Court Opinion

ID: 9582400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:26:15.653758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:45.096708
License: Public Domain

HUNSTEIN, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
Contrary to the conclusion of the majority, I believe the Court of *183Appeals has adopted a legally sound, well-reasoned approach in addressing the circumstances presented in this case.
As both the majority and the Court of Appeals have noted, the so-called “new injury exception” was developed in misdiagnosis cases to accommodate situations in which a misdiagnosis results in the failure to treat a benign condition which remains latent and later develops into a more serious, less treatable condition. In such situations, we have deviated from the rule equating, for statute of limitations purposes, the “injury” with the misdiagnosis, on the logic that in those instances
the deleterious result of [the misdiagnosis] is not pain or economic loss that the patient suffers beginning immediately and continuing until the original medical condition is properly diagnosed and treated. Rather, the injury is the subsequent development of the other condition.
(Citations and punctuation omitted.) Cleaveland v. Gannon, 284 Ga. 376, 377 (1) (667 SE2d 366) (2008). Thus,
[t]he “new injury” exception is an attempt to reconcile the statute’s requirement that the period of limitations commence[s] on the date of the patient’s “injury,” on the one hand, with a recognition, on the other, that not all “injuries” are necessarily the immediate consequence of a physician’s negligent misdiagnosis.
Amu v. Barnes, 283 Ga. 549, 551-552 (662 SE2d 113) (2008).3 As the Court of Appeals explained, the new injury exception “simply applies] the basic rule that the statute begins to run when the injury occurs, which is not necessarily the same time the malpractice is committed.” Lee v. McCord, 292 Ga. App. 707, 713 (1) (665 SE2d 414) (2008).
Just as in a misdiagnosis case, this case presents the situation in which the act of alleged medical negligence yielded no immediate manifestations of injury or other adverse consequence. Thus, the rationale underlying the use of the new injury exception in misdiagnosis cases would apply equally in this scenario. In utilizing the new injury exception here, the Court of Appeals simply extended its reasoning to a situation entirely analogous to that for which it was originally conceived. Rather than embrace the simple logic in the *184Court of Appeals’ analysis, the majority rejects this approach in the apparent belief that misdiagnosis cases constitute a category so distinct from other malpractice cases that the rules applicable thereto are by definition ill-suited to other contexts. Because I fail to discern this distinction, I disagree with the majority’s categorical refusal to consider applying the new injury exception herein.
Decided October 19, 2009
Reconsideration denied November 23, 2009.
Paul E. Weathington, Wayne D. Toth, Charles M. Smith, for appellants.
As we have recently affirmed, the new injury exception applies only where the patient develops a new injury, independent of a relatively benign and treatable precursor condition, after having experienced an asymptomatic period between the time of the medical negligence and the onset of symptoms of the new injury.4 Amu, supra, 283 Ga. at 552. Here, Lee clearly suffered a new injury as the result of the unsuccessful initial procedure, in the form of the development of metastatic cancer. See Cleaveland, supra, 284 Ga. at 378-379 (1) (new injury where treatable kidney cancer metasticized); Amu, supra, 283 Ga. at 552 (“[plaintiffs] metastatic cancer is a ‘new injury’”); Whitaker v. Zirkle, 188 Ga. App. 706 (1) (374 SE2d 106) (1988) (metastatic cancer constituted new injury). In addition, there was evidence that Lee exhibited no symptoms of his new injury until Spring of 2004, more than two years after the allegedly unsuccessful procedure performed by McCord. Under these circumstances, I agree with the Court of Appeals that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to McCord based on the expiration of the statute of limitations. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals, and I must respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that Justice Benham joins in this dissent.
*185Lamar, Archer & Cofrin, Robert C. Lamar, Keith A. Pittman, Katherine A. Eichelberger, for appellees.

 Thus, contrary to the majority’s characterization, the new injury exception is not an exception to the two-year statute of limitations for medical malpractice actions but rather is an exception to the “misdiagnosis equals injury” rule in misdiagnosis cases.

 Despite the majority’s characterization of the extension of the new injury exception as the creation of a “universal standard for medical malpractice cases,” (Majority Opinion at 181), the fact remains that, even under the Court of Appeals’ approach, the exception would continue to apply only in the limited circumstances under which it has always applied, i.e., where there is a truly “new” injury and an intervening asymptomatic period. See, e.g., Burt v. James, 276 Ga. App. 370, 374 (623 SE2d 223) (2005) (“limited exception” applies only in “extreme circumstances” involving new injury and asymptomatic period); Harrison v. Daly, 268 Ga. App. 280, 284 (601 SE2d 771) (2004) (“the limited exception for subsequent injury , is confined to those in which the plaintiff remains asymptomatic for a period of time following the misdiagnosis”). Thus, the applicability of the exception would hardly be “universal.’