Court Opinion

ID: 9700830
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:50:29.658522+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:14.904054
License: Public Domain

Boyle, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I agree that the discovery rule applies in pharmaceutical products liability claims and with the Court’s conclusion that plaintiff Harrington knew or should have known of her claim on December 27, 1983. I write separately because I disagree with the result in Moll, and because I am concerned that the Court’s rationale unnecessarily restricts development of the discovery rule.
In my view, there is no difference between "possible” and "likely” as the quantum of fact that triggers the statute under the discovery rule. The concept of reasonable diligence is implicit in the discovery rule and the reasonable person test is sufficiently flexible to permit fact-specific application regarding whether a plaintiff knew or should have known of the fact of injury and a causal connection. Finally, because the statute of limitations is an affirmative defense, all inferences favor the nonmoving party. Applying this test, I believe that there is a question whether plaintiff Moll was reasonably diligent in discovering the operative cause of her injury. I would remand to the trial court for further proceedings.
The Court of Appeals in Moll correctly rejected the contention that the discovery rule is not triggered until plaintiff knows or should know of "all the elements of a cause of action,” including the defendant’s breach of duty. Bonney v Upjohn Co, 129 Mich App 18, 26-27; 342 NW2d 551 (1983).
To the extent that Bonney suggested in dicta *31that the statute does not begin to run until the plaintiff discovers "each element of his cause of action,” id. at 24, that suggestion is incorrect. As the Court of Appeals observed in Moll, quoting from United States v Kubrick, 444 US 111; 100 S Ct 352; 62 L Ed 2d 259 (1979), adoption of a standard that deferred accrual until plaintiff knew, or could reasonably be expected to know, of the defendant’s breach of duty, or until the plaintiff had reason to suspect, or was aware of facts that would have alerted a reasonable person to the possibility, that a legal duty to him had been breached, " 'would go far to eliminate the statute of limitations as a defense separate from the denial of a breach of duty.’ ” 192 Mich App 734. In short, a plaintiff need not know she has suffered an invasion of a legal right before a cause of action accrues.
It is one thing, however, to say as the majority does that the discovery rule is triggered when a plaintiff knows of the fact of an injury and a causal connection, and another to say there is a distinction between "possible” and "likely” as the quantum of fact triggering the discovery rule. Indeed, in Kubrick itself, the Court, narrowly interpreting the government’s waiver of immunity under the Federal Tort Claims Act, held that plaintiff’s claim accrued when he learned it was "highly possible” that his hearing loss was the result of neomycin treament. 444 US 114. To be sure, the notice of cause cannot await subjective belief in the linkage between injury and cause in fact. To delay operation of the discovery rule to this point would emasculate the diligence requirement of the rule. Nor, for the same reason, is it necessary that the plaintiff have a definitive professional opinion regarding the injury or its cause. *32Kroll v Vanden Berg, 336 Mich 306, 311; 57 NW2d 897 (1953).
Beyond these observations, it is, in my judgment, unwise to introduce a new battleground, i.e., the distinction between whether the cause-in-fact connection is "possible” or "likely” into the statute of limitations arena. In fact, courts using the "likely” cause formulation have relied on testimony that plaintiff was told of the "possibility” of the causal connection. Fidler v E M Parker Co, Inc, 394 Mass 534; 476 NE2d 595 (1985). In my view, common sense and reason dictate that the limitation period does not begin to run until a plaintiff knows he has been injured and can reasonably determine what or who hurt him. Bayless v Philadelphia Nat’l League Club, 579 F2d 37 (CA 3, 1978). As in Bayless, Moll involves the question of someone’s wrongdoing, not in the sense of a known breach of a legal duty, but whether there is a connection between plaintiff’s condition and some causal factor. Thus, if there were evidence in the record in Moll to suggest that plaintiff could have learned of defendant’s responsibility had she exercised due diligence, summary judgment would be appropriate.
With the doctrine of reasonableness as a constant and the standard of due diligence as a guide, courts are able to determine when a plaintiff knew or should have known of an injury and its possible or likely cause, as well as whether there is a disputed issue of fact that requires jury resolution. Without a flexible approach, the purpose of adopting the discovery rule for latent injuries, as well as the procedural presumption favoring the nonmov-ing party on summary disposition, will be undermined.
The discovery rule is applied to a growing variety of situations in which the nature of the injury *33and the difficulty of discovering its cause pose inherent difficulties calling for amelioration of the harsh consequences of the accrual rule. The nature of the information necessary and the quality of the requisite knowledge will vary from case to case and "more than that, from type of case to type of case.” Vispisiano v Ashland Chemical Co, 107 NJ 416, 434; 527 A2d 66 (1987). As the court in DuBose v Kansas City S R Co, 729 F2d 1026, 1031 (CA 5, 1984), stated, whether a "plaintiff may be charged with awareness that his injury is connected to some cause should depend on factors including how many possible causes exist and whether medical advice suggests an erroneous causal connection or otherwise lays to rest a plaintiff’s suspicion regarding what caused his injury.” See also Errichiello v Eli Lilly & Co, 618 F Supp 484 (D Mass, 1985).
Whether it can be said as a matter of law that a plaintiff has exercised reasonable diligence turns on the nature of the injury, its symptoms, and available medical knowledge. Where a plaintiff experienced bleeding between periods, nausea, and diarrhea, but was told by her physician that she was asymptomatic and that she did not have pelvic inflammatory disease, began her lawsuit within three years of consulting another doctor who removed her iud and told her she probably had pid, the court found that the plaintiff could not be expected as a matter of law to "personally diagnose her condition or consult with a physician more frequently than she did.” Hansen v A H Robins, Inc, 113 Wis 2d 550, 561; 335 NW2d 578 (1983). Illustrating the same principle in the context of the latent injury of asbestosis, the court in Morgan v Johns-Manville Corp, 354 Pa Super 58; 511 A2d 184 (1986), held that summary judgment was properly granted regarding one shipyard *34worker who had been informed by a physician that he had asbestosis, but had improperly granted the motion regarding another shipyard worker who had been informed only that an x-ray showed pleural thickening. With regard to the latter plaintiff, the court stated:
Whether or not [the plaintiff] exercised due diligence and thus should have known that pleural thickening was an injury is also at issue here. We do not believe that the facts "lead unerringly to the conclusion that the length of time it took the plaintiff to discover the injury or its cause was unreasonable as a matter of law.” [354 Pa Super 66. Citation omitted.]
In Moll, the issue is not the injury, but who or what hurt plaintiff and whether, as a matter of law, plaintiff should have discovered the cause of the injury. I would remand Moll, not for the determination ordered by the Court of Appeals, i.e., whether des was a "likely” cause of her hooded cervix, but rather for a determination whether, given the circumstances presented, a plaintiff exercising due diligence would have discovered the operational cause of the injury. If, from the facts presented, a jury could reasonably conclude that plaintiff acted diligently in pursuing who or what caused her injury, summary judgment should be denied. MCR 2.116(1).
I acknowledge that in the only case found on point in which the plaintiff had no confirmation of the diagnosis that her mother had taken des, the majority upheld the granting of summary judgment. See O’Brien v Eli Lilly & Co, 668 F2d 704 (CA 3, 1981). In my view, the better approach is that pointed out by Judge Higginbotham in dissent in O’Brien:
*35A reasonable jury could have concluded that, in insisting in 1979 that her mother double-check her recollection [that she had not taken des], [the plaintiff] made extraordinary efforts; that, in fact, she discovered that her mother had taken des only through the exercise of due diligence. The majority’s conclusion effectively penalizes her, at least in terms of her right to a trial, for the efforts she made in 1979. [Id. at 719.]