Court Opinion

ID: 9787733
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:23:35.324437+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:00.070091
License: Public Domain

OPALA, J.,
concurring
T1 I join the court's pronouncement. I write separately to highlight the analysis underlying my own conclusion which coincides with that of the court's opinion. My view tracks faithfully the centuries-old rules of statutory construction for distinguishing between the two time-bar categories that govern extinguishment of rights and extinguishment of remedies in actions.
T2 In the Anglo-American system of law legal bars that restrict the time for bringing an action are divided into two distinct ru-briecs. The most familiar of these is that known as a statute of limitations. The limitations' time bar operates solely on the remedy and may be equitably tolled by a variety of factors that will interrupt, suspend, revise and extend its running.1 The other rubric of time restrictions is variously known as (a) conditions upon the exercise of a right, (b) substantive-law time bars, (c) time bars upon the exercise of a right rather than on invocation of the remedy and (d) statutes of repose.2 The latter class of time bar operates on the right as distinguished from the remedy. Its lapse will extinguish the right *1177forever, whereas the expiration of a limitation period extinguishes only the remedy.
13 The dichotomous division of legal time bars into those that extinguish only the remedy and those that snuff out the very right in the claim has been faithfully reflected in this court's jurisprudence ever since statehood.3 This carefully followed and guarded distinction has antecedents in the English law.4 The separate time bars our jurisprudence preserves are not interchangeable. The bars that apply to remedies will not be used to bar rights and vice versa.5
4 Typical of the statutes that invariably fall into the class of substantive-law time bars are those that will extinguish one's right before a cause of action would ever acerue. Those are often enactments whose time bars run from an event or occurrence that usually happens before an action's acerual. In contrast to them, a limitation period's beginning, which is remedial, always coincides with a cause's acerual-the point of time at which an action may first be brought.6
5 The plaintiff invokes here the "borrowing statute," whose provisions are found in 12 ©.98.2001 § 105. That section allows a party suing in Oklahoma upon a claim that arose elsewhere to borrow from this state's law a longer "limitation period" than that enacted in some other state. Plaintiff chose to borrow here the period found in 12 0.8.2001 § 109.7 The court rejects the selection as impermissible and so do I. The § 109 period is not a remedial time limit8 but rather a substantive-law bar (or a statute of repose) enacted and designed primarily to extinguish one's right in a claim not yet accrued rather than to set a time bar for invoking one's remedy to bring an action upon an accrued claim.9
T6 The § 109 time bar does not fall within the range of the words "limitation period" used in § 105. This is so because the § 109 bar constitutes a condition upon the exercise of a right described in that section. The borrowing statute's language is crystal-clear. It refers to a "period of limitation" as the time span which may be borrowed from the law of this state. "Period of limitation" can *1178mean only one thing-a period that runs from a claim's accrual. The time bar in 12 ©.8.2001 § 109 does not run from accrual of a cause of action. It may hence not be "borrowed" because it is not a "period of limitation" within the meaning of $ 105.
17 The simple bottom-line answer to the federal court's certified question is: One who by statute is given the option "to borrow" one of Oklahoma's "longer" limitation periods-a remedial time bar-may not instead select this state's substantive-law time bar as one's substitute choice exercisable under the borrowing statute.
{8 In short, the time bar in § 109 is unavailable for the plaintiff to borrow when invoking the terms of § 105.

. Matter of the Estate of Speake, 1987 OK 61, ¶ 13, 743 P.2d 648, 652-653 (ordinary limitations may be tolled); Thompson v. Anchor Glass Container Corp., 2003 OK 39, ¶ 7 n. 13, 73 P.3d 836, 838 (Tolling is a term of art which refers to the temporary suspension of statutory time bar for bringing a suit because of either some "disability" on the part of the plaintiff which prevents that person from commencing the action or some activity on the part of the defendant forestalling prosecution of the claim against the defendant. Black's Law Dictionary (5th ed.1979) at 1334 defines the verb 'to toll' as: "To suspend or stop temporarily as the statute of limitations is tolled during the defendant's absence from the jurisdiction and during the plaintiff's minority"); Resolution Trust Corp. v. Grant, 1995 OK 68, 901 P.2d 807 (the "discovery rule" allows the limitations period to be tolled in tort cases); see also Lester v. Smith, 2008 OK CIV APP 97, 198 P.3d 402, 403-404.

. The law's time limits for bringing an action are either remedial or substantive. The former, called statute-of-limitation time bars, extinguish uninvoked remedies; the latter destroy unexer-cised or unasserted rights. Right-targeting legislative time bars are often referred to as statutes of repose. A statute of repose bars poiential liability by limiting the time during which a cause of action may arise. It serves to bar a claim even before it accrues. In practical terms, a statute of repose marks the boundary of a substantive right whereas a statute of limitation interposes itself only procedurally to bar the remedy after a substantive right has vested. Neer v. Oklahoma Tax Commission, 1999 OK 41, ¶ 19, 982 P.2d 1071, 1078-79; Reynolds v. Porter, 1988 OK 88, ¶ 6, 760 P.2d 816, 820; Lester v. Smith, supra note 1, 198 P.3d at 403-404.

. Neer v. Oklahoma Tax Commission, supra note 2 at ¶ 19, 982 P.2d at 1078-79; Reynolds v. Porter, supra note 2 at ¶ 6, 760 P.2d at 820; Trinity Broadcasting Corp. v. Leeco Oil Co., supra note 4, 692 P.2d 1364, 1366-1367; Stephens v. Household Finance Corp., 1977 OK 137, ¶¶ 15-16, 566 P.2d 1163, 1166; Hiskett v. Wells, 1959 OK 273, ¶ 0 syl. 1, ¶¶ 11-15, 351 P.2d 300, 304; Brookshire v. Burkhart, 1929 OK 428, 283 P. 571, 577; Kerley v. Hoehman, 1916 OK 1062, 74 Okla. 299, 183 P. 980; see also Lester v. Smith, supra note 1, 198 P.3d at 403-404.

. For the historical background of the English law's dichotomous division into rights and remedies, see Opala, Praescriptio Temporis and Its Relation to Prescriptive Easements in the Anglo-American Law, 7 Tulsa L.J. 107 (1971).

. See Wenke v. Gehl Co., 274 Wis.2d 220, 682 N.W.2d 405 (2004) for a rare departure from the Anglo-American jurisprudence which should be regarded as aberrational.

. Kinzy v. State ex rel. Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System, 2001 OK 24, ¶ 11, 20 P.3d 818, 823; Reynolds v. Porter, supra note 2, 3, at ¶ 7, 760 P.2d at 820; Sherwood Forest No. 2 Corp. v. City of Norman, 1980 OK 191, ¶ 10, 632 P.2d 368, 370; Oklahoma Brick Corp. v. McCall, 1972 OK 70, ¶ 10, 497 P.2d 215, 217.

. The provisions of 12 O.S.2001 § 109 are:
No action in tort to recover damages
(i) for any deficiency in the design, planning, supervision or observation of construction or construction of an improvement to real property,
(i) for injury to property, real or personal, arising out of any such deficiency, or
(iii) for injury to the person or for wrongful death arising out of any such deficiency, shall be brought against any person owning, leasing, or in possession of such an improvement or performing or furnishing the design, planning, supervision or observation of construction or construction of such an improvement more than ten (10) years after substantial completion of such an improvement.

. Statutory limitation bars claims upon which no action has been brought within a specified time after the claim's accrual. Kinzy v. State ex rel. Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System, supra note 6 at ¶ 11, 20 P.3d at 823.

. Section 109 claims may be time-barred before they accrue. The § 109 time bar does not run from the claim's accrual but from an event that ordinarily will and often does occur in pre-accrual stages. Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Inc. v. Vick, 1992 OK 140, ¶ 20, 840 P.2d 619, 624; Riley v. Brown and Root, Inc., 1992 OK 114, ¶ 7, 836 P.2d 1298, 1300; St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co. v. Getty Oil Co., 1989 OK 139, ¶ 14, 782 P.2d 915, 918.