[t]he noun ‘person’ indicates a natural body.” Infra, ¶ 61 (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, the dissent interprets the survival statute to provide for the survival of claims for “personal injury to a person’s body.” But the law recognizes that a person is more than a physical conglomeration of tissue and bones that may be cut, bruised, or broken: In law the word ‘person’ does not simply mean the physical body, for, if it did, it would apply equally to a corpse. It means a living person, composed of body and soul. . . . The mind is no less a part of the person than the body, and the sufferings of the former are sometimes more acute and lasting than those of the latter. Morton, 41 S.E. at 485 (internal quotation marks omitted).8 Additionally, the Supreme Court has emphasized that the rights secured by the U.S. Constitution are guaranteed to persons: [T]he Fourteenth Amendment . . . unequivocally recognizes the equal status of every “person” subject to the jurisdiction of any of the several States. The Constitution’s command is that all “persons” shall be accorded the full privileges of citizenship; no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law or be denied the equal protection of the laws. A violation of that command is an injury to the individual rights of the person. Wilson, 471 U.S. at 277. In sum, the inherent, unalienable rights recognized by the U.S. Constitution are also fundamental to the meaning of what it is to be a person. Taken as a whole, therefore, the definition of “person” is broader than an individual’s natural body and is necessarily coextensive with the “interests of personality” vindicated by personal tort law. See RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS, Chapter 2, Introductory Note (1965). ¶35 We therefore conclude that Mr. Gressman’s claims survived his death and the district court properly substituted his widow into the lawsuit. 8 Cf. RENÉ DESCARTES, PRINCIPIA PHILOSOPHIÆ pt. I, § 7 (1644) (“ego cogito, ergo sum” [I think, therefore I am]). 15 GRESSMAN v. STATE Opinion of the Court