Opinion ID: 2385358
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: (2) Accrual of a cause of action in negligence

Text: Under D.C.Code § 12-301(3) (1981), a lawsuit to maintain a cause of action for the recovery of damages to real or personal property also must be brought within three years of the claim's accrual. Here too, we must look to case law for the meaning of the term accrue. In the leading case of Hanna v. Fletcher, 97 U.S.App.D.C. 310, 313, 231 F.2d 469, 472, cert. denied, 351 U.S. 989, 76 S.Ct. 1051, 100 L.Ed. 1501 (1956), the court stated that in a suit based upon negligence and sounding in tort, the cause of action did not accrue until injury resulted from the alleged negligence. This same rule was applied to malpractice suits in Fort Myers Seafood Packers, Inc. v. Steptoe and Johnson, 127 U.S.App.D.C. 93, 94, 381 F.2d 261, 262 (1967), cert. denied, 390 U.S. 946, 88 S.Ct. 1033, 19 L.Ed.2d 1135 (1968). In Hanna, appellant suffered injury while falling down a flight of stairs leading to the street from his home. The injuries were suffered in 1949 and the complaint alleged that the repairs to the steps and railing were negligently performed in 1942. Despite the intervention of seven years, the cause of action was held to be timely. 97 U.S.App.D.C. at 313, 231 F.2d at 472. In the case at bar, Judge Doyle found that appellant suffered his injury [12] five and one-half years before his complaint was filed. Presumably, he identified the point at which the statute began to run as the date appellant's pipes first froze and burst. The record supports this conclusion with respect to appellant's cause of action based upon the construction and design of the south wall and its related plumbing. While a traditional negligence theory fails as to this part of the claim, it is not clear when appellant suffered injury due to defects in the installation of the window panes and the heater. The possibility that such injury was not suffered until 1982 would make appellant's claims timely even without application of the discovery rule and raises an issue of material fact that must be addressed on remand.