Opinion ID: 1127164
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the wrongful death action

Text: Defendants contend the wrongful death action is subject to the rules of peremption (which admits of neither suspension nor interruption) rather than prescription. This argument is based primarily on the premise that article 2315 prescribes a one year period for bringing such an action. Simply put, defendants argue that since the period for bringing a wrongful death action is peremptive and the action was not brought during the uninterruptible year following death, the action is untimely and must be dismissed. For reasons which follow, we conclude the period is prescriptive, not peremptive. The source provision of present La.C.C. Article 2315, was Article 2294 of the Civil Code of 1825. Act 223 of 1855, amended Article 2294 to provide that a tort victim's action survived in favor of named beneficiaries for the space of one year from death. This amendment did not create an action for wrongful death. Despite subsequent amendments to present article 2315 the one year period for bringing the survival action remains the only time limit specified therein. The wrongful death action was incorporated into 2315 by Act 71 of 1884, which provided no time limit for bringing such a suit. Our jurisprudence has indicated that the test for determining whether a period for instituting an action is peremptive or prescriptive, is whether the statute creating the right also stipulates the time in which it must be exercised. See, for example, Guillory v. Avoylles Ry. Co., 104 La. 11, 28 So. 899 (1900); Matthews v. Kansas City Southern Ry. Co., 120 So. 907 (La.App. 2d Cir. 1929); overruled by Mitchell v. Sklar, 196 So. 392 (La.App. 2d Cir. 1940). In Pounds v. Schori, 377 So.2d 1195, rendered this day, we addressed the question thus presented and concluded that specification of the time limit for bringing an action in the same statute that created the right of action, is not the sole test of peremption as distinguished from prescription. In Pounds, above, we held that peremption, as differentiated from prescription, is a matter to be determined by legislative intent revealed by the statute in its entirety, including the purpose sought to be achieved. We additionally noted in Pounds, above, that public policy may also influence the determination of whether a statute is intended to be peremptive rather than prescriptive. We found in Pounds, above, impelling reasons of public policy why the statute therein involved should be held peremptive. We find no such impelling influence in this case. Had the legislature intended the wrongful death action to be governed by the time limitation contained in Article 2315 with respect to the survival action, it could, in its numerous amendments to the article, have easily so provided. The survival and wrongful death actions were created by separate amendments, in successive sentences. As previously shown, each action is a separate and distinct cause of action. The survival action is transmitted by the victim to the beneficiary who has one year from the date of the victim's death to bring the survival action if the victim died within a year of injury and without having brought suit. In such instances the beneficiary is in effect the recipient of a time bonus of more than one year in which to institute the victim's action. We deem it reasonable that the legislature would be concerned about the interval during which a potential defendant might be vulnerable to a survival action and therefore foreclosed the issue by providing an express time limitation. These same considerations are not necessarily applicable to the totally separate and distinct wrongful death action which is a tort action that arises upon the death of the victim. It is not inherited, neither is it transmitted. From its inception it arises and exists only in favor of the beneficiary. Because Article 2315, does not provide a time limitation for the wrongful death action, we can conclude that it intended the general tort law of La.C.C. Article 3536, which provides a prescriptive period of one year, applies to the action for wrongful death. This court has never held that a wrongful death action is subject to peremption. See Wrongful Death: Presumption? Peremption? Confusion? Gerald J. Talbot, 39 La. L.Rev., 1239, 1243 n. 20 (1979). On the contrary, we indicated in Trahan v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., La., 314 So.2d 350 (1975) that such an action is controlled by the general one year prescriptive period of La.C.C. Article 3536. Recently, in McClendon v. State, Through Department of Corrections, 357 So.2d 1218 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1978) the First Circuit considered the issue before us. McClendon, noted the numerous approaches taken by prior jurisprudence and, after consideration of all aspects of the question, found that the applicable period is prescriptive rather than peremptive. McClendon discussed Matthews v. Kansas City Southern Ry. Co ., above, in which the Second Circuit held that the time allotted for a wrongful death action is peremptive. Matthews, so held on the ground that use of the word also in the 2315 provision that beneficiaries may also recover damages for wrongful death, subjects the wrongful death action to the same conditions attending the survival action, including the one year limitation which was held to be peremptive. The First Circuit, in McClendon, above, disagreed with Matthews and found that also meant, as we have concluded, that the wrongful death action thus granted was a new and different cause of action in addition to the survival action previously existing. We hold, therefore, that although the wrongful death action arises from a common tort, it is a separate and distinct action from the survival action. It never existed or arose in favor of the victim.