Opinion ID: 2334491
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Constitutional Tolling of the Statute of Repose

Text: Given the lack of any statutory basis for tolling the medical malpractice statute of repose for mental incompetency, the plaintiffs in this case have advanced a constitutional basis for tolling. Specifically, they contend that due process requires tolling of the medical malpractice statute of repose during the period of Mr. Mills' mental incompetency. The plaintiffs accurately point out that we did not squarely address this constitutional issue in Penley . It is correct to say that the plaintiffs' vested right of action for medical malpractice in this case enjoys constitutional protection. Mr. Mills' cause of action accrued in February 1997, when the plaintiffs first discovered that he had Wilson's Disease. A vested right of action in tort is a cause of action which has accrued, thereby becoming presently enforceable. See Jones v. Morristown-Hamblen Hosp. Assoc., Inc., 595 S.W.2d 816, 820-21 (Tenn.Ct.App.1979). Vested rights of action in tort may be classified as constitutionally-protected property interests. [A] vested right of action is as much property as are tangible things ... and enjoys the full protection of the due process clauses of the Federal and State Constitutions. Morris v. Gross, 572 S.W.2d 902, 905 (Tenn.1978); see also Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, 428, 102 S.Ct. 1148, 71 L.Ed.2d 265 (1982) ([A] cause of action is a species of property protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause.). [4] The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.... The Law of the Land Clause of the Tennessee Constitution correspondingly states that no person shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseized of his freehold, liberties or privileges, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any manner destroyed or deprived of his life, liberty or property, but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land. Art. I, § 8. Analysis under the Fourteenth Amendment and the Law of the Land Clause are to be treated synonymously, Daugherty v. State, 216 Tenn. 666, 393 S.W.2d 739, 743 (1965), although [i]n the interpretation of the Tennessee Constitution, this Court is always free to expand the minimum level of protection mandated by the federal constitution, Doe v. Norris, 751 S.W.2d 834, 838 (Tenn.1988) (citing Miller v. State, 584 S.W.2d 758, 760 (Tenn.1979)). Although common law rights of action in tort receive constitutional protection, they are not fundamental rights which demand heightened due process protection under the federal and Tennessee constitutions. See Crier v. Whitecloud, 496 So.2d 305, 310 (La.1986) ([T]he right to recover in tort is not a fundamental right....); King-Bradwell P'ship v. Johnson Controls, Inc., 865 S.W.2d 18, 21-22 (Tenn.Ct.App.1993) (holding that application of Tennessee's products liability statute of repose involve[d] neither a fundamental right nor a suspect class.); see also United States v. Kras, 409 U.S. 434, 445, 93 S.Ct. 631, 34 L.Ed.2d 626 (1973) (applying rational basis review to economic legislation); Klein v. Catalano, 386 Mass. 701, 437 N.E.2d 514, 522 (1982) ([W]e see no basis for treating a law that abrogates a tort remedy differently from any other law that regulates economic activity and which thus receives rational basis review.). As the United States Supreme Court has explained, property interests are not created by the Constitution. Rather [,] they are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law  rules or understandings that secure certain benefits and that support claims of entitlement to those benefits. Bd. of Regents of State Colls. v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). Consequently, the Tennessee General Assembly has the sovereign power prospectively to limit and even to abrogate common law rights of action in tort as long as the legislation bears a rational relationship to some legitimate governmental purpose. See Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Envtl. Study Group, Inc., 438 U.S. 59, 83-84, 88 n. 32, 98 S.Ct. 2620, 57 L.Ed.2d 595 (1978) (applying rational basis review to economic legislation and stating that no person has a vested interest in the common law itself); Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining Co., 428 U.S. 1, 16, 96 S.Ct. 2882, 49 L.Ed.2d 752 (1976) ([L]egislation readjusting rights and burdens is not unlawful solely because it upsets otherwise settled expectations.); Silver v. Silver, 280 U.S. 117, 122, 50 S.Ct. 57, 74 L.Ed. 221 (1929) ([T]he Constitution does not forbid the creation of new rights, or the abolition of old ones recognized by the common law, to attain a permissible legislative object.); Sutphin v. Platt, 720 S.W.2d 455, 457 (Tenn.1986) (If the court is able to conceive of a rational basis for [a] statute that is reasonably related to a legitimate state purpose, the court cannot further question the wisdom of the legislation.). Absent any retroactive application, [5] once an applicable repose period has run, a rationally-based statute of repose validly extinguishes not only unaccrued causes of action, but also causes of action which have already accrued and vested as rights. As stated above, the Constitution does not forbid the creation of new rights, or the abolition of old ones recognized by the common law, to attain a permissible legislative object. Silver, 280 U.S. at 122, 50 S.Ct. 57. In Tennessee, the common law right of action for medical malpractice is inherently limited from its inception by Tennessee Code Annotated section 29-26-116(a) (1980), which provides that [i]n no event shall any such action be brought more than three (3) years after the date on which the negligent act or omission occurred.... The property right which may vest in a plaintiff is thus by its very definition a right which may exist only for a limited time. Cf. Martinez v. California, 444 U.S. 277, 282 n. 5, 100 S.Ct. 553, 62 L.Ed.2d 481 (1980) ([T]he [statutory] immunity defense, like an element of the tort claim itself, is merely one aspect of the State's definition of that property interest.); Ferri v. Ackerman, 444 U.S. 193, 199, 100 S.Ct. 402, 62 L.Ed.2d 355 (1979) ([W]hen state law creates a cause of action, the State is free to define the defenses to that claim....); Crier, 496 So.2d at 308 ([A] state has the right to fashion and limit the causes of action that it recognizes.... As a result, persons who do not file suit within th[e] time limit [provided by the Louisiana medical malpractice statute of repose] have no cause of action and thus no vested property right in bringing suit.). In reasonably limiting a tort right of action via a statute of repose, the legislative process provides all the process that is due. See Logan, 455 U.S. at 432-33, 102 S.Ct. 1148 ([T]he [statutory] grant of immunity [from tort claims] arguably did deprive the plaintiffs of a protected property interest. But they were not thereby deprived of property without due process.... [T]he legislative determination provides all the process that is due.) (citations omitted); cf. Tulsa Prof'l Collection Servs., Inc. v. Pope, 485 U.S. 478, 486-87, 108 S.Ct. 1340, 99 L.Ed.2d 565 (1988) (noting that a state's involvement in the self-executed running of a statutory limitations period falls short of the kind of state action required to implicate procedural due process). The Tennessee General Assembly itself has the power to weigh and to balance competing public and private interests in order to place reasonable limitations on rights of action in tort which it also has the power to create or to abolish. Cf. Texaco, Inc. v. Short, 454 U.S. 516, 526, 102 S.Ct. 781, 70 L.Ed.2d 738 (1982) (We have no doubt that, just as a State may create a property interest that is entitled to constitutional protection, the State has the power to condition the permanent retention of that property right on the performance of reasonable conditions that indicate a present intention to retain the interest.). Notwithstanding, the plaintiffs contend that our precedents which hold that due process requires tolling of the Post-Conviction Procedure Act statute of limitations on the basis of mental incompetency are applicable to civil tort actions. Specifically, the plaintiffs attempt to rely upon Burford v. State, 845 S.W.2d 204 (Tenn.1992), Seals v. State, 23 S.W.3d 272 (Tenn.2000), and their progeny as support for their position. In order to decide whether these precedents should apply in the case at bar, it is instructive to review their relevant holdings. Under the Post-Conviction Procedure Act, a person in custody under a sentence of a court of this state, Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-30-102(a) (2003) (formerly § 40-30-202(a)), is given the opportunity to mount a collateral attack on a criminal conviction or sentence when the conviction or sentence is void or voidable because of the abridgement of any right guaranteed by the Constitution of Tennessee or the Constitution of the United States. Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-30-103 (2003). The Post-Conviction Procedure Act includes a one-year statute of limitations [6] for bringing a claim. See Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-30-102(a) (2003) (formerly § 40-30-202(a)). [7] In Seals , this Court held that within the context of post-conviction proceedings, due process may require tolling of the statute of limitations on the basis of a petitioner's mental incompetency. 23 S.W.3d at 279; see also Burford, 845 S.W.2d at 209-10 (holding that the post-conviction statute of limitations shall be tolled when due process so requires). [8] The constitutional concern expressed in Seals has been summarized as follows: While rejecting a facial challenge to the constitutionality of [Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-30-102(a)], we concluded that its application may violate due process if it denies mentally incompetent petitioners a reasonable opportunity to raise a claim in a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner. State v. Nix, 40 S.W.3d 459, 462 (Tenn.2001). Seals further explains: In determining what procedural protections a particular situation demands, three factors must be considered: (1) the private interest at stake; (2) the risk of erroneous deprivation of the interest through the procedures used and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute safeguards; and finally, (3) the government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail. 23 S.W.3d at 277 (citing Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976) and Phillips v. State Bd. of Regents, 863 S.W.2d 45, 50 (Tenn.1993)). The plaintiffs in this case argue that divestiture of their tort claim via application of the medical malpractice statute of repose deprives them of a constitutionally-protected property right without fair process. They compare their situation to that of a mentally-incompetent prisoner who has been deprived of a constitutional liberty interest without the opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner. We find this comparison to be inapposite. Although post-conviction petitions are procedurally civil in nature, Watkins v. State, 903 S.W.2d 302, 305 (Tenn.1995), superseded by Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-30-102, the opportunity to bring a post-conviction petition applies only where a person in custody under a sentence of a court of this state seeks relief from a criminal sentence or conviction, Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-30-102(a). Post-conviction petitions thus necessarily implicate fundamental due process interests in life or in freedom from bodily restraint in a way that materially differentiates such petitions from civil tort claims. [9] As the Court of Appeals noted, While post-conviction relief may be characterized as a civil action, all the substantive rights involved are those stemming from a criminal action and protected by rules of criminal procedure. In criminal litigation, where an alleged infringement of a constitutional right often affects life or liberty, conventional notions of finality associated with civil litigation have less importance. Burford, 845 S.W.2d at 209 (citing Sanders v. United States, 373 U.S. 1, 8, 83 S.Ct. 1068, 10 L.Ed.2d 148 (1963) (Conventional notions of finality of litigation have no place where life or liberty is at stake and infringement of constitutional rights is alleged.)). Our precedents from the post-conviction procedure context are thus inapplicable to questions concerning the tolling of civil statutes of repose. In light of the foregoing analysis, we hold that due process does not require tolling of the medical malpractice statute of repose during the period of a plaintiff's mental incompetency. We thus affirm the Court of Appeals, which refused to extend the due process analysis used in Seals to a case involving the civil medical malpractice statute of repose. Although a rule which extinguishes medical malpractice rights of action even though a plaintiff was mentally incompetent may be harsh, it is fully within the constitutional power of the legislature so to provide, and thus it is not our place to debate its wisdom. See Harrison v. Schrader, 569 S.W.2d 822, 828 (Tenn.1978). As Harrison held, the Tennessee General Assembly had a rational basis for enacting the medical malpractice statute of repose. Id. at 824-28. Just as the medical malpractice statute of repose validly extinguishes undiscovered causes of action which have yet to accrue, it also validly extinguishes even accrued and vested rights of action. See supra.