Court Opinion

ID: 9698250
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:45:43.146623+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:39.657939
License: Public Domain

Handler, J.,
dissenting. I disagree with the result reached by the Court that when plaintiff, an unskilled laborer with an eighth grade education, suffered successive heart attacks he had knowledge that he might have a basis for an actionable claim attributable to his inhalation of fumes from a glue he used in connection with his physical labor. I am particularly perturbed because the majority has strained unnaturally and unfairly to foreclose a legitimate cause of action in favor of plaintiff.
In arriving at this result, the majority relies on the following language of the trial judge:
I believe he knew in his appraisal of his work employment that this material [the solvent] played some part in whatever occurred to him but that does not necessarily mean that he knew he had a cause of action in that complex field of product liability that indeed he would instruct his barrister to go forth immediately.
[Ante at 290].
The statement of the trial judge that the glue “played some part in whatever occurred” to plaintiff is vague and *300ambiguous. Nevertheless, this imprecise and uncertain statement is metamorphosed by the majority into a definitive determination that plaintiff, exercising reasonable diligence, actually knew, or should have known, that the solvent was a substantial contributing, factor in his heart attacks.
This attenuated construction of the trial court’s language is further exposed by the majority’s chimerical search of the record to find evidential support therefor. The opinion states:
The regular incidence of lightheadedness and dizziness while using the glue, and the disappearance of the symptoms shortly after cessation of plaintiff’s exposure thereto, together with the permissible inference from the proofs that plaintiff realized the connection between the glue and the symptoms (although at trial he denied such knowledge), furnishes a substantial credible basis for an inference of hnoivledge by plaintiff at least shortly after the heart attack that the exposure to the fumes of the glue in the warm trench was in some way related to that attack.
[Ante at 292-293]. [Emphasis added].
In every other context, we decry the process by which successive inferences are compounded to generate ultimate conclusions. Yet, here, this Court is endorsing baldly such reasoning to bolster its conclusions that this plaintiff had adequate knowledge that the glue contributed to his heart attacks and that the trial court specifically so found. Indeed, examining carefully the majority’s position, the most that it encompasses is that plaintiff experienced dizziness juxtaposed with his use of the glue and that he had a realization that these two phenomena were correlated. According to the majority, this was sufficient to charge plaintiff with knowledge that the solvent “was in some way related to that attack,” (Ante at 293), even though this proposition rests solely upon an inference not even drawn by the fact-finder.
It is perplexing that the majority can leapfrog to this conclusion. It acknowledges that the only evidence available is plaintiff’s testimony that “I used to get dizzy and light*301headed every day just before I got out of the ditch [after using the solvent] and then about an hour afterwards I was good.” This testimony of plaintiff can hardly be equated with knowledge, or even intuition, surmise or speculation, that the glue contributed to the heart attacks. It must be pointed out that, although plaintiff said he suspected that “inhaling them [the glue] wasn’t too good, I had to live and I had to work,” he did not believe it was unsafe, saying further “* * * I figure you are outside, you won’t get it, it won’t be hazardous to you.” Under these circumstances, the majority’s attitude toward this plaintiff — that plaintiff’s dizziness when he used the glue, ipso facto, justified a finding of knowledge of causation of his heart attacks — is inexplicably harsh. As demonstrated by Justice Pashman in his dissenting opinion, the symptom of dizziness exhibited itself in a different area of the anatomy than the heart; more importantly, it was not a classic symptom of a heart attack, such as shortness of breath, chest pains or indigestion. To charge plaintiff, a 51 year old, unsophisticated manual laborer, with knowledge of causation on this slender reed is not right.
The Court singles out appropriately a fundamental misapprehension on the part of the trial judge; The trial court concluded that “the applicable limitations period does not begin running until he [plaintiff] learns from a lawyer that those facts equate with a legal cause of action against the producer or originator of the injurious source or cause.” Ante at 291. The majority is correct if it means that the inquiry of the trial judge was misguided in that he failed to perceive that the discovery rule postpones the commencement of the accrual of a cause of action until a plaintiff discovers, or should have discovered with reasonable diligence, the causative connection between the operative facts and the damages he suffered, not until he secures knowledge, in fact, that he has a viable cause of action in tort against a putative wrongdoer.
*302The Court in this opinion seems to be going much further than merely remonstrating with the trial court for its misstatement of the applicable standard governing the discovery rule. The majority has itself, perhaps inadvertently, miscast the proper rule. To iterate, the opinion states that plaintiff is not entitled to invoke the discovery rule to toll the statute of limitations because plaintiff knew that the glue “y^as in some way related to that [heart] attack.” Ante at 293. Even if the solvent was “in some [wholly unspecified] way related” to plaintiff’s heart attacks, this is not the test to apply with respect to the application vel non of the discovery rule. The majority’s conclusory statement falls short of a determination that plaintiff had knowledge of the causative connection between the glue and the myocardial infarctions, i. e., that he “may have” a basis for a claim. Lopez v. Swyer, 62 N. J. 267, 272 (1973).
Indeed, no case explicating the equitable doctrine, which we call the discovery rule, has used the amoebic phraseology of the majority opinion. Compare the majority’s restatement of the test, Ante at 293 (“in some way related”) with Fox v. Passaic General Hospital, 71 N. J. 122, 124 (1976) (“discovers the existence of a malpractice cause of action”); Moran v. Napolitano, 71 N. J. 133, 134 (1976) (discussing Fox) (“plaintiff discovers his cause of action”); Lopez v. Swyer, supra, 62 N. J. at 272, 274 (“party discovers, or by an exercise of reasonable diligence and intelligence should have discovered that he may have a basis for an actionable claim”) (“knows or has reason to know that he has a right of redress”); Farrell v. Votator Div. of Chemetron Corp., 62 N. J. 111, 115 (1973) (“plaintiff does not know or have reason to know that he has a cause of action against an identifiable defendant”); Yerzy v. Levine, 57 N. J. 234, 235 (1970), aff’g as mod. 108 N. J. Super. 222 (App. Div. 1970) (“knew or had reason to know that plaintiff might have a basis for a claim”); Diamond v. New Jersey Bell Tel. Co., 51 N. J. 594, 597 (1968) (“knows or should reasonably know of his *303injury”); New Market Poultry Farms, Inc., v. Fellows, 51 N. J. 419, 424 (1968) (“knew or had reason to know that he had a cause of action arising from the suffering of actual damage”); Fernandi v. Strully, 35 N. J. 434, 438, 441 (1961) (“knows or has reason to know that he has a cause of action”) (“know or have any reason to know that he has a cause of action”). Thus, all the cases which have endeavored to articulate the test focus upon the conceptual principle at the core of the discovery rule, namely, actual or constructive knowledge that there is a distinct possibility that plaintiff may have grounds for an action in tort.
I strongly fear that, although the majority purports to deal with this case solely upon a factual basis and professes to disclaim any intent to retreat and retrench from the salutory development of the discovery rule, the opinion of the Court has significantly loosened the test for tolling the statute of limitations and may constitute a regressive step in the law of torts.
The majority has struggled unsuccessfully to show that the tolling of the statute of limitations was improper in this case. I do not see how that conclusion, on any factual or legal thesis, can be sustained. There was no determination by the trial judge that the invidious solvent was known, actually or constructively, by plaintiff to have caused his successive heart attacks. Moreover, there is no factual support in the record for imputing such knowledge to plaintiff as an ultimate conclusion of fact.
Eurthermore, again as aptly presented by Justice Pashman in dissent, other circumstances .surrounding the injury negative any sound basis for concluding that plaintiff had knowledge of the causal correlation between his heart attacks and the glue. September 7, 1971, the date of the first heart attack, was a hot, humid day; the temperature was between 80-85 degrees. Plaintiff, a life-time physical laborer, worked directly in the sun; he engaged in strenuous physical activity, gluing together pipes which were 20' long and 4" in diameter. Plaintiff suffered from arteriosclerosis, pulmonary fibrosis *304and chronic lung diseases; he was a heavy smoker. In addition, plaintiff suffered a second heart attack on October 12, 1971, more than a month alter his last exposure to the glue.
It is apparent that plaintiff did not discover, nor could he have discovered through the exercise of due diligence, the causative link between the inhalation of the noxious vapors and his heart attacks until October 1972, when his attorney apprised him of the substance of the doctor’s report. Since plaintiff instituted his cause of action within two years from that date, his action was timely filed unless (1) defendant was “peculiarly or unusually prejudiced” by the lapse of time between expiration of the statute of limitations and the date of institution of the suit, and (2) there was a reasonable time for plaintiff to institute his actions between discovery of the cause of action and expiration of the statute of limitations. Fox v. Passaic General Hospital, supra. There is not a scintilla of evidence in the record that defendant has been prejudiced by the lapse of time between September 7, 1973 and May 16, 1974, let alone “peculiarly or unusually prejudiced.”
Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the Appellate Division and reinstate the jury’s verdict.
Justice Pashman joins in this opinion.
For affirmance — Justices Sullivan, Clifford and Schreiber and Judge Conford — 4.
For reversal — Chief Justice Hughes and Justices Pashman and Handler — 3.