Court Opinion

ID: 9685145
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:24:30.06859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:02.686439
License: Public Domain

D. C. Riley, J.
(concurring in result). Although I concur in the majority’s holding that plaintiffs’ *152amended complaint was barred by the statute of limitations, I would prefer that some more definite rule be formulated for similar cases other than the majority’s general discretion standard. A statute of limitations is primarily a technical counting process which provides some measure of security to the parties in regard to when the statutory bar goes into effect. A possible rule would be that the statute be tolled for the amount of time the court takes to decide on a motion to amend if that delay extends beyond the date on which the original limitations period would end. The problem of dilatory actions to increase this delay could be handled by the trial court’s vigilance over its motion docket.
In the present case plaintiffs were not precluded from filing the amended complaint prior to the end of the limitations period because of the 21 days it took to grant the motion to amend. It was plaintiffs’ delay, and not the court’s, which caused the late filing. Therefore, I concur in the holding that accelerated judgment was properly granted.