Court Opinion

ID: 9694920
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:00:36.270284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:06.535903
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in result).
Although I agree with the result of this case, there contains a dissertation of law therein which appears to be totally unnecessary as the holding of the opinion is over.
I am referring to the last two paragraphs of this opinion beginning with the words “Jibben also argues that the repeal of SDCL 21-50-2 constitutes a change in substantive law and therefore should not be applied retroactively.”
These last two paragraphs take the opinion “off course” and head it into an irrelevant discussion which muddies the legal water. In the end, the muddying of the water creates a “retroactive” quagmire.
In the Lyons v. Lederle Labs cite near the close of the opinion, it is written, “Statutes which merely affect a remedy or procedure however, as opposed to substantive [law], are given retroactive effect.” Note the word “law” has been substituted for the word “rights” — the original term used in Lyons.
Footnote 3, which immediately follows, proclaims, “This is a difficult area of law unless one distinguishes substantive law from substantive rights.” Per this footnote, rights and law are not interchangeable terms. The quote from Justice Sabers’ “concur in result” in West v. John Morrell & Co. emphasizes the same: “The test is whether the change in the statute constitutes a change in substantive law ... and not whether a change in the statute affects the substantive rights of the parties.” (Emphasis added.)
Overall, it strikingly appears: the Lyons and West cites are, in truth, contradictory. At a minimum, they are not compatible. As I previously noted, they are irrelevant and unnecessary. State of Minn. ex rel. Hove v. Doese, 501 N.W.2d 366 (S.D.1993), discussed retroactive application of statutes when compared to Lyons v. Lederle. The 3-2 decision in Hove held that a cause of action previously barred by the statute of limitations cannot be retroactively applied by subsequent legislation unless retroactivity is plainly intended and expressed by the Legislature. State ex rel. Dotson v. Serr, 506 N.W.2d 421 (S.D.1993), completely relied on Hove. On March 7, 1994, the United States Supreme Court seemingly approved our holding by denying certiorari in Dotson. The case before us does not concern a statute of limitations, but does concern subsequent legislation, i.e., repeal of a statute. The instant case, perforce, does not erode Hove. Rather, it unnecessarily strengthens Lyons, which does not concern the repeal of a statute, but, concerns newly enacted statutes.
In Hove, 501 N.W.2d at 369, we expressed:
Where a statute limits the time during which a cause of action can arise, it abolishes the cause of action after the passage of time even though the cause of action may not have yet accrued. It is substantive. Harding v. K.C. Wall Products, Inc., 250 Kan. 655, 831 P.2d 958 (1992).
We seemingly held contrary in Lyons v. Lederle Laboratories, 440 N.W.2d 769 (S.D.1989), when we cited authority from other jurisdictions for the proposition that statutes of limitation are remedial, not substantive. However, this Court has not abandoned the rule cited earlier in this writing that laws will have a retroactive effect only when such intention plainly appears. SDCL 2-14-21. Furthermore, the end result in Lyons was this Court refused to revive a cause of action which had been barred by the passage of time.
The majority decision holds that the cause of action is not affected by the savings clause. *927Additionally, thanks to the final two paragraphs, the Bench and Bar of South Dakota (not to mention the general public) are told that statutes which affect substantive rights are not given a retroactive effect, but (per footnote 3) the effect on substantive rights is not the test, mire. Contradiction births a quag-