Opinion ID: 836245
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: tolling statute

Text: A claim for medical malpractice must be brought within two years from the time the alleged malpractice takes place. [3] Solowy v. Oakwood Hosp. Corp., 454 Mich. 214, 219, 561 N.W.2d 843 (1997). A claimant, however, can toll this limitations period by complying with MCL 600.5856. [4] Specifically, § 5856(c) allows tolling during the interlude to commencing a medical malpractice action required by § 2912b if the statute of limitations would otherwise expire during that period. [5] Absent tolling, however, an action commenced after two years is barred. MCL 600.5838a(2). Accordingly, for plaintiff's claims to survive summary disposition, the statute of limitations must have been tolled, because plaintiff filed his complaint more than two years and five months from the date of the alleged malpractice. MCL 600.5856(c) provides: The statutes of limitations or repose are tolled in any of the following circumstances:    (c) At the time notice is given in compliance with the applicable notice period under section 2912b, if during that period a claim would be barred by the statute of limitations or repose; but in this case, the statute is tolled not longer than the number of days equal to the number of days remaining in the applicable notice period after the date notice is given.[ [6] ] Previously this provision read: The statutes of limitations or repose are tolled:    (d) If, during the applicable notice period under section 2912b, a claim would be barred by the statute of limitations or repose, for not longer than a number of days equal to the number of days in the applicable notice period after the date notice is given in compliance with section 2912b. [MCL 600.5856(d).][ [7] ] In Roberts v. Mecosta Co. Gen. Hosp., 466 Mich. 57, 64-66, 642 N.W.2d 663 (2002) (Roberts I) , this Court held that in order to toll pursuant to the pre-amendment provision, plaintiff's notice must comply with MCL 600.2912b(4). [8] The instant question is whether under the post-amendment provision, the notice must also comply with § 2912b(4). The majority holds that under the amended notice-tolling provision a defective notice, i.e., one that does not satisfy § 2912b(4), will nonetheless toll the statute of limitations. I do not agree and believe instead that the notice-tolling provision still requires a notice that is compliant with § 2912b(4) in order to effectively toll. The Court's obligation in interpreting a statute is to give effect to the Legislature's intent as expressed in the words of the statute. Pohutski v. City of Allen Park, 465 Mich. 675, 683, 641 N.W.2d 219 (2002). [L]anguage does not stand alone, and thus it cannot be read in a vacuum. Instead, `it exists and must be read in context with the entire act....' G.C. Timmis & Co. v. Guardian Alarm Co., 468 Mich. 416, 421, 662 N.W.2d 710 (2003). Statutes that address the same subject or share a common purpose are in pari materia and must be read together as a whole to fully reveal the Legislature's intent. People v. Harper, 479 Mich. 599, 621, 739 N.W.2d 523 (2007); see also Turnbull v. Prentiss Lumber Co., 55 Mich. 387, 394, 21 N.W. 375 (1884). The notice-tolling provision and the notice statute, § 2912b, are in pari materia because the notice-tolling provision was enacted with § 2912b, see 1993 PA 78, and directly references § 2912b. Accordingly, the notice-tolling provision must be interpreted in light of the overall statutory scheme within which it was placed. The notice-tolling provision tolls [a]t the time notice is given in compliance with the applicable notice period under section 2912b. The applicable notice period under § 2912b is 182 days from the filing of the notice during which a complaint may not be filed, MCL 600.2912b(1); Omelenchuk v. City of Warren, 461 Mich. 567, 573, 609 N.W.2d 177 (2000), and only begins once the person has given the health professional or health facility written notice under this section. MCL 600.2912b(1). Notice is only considered written notice under this section if it complies with § 2912b(4), which states that notice ... under this section shall contain a statement regarding substantive aspects of the alleged malpractice. See Boodt, 481 Mich. at 562-563, 751 N.W.2d 44 ([A] plaintiff cannot commence an action before he or she files a notice of intent that contains all the information required under § 2912b(4).). For the notice to be given in compliance with the applicable notice period, that period necessarily must exist. Because giving notice as required by § 2912b(4) constitutes the only manner by which the applicable notice period is brought into existence, it seems logical to conclude that the Legislature intended the notice-tolling provision to be triggered only by the plaintiff filing such notice. Furthermore, allowing the notice-tolling provision to be triggered by a defective notice makes little sense considering that the provision only applies if during [the applicable notice period] a claim would be barred by the statute of limitations. MCL 600.5856(c). One cannot fairly say that a claim would be barred during the notice period when the notice period has not begun due to the plaintiff's failure to file a sufficient notice. Further, the tolling period is equal to the number of days remaining in the applicable notice period after the date notice is given. MCL 600.5856(c). Because a defective notice does not create an applicable notice period under § 2912b(1), the number of days remaining in that period cannot be determined. Thus, if a defective notice is allowed to toll, the notice-tolling provision would provide no guidance for determining the tolling period. The only manner by which the notice-tolling provision can be given meaningful effect is to interpret it as requiring the notice specifically contemplated in § 2912b(4), which creates the applicable notice period to which the tolling provision repeatedly refers. Accordingly, contrary to the majority, I believe that a defective notice cannot toll the statute of limitations under § 5856(c). Here, plaintiff's notice was defective because it did not contain any statement regarding the standard of care for claims alleging direct liability against West Michigan Cardiovascular and Spectrum Health. Plaintiff's failure to include any statement regarding the standard of care for Sugiyama's and Mansour's alleged malpractice also makes the notice defective for vicarious liability claims against Spectrum Health based upon their malpractice. Because plaintiff's notice was defective in this regard, the statute of limitations for those claims was not tolled by § 5856(c). Moreover, because the statute of limitations was not tolled, and because plaintiff's complaint was filed more than two years after the alleged malpractice, these claims are time-barred and should be dismissed with prejudice.
The majority's interpretation is at odds with its own assertion that [t]he statute must be interpreted in a manner that ensures that it works in harmony with the entire statutory scheme. Ante at 279. By focusing only on the amended language in the notice-tolling provision's first clause, the majority disregards the implications of the remaining portion of the provision. Ante at 279-281. Such an analysis is incomplete in light of the direct correlation that the remaining portion of the provision has with § 2912b and its notice period. Although the legislative amendment may only have altered parts of § 5856(c), the whole scheme nonetheless must be considered in order to determine the Legislature's intent. The numerous references to the notice period in § 5856(c) necessarily mean that the period established by § 2912b(1) must have come into being in the first place for those references to be given any effect, and this can only take place when notice that complies with § 2912b(4) has been supplied. The majority, however, interprets the notice-tolling provision in a manner that bears no logical relationship with the statute that requires that notice be given in the first place. Thus, rather than adopting an interpretation that works in harmony with the entire statutory scheme, the majority instead adopts an interpretation that raises an insoluble tension between the tolling provision and the notice statute that will only be resolved by years of litigation, which perhaps is the whole point of the majority's exercise. This tension arises most clearly in the form of MCL 600.2301, which the majority employs to sustain its conclusion that a defective notice can toll the statute of limitations, because a court can thereby disregard any error or defect in the notice. MCL 600.2301 provides: The court in which any action or proceeding is pending, has power to amend any process, pleading or proceeding in such action or proceeding, either in form or substance, for the furtherance of justice, on such terms as are just, at any time before judgment rendered therein. The court at every stage of the action or proceeding shall disregard any error or defect in the proceedings which do not affect the substantial rights of the parties. [Emphasis added.] Without reference to any language from the tolling or notice statutes, the majority ascertains that a good-faith attempt to comply with the content requirements of § 2912b allows tolling under § 5856(c), ante at 285, because any defect should be disregarded or cured by amendment. Ante at 286. As this Court explained in Boodt, 481 Mich. at 563 n. 4, 751 N.W.2d 44, § 2301 only applies to pending actions. As discussed above, § 2912b(1) provides that a person shall not commence an action alleging medical malpractice against a health professional or health facility unless the person has given the health professional or health facility written notice under this section not less than 182 days before the action is commenced. Section 2912b(4) states that the notice given to a health professional or health facility under this section shall contain a statement of at least all of the following.... Therefore, a plaintiff cannot commence an action before he or she files a notice of intent that contains all the information required under § 2912b(4). Boodt, 481 Mich. at 562-563, 751 N.W.2d 44. An action is not pending if it cannot be commenced, and § 2912b(1) clearly prohibits a plaintiff from commencing an action before giving sufficient notice. I would not allow a plaintiff who is out of compliance with § 2912b, and thus not in compliance with the medical malpractice reforms enacted by our Legislature, to take advantage of the amendment provision. Accordingly, § 2301 is inapplicable, and a plaintiff cannot retroactively amend the notice of intent, and the courts cannot disregard any error or defect in the notice of intent. Although I disagree in almost all respects with the majority's analysis regarding the amended notice-tolling provision, I note in particular the following difficulties with this analysis: (1) The majority states that it cannot assume that language chosen by the Legislature is inadvertent or that a change means nothing at all. Ante at 280-281. Why exactly is interpret[ing] the amended statute in the same manner [as] ... the pre-amended statute something that this Court cannot do? Ante at 280. The beginning point for interpreting a statute must always be its language. Wickens v. Oakwood Healthcare Sys., 465 Mich. 53, 60, 631 N.W.2d 686 (2001). Even after an amendment, the statute must continue to control, because it constitutes the law of this state. In light of the majority's position that any amendment must exact some change in meaning, what choice does the Legislature have if it wishes to make minor amendments to clarify a certain portion of a statute consistent with the Court's interpretation? The majority's position is especially dubious when the Legislature, as it did here, makes minor changes to one part of a statute at the same time that it makes major changes to another part. [9] While in many and perhaps most instances it undoubtedly is the legislative intent, in enacting an amendment, to change existing law, there are, as undoubtedly, other instances, particularly if uncertainty exists as to the meaning of a statute, when amendments are adopted for the purpose of making plain what the legislative intent had been all along from the time of the statute's original enactment. [ Detroit Edison Co. v. Janosz, 350 Mich. 606, 614, 87 N.W.2d 126 (1957).] Indeed, it seems most reasonable that the Legislature's minimal changes to the notice-tolling provision were intended only to clarify the precise moment at which the statute of limitations would be tolled. The pre-amendment version, by stating that the statutes of limitations or repose are tolled ... [i]f, during the applicable notice period under section 2912b, a claim would be barred by the statute of limitations or repose, MCL 600.5856(d), clearly described the circumstances by which the statute of limitations could be tolled, but was less clear regarding at what point in time the tolling actually began. Conversely, the other tolling provisions did not suffer from this same infirmity by stating that the statutes of limitations or repose are tolled ... [a]t the time a specific action occurred. See pre-amendment MCL 600.5856(a) through (c). With this amendment, the Legislature changed the notice-tolling provision so that it too now states that the tolling starts [a]t the time the specified action occurs. In light of the identity to the other tolling provisions created by the amendment, I believe the amendment is best interpreted as effecting the same meaning that the identical language carries. Adding the phrase [a]t the time clearly denotes that the tolling begins upon the occurrence of the specified act. Interpreting the amendment as such clarification does not render it inadvertent, ante at 280. Instead, this recognizes that the Legislature sought to enhance the clarity of the notice-tolling provision to the level of the other provisions and did so through a minor alteration. (2) The majority creates a new standard for determining whether a notice complies with § 2912b(4) by stating: A defendant who has enough medical expertise to opine in his own defense certainly has the ability to understand the nature of the claims being asserted against him or her even in the presence of defects in the NOI. Ante at 285. This new subjective standard based on the defendant's medical expertise is not only divorced from the statute, but it is also inconsistent with the current standard set forth in Roberts v. Mecosta Co. Gen. Hosp. (After Remand), 470 Mich. 679, 701, 684 N.W.2d 711 (2004) (Roberts II) : [T]he claimant is required to ... provide details that are responsive to the information sought by the statute and that are as particularized as is consistent with the early notice stage of the proceedings. (Emphasis in original.) The majority thereby clumsily disposes of a standard that required a plaintiff to comply with all the statutory requirements in favor of one that requires the plaintiff to follow the law only to the extent that the court believes a defendant's medical expertise can fill the gaps of the plaintiff's noncompliance, all without explaining even perfunctorily why the new standard is consistent with the law actually enacted by the Legislature, as opposed to the statute the majority wishes had been adopted. (3) The majority's amendment process allows a plaintiff to commence his action 182 days after giving defective notice despite the fact that § 2912b(1) disallows a plaintiff from commencing suit unless he has given written notice under this section. In other words, the majority has rewritten § 2912b(1) to enable a plaintiff to commence his suit 182 days after giving defective notice if it manifests the plaintiff's good-faith attempt to comply with § 2912b(4). Ante at 285. Cf. Roberts I, 466 Mich. at 66, 642 N.W.2d 663 (holding that a plaintiff must fulfill the preconditions of § 2912b(4) in order to maintain a medical malpractice action). By this revision, the majority rejects the Legislature's intention that notice shall contain [specific] statement[s] and substitutes its own goal of allowing plaintiffs to commence their actions despite obvious omissions that completely frustrate the purpose of the legislative notice procedure. [10] The majority never explains how the tolling statute amendment compels this rewriting of the notice statute, most likely because no valid explanation exists. The majority cannot cite anything in the amendment that altered the clear language in § 2912b(1), nor can it cite anything that indicates the Legislature intended that such language be ignored. (4) The majority questions in dictum whether Roberts I and Boodt were correctly decided based on its interpretation of the amended notice-tolling provision, ante at 283 n. 34, even after acknowledging that those cases relied on language of a statute that is no longer in existence, ante at 278. The majority's disagreement with Boodt seems to be based largely on its misunderstanding of that decision. Boodt held that a plaintiff's complaint does not toll the statute of limitations pursuant to § 5856(a) after defective notice has been given, because § 2912b(1) disallows a plaintiff from commencing an action unless the plaintiff has given written notice under this section. Boodt, 481 Mich. at 564, 751 N.W.2d 44. The majority, however, interprets Boodt as holding that no tolling was afforded in the presence of a defect pursuant to the notice-tolling provision, and thus the plaintiff's action was not commenced under § 2912b(1). Ante at 281 n. 26. Thus, notice-tolling was never an issue in Boodt, yet the majority inexplicably finds that its interpretation of the notice-tolling provision throws Boodt into question. As for Roberts I, the majority never explains any possible errors in that decision other than to say that it opined, rather than held, that the focus of § 5856(d) was on compliance with § 2912b in its entirety. Ante at 280. The majority thus attempts to diminish the validity of Roberts I by characterizing this decision as simply an expression of one possible opinion among many, rather than actually analyzing the law in any coherent manner to demonstrate why Roberts I may be incorrect. [11] Although the majority makes clear that it disagrees with the results reached in Roberts I and Boodt, it does not deign to explain why the law does not support those results. (5) By finding that § 2912b is silent regarding the consequences of filing a defective NOI [and] makes no reference whatsoever to a mandatory dismissal penalty in the event of a defect, the majority raises an irrelevant issue concerning whether a mandatory dismissal with prejudice under § 2912b was the intent of the Legislature. Ante at 282. However, this Court has never held that a defective notice alone requires mandatory dismissal with prejudice. By phrasing its inquiry as it does, the majority obviously misapprehends the procedure by which plaintiff's claims were dismissed. First, the majority overlooks the interplay between the statute of limitations and the notice-tolling provision. The Legislature clearly created a two-year limitations period for medical malpractice actions, and then clearly stated that an action cannot be commenced after that period has expired. It also clearly created a tolling provision that allows the limitations period to be suspended if a claimant gives notice pursuant to § 2912b. If notice is not given, then tolling is not triggered. If tolling is not triggered and the statute of limitations expires, the latter operates in the same manner that it does in every other action: it bars claims from being commenced after its expiration. Second, even if a defective notice does not toll the statute of limitations, this Court has never held that the defect requires mandatory dismissal with prejudice.  Ante at 282 (emphasis added). [12] In fact, current caselaw supports the exact opposite proposition, namely that a plaintiff filing a defective notice can avoid dismissal with prejudice by simply correcting the notice so that it complies with § 2912b(4) before the statute of limitations has expired. In Mayberry v. Gen. Orthopedics, PC, 474 Mich. 1, 3, 704 N.W.2d 69 (2005), this Court held that a second notice of intent to sue, sent with fewer than 182 days remaining in the limitations period, can initiate tolling under § 5856(d) as long as the first notice of intent to sue did not initiate such tolling. Thus, under these circumstances, nothing would bar a claimant from filing a second notice to take advantage of the notice-tolling provision. Here, rather than not tolling because there were more than 182 days remaining in the limitations period, plaintiff's notice, filed within the last 182 days of the limitations period, did not toll because it was defective. Although plaintiff only had two days in which to correct the defects, had he done so within that time, the statute of limitations would have been tolled and he could have timely commenced his action after the 182-day waiting period. Thus, any time a defective notice is filed, the plaintiff always has the opportunity to revise the notice to comply with § 2912b(4), at least until the expiration of the statute of limitations, and the defect alone does not mandate dismissal with prejudice. (6) Without regard to the fact that a provision for mandatory dismissal with prejudice is unnecessary in § 2912b due to the dismissal necessitated by the statute of limitations, the majority proceeds with its misguided, and fruitless, search for direction from the Legislature that a defective notice requires mandatory dismissal with prejudice. Unsurprisingly, the majority finds no such mandate, but rather concludes that the Legislature rejected a mandatory dismissal based on its interpretation of a provision of the initial notice legislation that the Legislature never adopted. Ante at 282. Although actions of the Legislature in considering various alternatives in language in statutory provisions before settling on the language actually enacted may constitute a legitimate form of legislative history, In re Certified Question, 468 Mich. 109, 115 n. 5, 659 N.W.2d 597 (2003), the majority's use of it here exemplifies well the shortcomings inherent in such approach. To reasonably discern legislative intent from rejected language, the rejected provision should be considered as a whole, rather than partially as the majority does by only looking at the first sentence of the provision. The full provision stated: Except as otherwise provided in this subsection, in an action alleging medical malpractice, the court shall dismiss a claim not included in the notice required under section 2912f. This subsection does not apply to a claim that results from previously unknown information gathered during discovery. As an initial matter, this seems entirely unrelated to the statute of limitations under which dismissal is granted. The Legislature's rejection of an unrelated provision can hardly be used to alter the clear meaning of a statute. It seems far more reasonable to conclude that the Legislature rejected this provision in favor of § 2912b(3), which provides for similar treatment of the same subject matter: undiscovered claims. [13] Rather than considering this to be the Legislature's rationale for rejecting the initial provision, the majority concludes that it can draw no conclusion from the omission ... other than it was not the intent of the Legislature to incorporate a mandatory dismissal penalty into § 2912b. Ante at 282-283. Most other observers of this same legislative history would without much difficulty be able to draw an other conclusion, and would almost certainly be far closer to reality than the majority. How can the majority draw an informed conclusion concerning legislative history from a provision never enacted without even considering a provision that has been enacted and actually substituted for the never-enacted provision? (7) The majority concludes that to hold that § 2912b in and of itself mandates dismissal with prejudice ... would be inconsistent with § 2912b's stated purpose of ... promoting settlement. Ante at 283. However, the majority does not explain how allowing a defective notice to substitute for the notice required by § 2912b(4) in any way promot[es] settlement. Ante at 283. The likelihood of settlement almost certainly increases with the amount of information that the parties have regarding the subject of settlement. How can the majority's interpretation conceivably encourage settlement when it compels defendants to proceed on the basis of incomplete information?