Opinion ID: 2583639
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Breach-of-Contract Claim is Barred by the Statute of Limitations

Text: ¶ 16 The statute of limitations in § 95 provides that an action for breach of contract must be brought within five years if the claim arises upon a written contract and within three years if the claim arises upon a contract not in writing. [36] The cause of action for breach of a contract for construction arises at the contract's completion. [37] In the case at hand the contract was completed and the cause of action arose in 1996. Kirby did not file his breach-of-contract claim until eleven years later in 2007. His contract claim was dismissed by the trial court because the action was filed after the statutory period had expired. The statute of limitations clearly extinguished the plaintiff's remedy. Kirby urged that the discovery rule should be allowed to enlarge the period of limitations in § 95. By application of the discovery rule a statute of limitations may be tolled until the defect or injury is discovered or should have been discovered. Appellant argues that because the sewer line was covered by soil, even by exercise of reasonable diligence he would not have been able to discover the defect within the statutory limitation period. In short, because the defect in the line was hidden, appellant argues the discovery rule should toll the period of limitation in § 95 until the defect's discovery in 2007. ¶ 17 This court has declined to apply the discovery rule to suits based on breach of construction contracts. [38] The statute of repose in § 109 protects builders from tort liability that otherwise might extend for an uncertain length of time after the completion of a contract. Section 109 would indeed be rendered meaningless if the discovery rule were allowed to extend § 95's limitation period to construction contracts beyond the time fixed by § 109. We must therefore hold that builders' period of statutory protection from liability granted them by the terms of § 109 must be extended with equal force to construction contracts for which the discovery rule under § 95 is sought to be invoked in an effort to avoid the effect of the time bar in § 109. COCA was correct in affirming the trial court's order that dismissed appellant's breach-of-contract claim as barred by § 95's period because no extension of that section's time bar may be allowed by application of the discovery rule.