Opinion ID: 201989
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: General Approach to Limitations and Tolling

Text: 42 We look to the long history of statutory interpretation of other provisions of the Maine tolling statutes. Under the pre-1900 versions of § 853, which permitted tolling only for insanity, the Maine Law Court twice held that once the disability was removed the statute of limitations began running, regardless of whether there was a later period of disability. [I]f disability could be added to disability, claims might be protracted to an indefinite period, and this was unacceptable. Butler v. Howe, 13 Me. 397, 402 (1836); see also McCutchen, 47 A. at 923 (When the statute of limitations has once begun to run, it is not interrupted by a subsequent disability.). 43 Further, historically, Maine has held that relief under the statute is afforded ... only when the disability existed when the cause of action accrued. McCutchen, 47 A. at 923. If a disability does not exist at the time of accrual, tolling is unavailable. 10 Dasha, 665 A.2d at 994-95. This may be true even when it appears that the tort caused the disability to arise. McCutchen, 47 A. at 923. 44 The Maine courts have also been noticeably and consistently strict in interpreting the other aspects of tolling provisions. A key principle is that these exceptions to statutes of limitations must be narrowly construed. Dasha, 665 A.2d at 995-96. The Maine Law Court has said that when [t]he legislature has explicitly outlined the contours of the statute of limitations it leaves no room for [the courts] to carve out an exception to these rules. Id. at 996. 45 Resort to analogy to related areas of law shows a similar strict approach. The Maine courts have not been receptive to quasi-tolling arguments about equitable estoppel of the limitations defense or to equitable tolling itself, where plaintiffs claiming repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse have tried to use those doctrines to escape the strictures imposed on statutory tolling. In McAfee itself, 637 A.2d at 465-66, in Harkness v. Fitzgerald, 701 A.2d 370, 372-73 (Me.1997), and in Nuccio, 673 A.2d at 1334-35, the court rejected repressed memory claims as grounds for tolling, estoppel, or creation of a discovery rule. We think the Maine Law Court is unlikely to be more generous to claims where the plaintiff in fact recalls the event, but asserts that her emotional condition suppressed her ability to act on it.