Opinion ID: 844211
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Common Law Delayed Discovery Principles

Text: The Court of Appeal also endorsed the idea that despite the language of section 340.1 as it existed after the 1998 amendment, with its decree that plaintiffs' claims against third parties had lapsed when they reached 26 years of age, plaintiffs nonetheless had claims that were not subject to section 340.1 that is, that they had claims subject solely to common law delayed discovery principles. We are not persuaded, however, that as a general matter, common law delayed discovery principles survive in parallel with the very specific and increasingly expansive discovery rules enacted as part of section 340.1. As noted previously, the 1986 and 1990 versions of section 340.1 expressly permitted the application of common law delayed discovery principles. However, in 1994, the Legislature removed reference to common law delayed discovery principles from section 340.1. [12] (21) We may infer that the Legislature intended to supplant common law delayed discovery principles when it deleted references to these principles. As a general rule, in construing statutes, `[w]e presume the Legislature intends to change the meaning of a law when it alters the statutory language [citation], as for example when it deletes express provisions of the prior version [citation].' ( People v. Mendoza (2000) 23 Cal.4th 896, 916 [98 Cal.Rptr.2d 431, 4 P.3d 265].) Thus we do not believe the Legislature intended that common law delayed discovery principles should apply to cases governed by section 340.1. (22) Further evidence of legislative intent to eliminate common law delayed discovery principles appeared in 1998, when the Legislature first enlarged the limitations period for claims against third party defendants, but imposed an absolute limit of age 26 for such claims while retaining a statutory discovery rule for actual perpetrators. The deletion of the former reference to common law delayed discovery principles, along with the addition of a strict age limit for some cases but a statutory discovery rule for others, indicates to us that the Legislature intended section 340.1, not common law delayed discovery principles, to govern the application of the statute of limitations to all late-discovered claims based upon childhood sexual abuse. (See Moore, supra, 112 Cal.App.4th at p. 382 [An express legislative provision for circumstances which will toll a statute excludes, by necessary implication, all other exceptions. [Citation.] Accordingly, the outside limit of [the relevant statute of limitations] is not subject to delayed accrual or tolling except to the extent that the Legislature has expressly so provided.]; see also Krupnick, supra, 115 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1029-1030 [an express revival clause applicable to one class of plaintiffs shows that other exceptions to the general rule were not contemplated]; Debbie Reynolds, supra, 25 Cal.App.4th at p. 233 [When `a statute enumerates the persons or things to be affected by its provisions, there is an implied exclusion of others.'].) [13] In any event, plaintiffs assert that their action is timely because they were not aware that their adult psychological injuries were caused by childhood abuse. That theory was not accepted under the common law as a ground for application of the delayed discovery rule. (See ante, fn. 5.) Such an assertion is recognized solely by virtue of section 340.1.