Opinion ID: 468819
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Action's Timeliness

Text: 12 The government argues that appellee's action was time barred under the limitations period for the Federal Tort Claims Act. For a tort action against the government to be timely, the plaintiff must file an administrative claim with the appropriate agency within two years after such claim accrues. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2401(b). When a claim accrues under the Tort Claims Act is a matter of federal law. Snyder v. United States, 717 F.2d 1193, 1195 (8th Cir.1983). Although the choice of the appropriate rule for determining when a claim accrues is a matter of law, a district court's findings on the application of that rule are findings of fact and will not be disturbed unless clearly erroneous. Reilly v. United States, 513 F.2d 147, 150 (8th Cir.1975). 13 The government's argument that appellee's action was untimely is two-tiered. First, the government argues that the court applied the wrong rule as to when a claim under the Swine Flu Act accrues. The court held that appellee's claim accrued on the date she discovered or should have discovered that the vaccination was the cause of her injuries. This discovery rule is in sharp contrast to the more usual date of injury rule, which is simply that the claim accrues at the time of discernible injury, usually the same time as the causitive act. Wollman v. Gross, 637 F.2d 544, 547 (8th Cir.1980) (general rule for claim accrual under the Tort Claims Act is date of injury). The government argues that the date of injury rule should have been used in the instant case. We agree with the court that appellee's case presented an appropriate situation for using the ameliorative discovery rule. We have held that the timeliness of a medical malpractice claim under the Tort Claims Act is to be determined by the discovery rule. Reilly v. United States, supra, 513 F.2d at 149. While in one sense appellee's claim sounds in products liability, that classification cannot destroy the medical context of the case. As with most medical malpractice claims, the true cause of appellee's injuries was clouded by conflicting medical advice. Although appellee's doctor initially told appellee that he thought her muscle soreness was a result of the vaccination, he later reversed himself and told her that the vaccination could not be the cause of her continued suffering. Also, the elusive nature of the injury, with its varying degrees of severity, made pinpointing the real cause tricky. 2 We hold that the court did not err in choosing the discovery rule to determine when appellee's claim accrued. 14 The government's second argument regarding the asserted untimeliness of the action is that, even under the discovery rule, appellee's claim is time barred because she should have discovered the cause of her injuries well before February 8, 1978, i.e. two years prior to her administrative claim. The court's findings of fact as to when appellee could have discovered the cause of her injury will not be disturbed unless clearly erroneous. Reilly v. United States, supra, 513 F.2d at 150. The court found that, although appellee was painfully aware of her injuries immediately after receiving the vaccination and continued through January 1977 to think that the vaccination caused her injuries, such thoughts were only speculation and could not be substantiated by medical opinion. The court found that appellee could be charged with the ability to discover the cause of her injuries only after her doctor had concluded that the vaccination was the culprit. Appellee's doctor testified that he did not decide with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the vaccination caused appellee's myalgia until some three or four years after appellee reported symptoms. The court concluded, therefore, that the earliest appellee's claim could have accrued was November 15, 1979, three years after her first post-vaccination complaint. Since appellee's administrative claim was filed within two years of this date--on February 8, 1980--the court found the action timely. 15 Although a close question, we hold that the court's findings are not clearly erroneous. The court was correct in disregarding appellee's suspicions about the cause of her injuries. Appellee was advised by her doctor in January 1977 that the vaccination could not be the cause of her continued suffering. In the face of this advice, it would be unfair to charge appellee with reason to know differently. As to when appellee should have discovered the cause of her injuries, we believe that she ought to be charged with that knowledge as soon as she could have discovered the vaccination was the cause by asking a doctor. In United States v. Kubrick, 444 U.S. 111 (1979), the Supreme Court held that a plaintiff must be charged with the knowledge that a particular medical procedure was the cause of his injuries when by inquiry among doctors with average training and experience in such matters the plaintiff could have discovered the cause. Id. at 123. In the instant case, we agree with the district court that such inquiry would have been fruitless at least until appellee's own doctor had determined the cause of her injuries. This is because there was undisputed evidence below that appellee's vaccine-induced myalgia was probably the only such case in the country--that is, no other doctor would have had a basis for making the connection more quickly or more certainly than appellee's doctor. Also, appellee's doctor, being the one most familiar with her medical history and the circumstances of her myalgia, was in the best position to discover its cause. While in many cases the treating physician may have reason not to search diligently for the cause of an injury--for fear of impugning his own conduct--appellee's doctor had no such worries in finding the vaccine to be the cause. 16 While a trial court might be tempted to find that appellee should have filed her claim earlier in view of the immediate and serious nature of her symptoms, as an appellate court we decline to say that the court's findings on appellee's ability to determine the cause of her injuries are clearly erroneous. 17 We hold that the court was correct in determining appellee's action to be timely.