Court Opinion

ID: 9635481
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:51:46.857116+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:28.038880
License: Public Domain

Hall, J.
(dissenting). This is without doubt a “hard” case. One’s sympathies naturally run with the plaintiff and some sense of revulsion arises when the statute of limitations is even urged as a defense in a case as factually clear-cut as that disclosed by the present record. However, even on this score a more thoughtful analysis indicates that the situation cannot be considered entirely one-sided. A defendant, too, has rights and interests involving the merits which cannot be cast aside. His liability is not absolute but rests on negligence. He must, practically speaking, convince the fact-finder that he was not negligent under the legal standards of conduct applicable in medical malpractice actions. Evidence to support such a defense must come largely from the oral testimony of those present at the operation. While a plaintiff’s essential evidence to establish a cause of action may well be preserved indefinitely, as here by the foreign object’s remaining in her body, the defense may be badly hurt by the disappearance of witnesses or dimmed recollections through the passage of time.
But my disagreement with the majority rests on a much more fundamental base. It is unquestionable on the record *452before us that the alleged negligence of defendants and the resultant injury happened at one precise moment of time, i. e., when the operation on plaintiff was performed and the wing nut remained within her body, that no inequitable conduct by defendants has occurred which could preclude the application of the statute of limitations, and that the situation does not fall within any of the legislative exceptions. The words of the statute are plain and all-inclusive— “Every action at law for an injury to the person * * * shall be commenced within 2 years next after the cause of any such action shall have accrued.” N. J. 8. 2A :14-2. The majority concludes that this language should not apply in this foreign object malpractice suit. It says that the language keying operation of the statute to the “accrual of the cause of action” is obscure and subject to judicial interpretation on what amounts almost to a case-by-case basis. In essence the decision is a judicial resolution of competing policies in a particular fact situation — repose against stale claims and the prejudicial consequences of delay to a defendant from fading memories and lost evidence on the one hand, and the rights of an injured person who did not have and could not have had timely knowledge of his right of action on the other. My view is that, as desirable as the result here may appear to be, this is a policy decision which can fittingly be made only by the legislative branch. See Biglioli v. Durotest Corp., 26 N. J. 33, 44 (1958).
Judge Magruder succinctly summarized the thesis iu Tessier v. United States, 269 F. 2d 305 (1 Cir. 1959), where he was confronted with the identical situation under a comparable federal statute:
“It is argued on one hand that the statute of limitations expresses a policy of repose and should be interpreted accordingly. Undeniably the legislature intends to strike down all stale claims, meritorious as well as frivolous. On the other hand, it is said that a person has in effect no remedy if his claim is barred before he knows that he has been wronged, and that such a person can not be accused of sleeping on his rights. This court cannot resolve this policy conflict. In the present state of the law we cannot possibly say, contrary to *453the plain mandate of 28 U. S. C. § 2401(b), that Congress intended that the statute be suspended until the plaintiff knows of the wrong; and we cannot remold the statute in the image of the equitable doctrine of laches.” (269 F. 2d, at p. 310.)
The legal soundness of this conclusion rests on a very solid and enduring foundation. Limitations of actions, created entirely by statute, are peculiarly legislative and not judicial acts. At common law there was no fixed time for the bringing of suits. 53 C. J. S. Limitation of Actions § 1, p. 905; Uscienski v. National Sugar Refining Co., 19 N. J. Misc. 240 (C. P. 1941); Hart v. Deshong, 40 Del. 218, 8 A. 2d 85 (Super. Ct. 1939). The judicial branch consequently does not have the responsibility for or freedom of development and change which it does when concerned with common-law principles originally judge made. When the Legislature has spoken clearly and fully, judges are obligated to follow, whether or not as individuals they agree with the enunciated policy either generally or as it may affect a particular case or class of cases.
A statute of limitations, like any line drawn where something which falls on one side is good and something which falls on the other is bad simply because it fails to meet the artificial criterion of the line, is necessarily arbitrary. Such is the very nature of the idea of limitation of actions. The statute bars whether the suit be commenced the day after the time period expires or years later. Contrawise it has no application even though the action be instituted on the last day before expiration and witnesses are just as unavailable as they would be if the complaint were filed 24 hours later.
The appropriateness of time periods fixed by limitation statutes, as well as the reasons for the variations therein, which in this state run from two months to at least 20 years (N. J. S. 2A:14-1 to 20 inc.), have always been considered policy questions for the Legislature and not of judicial concern. Union City Housing Authority v. Commonwealth Trust Co., 25 N. J. 330, 342-343 (1957). Similarly, and *454of vital importance here, exceptions delaying the commencement or extending the period have long been held to be matters exclusively within the legislative province. In this State they are confined generally to situations of infancy, insanity, non-residence, death and military service. N. J. S. 2A:1A-21 to 23 inc.; 2A:14-26. This fundamental was cogently expressed in the leading case of Board of Chosen Freeholders of Somerset County v. Veghle, 44 N. J. L. 509 (Sup. Ct. 1882) and reiterated by a majority of this court in a slightly different context less than a year ago. Higgins v. Schneider, 61 N. J. Super. 36, 43 (App. Div. 1960), affirmed on opinion below 33 N. J. 299 (1960). In Veghte, Justice Magie quoted a meaningful sentence from an early opinion [McIver v. Ragan, 2 Wheat. 25, 4 L. Ed. 175] by Chief Justice Marshall in a case involving what was claimed to be an inequitable result produced by a statute of limitations :
“ ‘If this difficulty be produced by the legislative power, the same power might provide a remedy, but courts cannot, on that account, insert in the statute of limitations an exception which the statute does not contain.’” (44 N. J. L., at p. 513.)
So it seems to me that, as a matter of broad principle, the majority has gone beyond the well established bounds for judicial action in this area where the policy decision peculiarly belongs to the Legislature. I doubt that courts advance the proper relationship between the branches of government under our system or, in the long run, the cause of even, stable and just administration of law in all matters when we decide a case on the tacit, underlying premise that the Legislature, in a field particularly its own, has originally acted unwisely or too strictly and has failed to make corrections as we think it should have.
To turn to the more specific legal basis given for the majority result, it would not seem that there is anything really obscure, in the present context, about what the Legislature meant in relating the commencement of the time *455period to the date of accrual of the cause of action. The selection of the vital event is, of course, also a policy matter within the legislative realm, binding on the judiciary. Our basic statutes (N. J. S. 2A:14-1 and 2), in accord with the pattern in most jurisdictions, were taken from the first English limitation act enacted in 1623. Note, “Developments in the Law, Statutes of Limitations,” 63 Harv. L. Rev. 1177, 1178-1179 (1950); Board of Chosen Freeholders of Somerset County v. Veghte, supra (44 N. J. L., at p. 513).
The concept of accrual of a cause of action has had a clear and certain connotation in the law from earliest days and there has never been any difficulty in determining what the legislature intended when the statute was first enacted and, absent language change, what it continues to mean. That universal meaning was most recently repeated by this court in Tortorello v. Reinfeld, 6 N. J. 58, 65 (1950) (a malpractice case) :
“* * * we consider it to be firmly settled that by the ‘accrual’ of a cause of action * * * is meant the time when a right first arises to institute and maintain an action for the invasion of one’s rights against the wrong-doer, and the statutory period is computed from that time * * * Any wrongful act or omission resulting in any injury to the person, though slight, for which the law provides a remedy gives rise to a right to institute an action therefor and the cause of action is said to accrue at that time. The statute of limitations attaches at once and commences to run from that time irrespective of the time when the injury is discovered or the consequential damages result.”
This is the same definition found in the early landmark case of Larason v. Lambert, 12 N. J. L. 247, 248 (Sup. Ct. 1831) and must have been considered thoroughly settled even then since no authority is there cited to support it. 4
Our courts have, until the instant case, always followed the concept in applying the bar of the statute to factual settings as “hard” as the one before us whenever some element of the cause of action was not or could not be discovered until the limitation period had run (unless under equally long established principles the wrong was realistically a *456continuing one or there was some inequitable conduct by the defendant precluding him from asserting the bar). In the medical malpractice held, we have been, heretofore, in agreement with the results reached in the vast majority of jurisdictions (see Annotations 74 A. L. R. 1317 (1931), 144 A. L. R. 209 (1943)) that, where the' wrongful conduct consists of a single act, the statute begins to run from the time of that act despite hardship or apparent inequities. Weinstein v. Blanchard, 109 N. J. L. 332 (E. & A. 1932) ; Tortorello v. Reinfeld, supra; Bauer v. Bowen, 63 N. J. Super. 225 (App. Div. 1960). In other fields, where incidentally I fail to see any difference in principle and therefore equally affected by the majority opinion, see Gogolin v. Williams, 91 N. J. L. 266 (E. & A. 1917) (late discovery of erroneous land survey by surveyor); Sullivan v. Stout, 120 N. J. L. 304 (E. & A. 1938) (late discovery of erroneous title search by attorney); French v. U. S. Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 88 F. Supp. 714, 723-724 (D. C. N. J. 1950) (ignorance of identity of individual participants in alleged malicious prosecution until after statutory period had expired) ; Stanley Development Co. v. Millburn Township, 26 N. J. Super. 328 (App. Div. 1953) (late discovery of obstruction of property right). See also Burns v. Bethlehem Steel Co., 20 N. J. 37 (1955), in which this court refused to hold a personal injury claim grounded in contract to be embraced by the six-year statute, as against the two-year period, where it seems probable the damage did not fully manifest itself until after the latter period had expired. It seems safe to conclude that the majority has, in effect, cast aside the firmly entrenched meaning of accrual of a cause of action — a policy decision which, I repeat, belongs to the Legislature — and supplanted it with a fluid judicial concept which moves to meet each case according to what the court deems equitable under the circumstances.
The majority’s reliance on occupational disease cases (Urie v. Thompson, 337 U. S. 163, 69 S. Ct. 1018, 93 L. Ed. 1282 (1949) and the trial court opinion in Hughes v. Eureka *457Flint and Spar Co., 20 N. J. Misc. 314 (Cir. Ct. 1939); but see appellate court opinion apparently to the contrary, Biglioli v. Durotest Corp., 44 N. J. Super. 93 (App. Div. 1957), affirmed 26 N. J. 33 (1958)), as analogous authority to support the result reached seems to me inappropriate. There the far different circumstance of exposure to the damaging agent over a long period of time, as Judge Magruder observed in Tessier, “prevented an accurate determination, even in retrospect, of when the harm to the plaintiff (without which the negligence was not actionable) actually happened.” 269 F. 2d, at p. 309. To the same effect, see Fowkes v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 264 F. 2d 397 (3 Cir. 1959). It is interesting to note that our present law in such cases, now wholly covered by workmen’s compensation, keys the commencement of limitations to the date on which the employee ceased to be exposed or when he knew or ought to have known the nature of his disability and its relation to his employment, whichever is the later. N. J. S. A. 34:15-34.
The situation just referred to illustrates that the Legislature has not been static or unmindful with respect to matters of limitation of actions. It has also changed time periods. For example, claims for intentional personal injuries formerly had a four-year limitation (Rev. 1877, p. 594); now it is two years (N. J. S. 2A:14-2). Slander originally was actionable if the suit was commenced within two years after the speaking of the words (L. 1896, p. 119); presently actions for it or libel must be started within one year of the publication (N. J. S. 2A:14-3). New, particular acts have been adopted to meet situations which the Legislature must have determined were not justly covered by the general sections. See, for instance, N. J. S. 2A:14-11, enacted in 1950, prescribing that any private claim of right in a public way in which the public rights have been vacated must be asserted within one year of the adoption of the vacation ordinance. And in situations where we must assume sound policy so indicated, it has prescribed different events than the accrual *458of the cause of action for the commencement of the statutory period, as in the wrongful death statute, where the time runs from the date of death itself, not from the occurrence of the defendant’s act which ultimately caused the demise (N. J. S. 2A:31-3), and as in actions on fiduciaries’ bonds, insofar as the surety is concerned, where the limitation commences with the date of the bond rather than with that of the actionable breach of the condition (N. J. S. 2A: 14-16).
To me, all of this leads to the conclusion that so- long as our general limitation sections, keyed to the accrual of the cause of action, remain in their present form, they represent continuing determinations of competing policies by the Legislature which the judiciary should not attempt to alter because it considers them unjust in particular situations. Problems of the type involved in this case are not new. The statute has no gaps or broad imprecise language necessitating construction. The appropriate role of the Legislature in making law cannot be disregarded. In spite of common knowledge of the ordinary workings of the legislative process, the judicial branch is bound to assume that the Legislature was and is aware of the problems, that it concluded once that a strict, all-inclusive approach is best on balance and that it has not yet changed its mind in the instant sphere. Until it does, as for example Missouri did by expressly providing that a cause of action accrues when the damage is sustained and is capable of ascertainment (Mo. Code, §§ 516.100, 516.140), the judiciary’s task is to apply the plain words of the statute as they are written and not enter a field of policy determination alien to its allotted function.
I would affirm the judgment of the Law Division.
Justice Haneman authorizes me to say that he joins in this dissent.
For reversal — Chief Justice Weintraub, and Justices Jacobs, Francis, Proctor and Schettino — 5.
For affirmance■ — -Justices Hall and Hanemajst — 2.