Opinion ID: 168782
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Claim Against Sulzer

Text: Under § 78-15-3, a legal action under the Utah Product Liability Act: “shall be brought within two years from the time the individual who would be the claimant in such action discovered, or in the exercise of due diligence should have discovered, both the harm and its cause.” The Utah Court of Appeals has held that because the statute of limitation in § 78-15-3 runs from the time the plaintiff discovered or should have discovered both the harm and its “cause,” the reference to “cause” in that section “tolls the running of the statute of limitation until the plaintiff discovers, or in the exercise of due diligence should have discovered, the identity of the manufacturer.” Aragon v. Clover Club Foods Co., 857 P.2d 250, 253 (Utah Ct. App. 1993). Because M s. Griffiths-R ast did not file her complaint until November 26, 2002, her claim is barred unless she did not discover, or in the exercise of due diligence should not have discovered, that the BAK Cage had injured her and that Sulzer manufactured the BAK Cage until after November 26, 2000. M s. Griffiths-Rast testified that she felt as if there was a problem w ith the cage implantation while she was in the hospital immediately after her surgery on August 3, 1998; that the BAK Cage hurt and “felt” like it was “defective”; and 3 (...continued) M s. Griffiths-R ast admitted that she discovered her legal injury in November of 1998. Therefore, even if the date that she admitted discovery is used, the twoyear statute of limitation period ran in November 2000, a year prior to the filing of her notice. -11- that she had been able to feel that the BAK Cage was defective since its implantation. Aplt. App., Vol. 1 at 80-81, 101-02. Because all that is required to start the running of the limitation period is information sufficient to put the plaintiff on notice to make further inquiry,” M acris, 24 P.3d at 990, we don’t believe a reasonable jury could find that M s. Griffiths-Rast should not have discovered with the exercise of due diligence that the BAK Cage had injured her until after November 26, 2000. The more difficult question is whether, as a matter of law, through the exercise of due diligence, she should have discovered that Sulzer was the manufacturer of the B AK Cage prior to November 26, 2000. The district court correctly noted in another case that “[g]enerally, the question of when a plaintiff knew, or with reasonable diligence should have known, of a cause of action is a question of fact for the jury.” M cCollin v. Synthes Inc., 50 F. Supp. 2d 1119, 1123 (D. Utah 1999). As noted above, however, the relevant question is whether there is a “genuine issue as to any material fact,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c) (emphasis added), and “an issue of material fact is genuine only if the nonmovant presents facts such that a reasonable jury could find in favor of the nonmovant,” Garrison, 428 F.3d at 935. The district court held that no reasonable jury could find that M s. Griffiths-Rast had exercised due diligence in discovering that Sulzer was the manufacturer of the BAK Cage, and that “her claim against Sulzer-Spine was not tolled by her failure to discover its identity.” Aplt. App., Vol. 2 at 361. -12- On appeal, M s. Griffiths-Rast argues again that she did not discover that she had a legal injury until July 2, 2001, when Dr. W ood’s letter told her about other malpractice claims that had been raised. Once she discovered that she had a legal injury, she “first commenced the medical malpractice portion of her suit before proceeding with the products liability aspect” of her suit. Br. of Aplt. at 35. She alleges that she did not begin her product liability case at the same time as her medical malpractice case because “she needed confirmation from Dr. Prasad [regarding] who the manufacturer was.” Id. She argues that given the “fact” that she did not discover her legal injury until July 2, 2001, and that she did not discover that Sulzer manufactured the BAK Cage until October 4, 2002, “[a] reasonable jury [could] find . . . that she did not reasonably discovery [sic] the name of the manufacturer of the BAK T M Cage until October 2002.” Br. of Aplt. at 39-40. W e disagree. As properly noted by the district court, “[w]hat constitutes due diligence must be tailored to fit the circumstances of each case. It is that diligence which is appropriate to accomplish the end sought and which is reasonably calculated to do so.” Aragon, 857 P.2d at 253 (quotation omitted). It seems clear that in a normal case a reasonable jury could not find that it would take over two years to determine the manufacturer of a trademarked medical -13- device when the party knows the correct name of that device. 4 The question then becom es whether M s. G riffiths-Rast presented evidence that would allow a reasonable jury to find that even if she had used “diligence which is appropriate to accomplish the end sought and which is reasonably calculated to do so,” Aragon, 857 P.2d at 253, she should not have ascertained the identity of the manufacturer prior to November 26, 2000. She presented no such evidence. In fact, M s. Griffiths-Rast presented the district court with the affidavit of a paralegal that worked for her attorney to help explain why it had taken four years to determine the manufacturer of the BAK Cage. The paralegal averred that the firm had contracted with an outside “nurse paralegal” w ho “was employed to research the claims against the doctor.” Aplt. App. at 316. According to the affiant, the nurse paralegal “provided some internet literature” for a “LT-Cage,” and that M s. Griffiths-Rast’s attorney was “led to believe that the LT-Cage w as a recently approved Cage from the same manufacturer of the BAK Cage.” Id. According to M s. Griffiths-Rast, she and her attorney went to the October 2002 meeting with Dr. Prasad, “with literature concerning a the [sic] LT-Cage product manufactured by different [sic] company believing that was the product implanted 4 Sulzer presented the consent form signed by M r. Griffiths-Rast showing that she was going to have spinal fusion surgery with “BAK cages.” Aplt. A pp., Vol. 2 at 332, 341. In M s. Griffiths-Rast’s appellate brief, she notes that one of the “assumptions” that she had made, that Dr. Prasad eventually corrected, was that the “BA K” in BAK Cage was a typographical error for the word “back.” Br. of Aplt. at 35. -14- into her,” and Dr. Prasad informed them that they had the wrong device. Consequently, the evidence presented to the district court did not show that because of the circumstances of the case a reasonable jury could have found that with the exercise of due diligence she should not have discovered that Sulzer manufactured the BAK Cage until after November 26, 2000. It showed instead that because the outside nurse paralegal led her attorney to the misunderstanding that the “LT-Cage” and the BAK Cage were made by the same company, she misidentified the manufacturer and proceeded under that misidentification until the October 2002 meeting with Dr. Prasad. It is true that M s. Griffiths-Rast noted in the district court that Sulzer had gone through a number of company name changes and was a foreign corporation without a registered agent in U tah. She made no argum ent, however, that these facts impeded her ability to identify Sulzer as the manufacturer of the BAK Cage. Consequently, we see no error in the district court’s grant of summary judgment on this issue.