Court Opinion

ID: 9853936
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:57:45.619346+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:16.950780
License: Public Domain

PAGE, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully disagree with the court’s holding that the plain language of Minn. Stat. § 541.051, subd. 1(c) (2004), preserves a landowner’s or land possessor’s common law liability for improvements to real property after the 10-year time limit set out in subdivision 1(a) has passed.
In Pacific Indemnity Co. v. Thompson-Yaeger, Inc., 260 N.W.2d 548 (Minn.1977), we held the predecessor to the current version of Minn.Stat. § 541.051 unconstitutional because it “violate[d] constitutional provisions which forbid immunity from suit to a limited class of defendants without there being a reasonable basis for such classification.” 260 N.W.2d at 550. The classification in question involved those who “perform[] or furnish[] the design, planning, supervision, or observation of construction or construction of such improvements to real property” and did not include the owner of the real property. Id. at 553. In response to Pacific Indemnity, the legislature amended the statute to include the owner of the real property upon which the improvement was made. See Act of Apr. 7, 1980, ch. 518, §§ 2-4, 1980 Minn. Laws 595-96. As a result, the constitutional infirmity that we identified was eliminated. By today’s decision, the court backtracks and again gives life to the classification we struck down in Pacific Indemnity.
The part of the statute we struck down in Pacific Indemnity read:
This limitation shall not be applied in favor of any person in actual possession and control as owner, tenant, or otherwise, of the improvement at the time the defective and unsafe conditions of such improvement constitutes the proximate cause of the injury for which it is proposed to bring an action.
Pacific Indem. Co., 260 N.W.2d at 553 (quoting Minn.Stat. § 541.051, subd. 1 (1976)).
The pertinent part of the statute that we construe today reads:
(a) Except where fraud is involved, no action by any person in contract, tort, or otherwise to recover damages for any injury to property, real or personal, or for bodily injury or wrongful death, arising out of the defective and unsafe condition of an improvement to real property, * * * shall be brought against any person performing or furnishing the design, planning, supervision, materials, or observation of construction or construction of the improvement to real property or against the owner of the real property more than two years after discovery of the injury or, in the case of an action for contribution or indemnity, accrual of the cause of action, nor, in any event shall such a cause of action accrue more than ten years after substantial completion of the construction. Date of substantial completion shall be determined by the date when construction is sufficiently completed so that the owner or the owner’s representative can occupy or use *885the improvement for the intended purpose.
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(c) Nothing in this section shall apply to actions for damages resulting from negligence in the maintenance, operation or inspection of the real property improvement against the owner or other person in possession.
Minn.Stat. § 541.051, subd. 1(a), (c) (2004) (emphasis added).
When we construe statutes:
The object of all interpretation and construction of laws is to ascertain and effectuate the intention of the legislature. Every law shall be construed, if possible, to give effect to all its provisions.
When the words of a law in their application to an existing situation are clear and free from all ambiguity, the letter of the law shall not be disregarded under the pretext of pursuing the spirit.
When the words of a law are not explicit, the intention of the legislature may be ascertained by considering, among other matters:
(1) the occasion and necessity for the law;
(2) the circumstances under which it was enacted;
(3) the mischief to be remedied;
(4) the object to be attained;
(5) the former law, if any, including other laws upon the same or similar subjects;
(6) the consequences of a particular interpretation;
(7) the contemporaneous legislative history; and
(8)legislative and administrative interpretations of the statute.
Minn.Stat. § 645.16 (2004).
In ascertaining the intention of the legislature the courts may be guided by the following presumptions:
(3) the legislature does not intend to violate the Constitution of the United States or of this state;
(4) when a court of last resort has construed the language of a law, the legislature in subsequent laws on the same subject matter intends the same construction to be placed upon such language.
Minn.Stat. § 645.17 (2004). We have also said that when construing the statute of repose, we “strive to give effect to the plain meaning of the words of the statute without resort to technical legal constructions of its terms.” Pacific Indem. Co., 260 N.W.2d at 554.
Applying their plain meaning, the words of Minn.Stat. § 541.051 bar claims against any person performing the construction of an improvement to real property or the owner of the improved real property for injuries arising from the “defective and unsafe condition of an improvement to real property” that accrue more than 10 years after the improvement is substantially completed. Minn.Stat. § 541.051, subd. 1(a) (2004) (emphasis added). Because the statute begins to run at the substantial completion of the improvement, the condition triggering the statute is not just any condition of the property, but only those conditions that are both “defective and unsafe” and in existence at the time construction of the improvement is substantially completed.
Subdivision 1(c) -of section 541.051 creates an exception to the 10-year time limit. That exception applies “to actions for damages resulting from negligence in the maintenance, operation or inspection of the *886real property improvement” by the property’s owner. Put another way, the exception applies to the “maintenance, operation, and inspection of the real property improvement” after completion and not to the “defective and unsafe condition” of the improvement as completed. Reading subdivision 1(c) in conjunction with subdivision 1(a), it is clear that the legislature intended to hold an owner liable only for those changes to the real property improvement that arise from the owner’s negligent actions after the construction of the improvement is completed and not for those conditions already in existence at the time the improvement was substantially completed. Simply put, with respect to the defective and unsafe conditions existing at the substantial completion of construction, owners enjoy the same statutory protection as construction professionals. Applying our rules of statutory construction, any other reading of Minn.Stat. § 541.051, subd. 1(c), would render subdivision 1(a) meaningless, violate our holding in Pacific Indemnity, and render the statutory scheme unconstitutional.
Thus, to the extent that Olmanson’s claim is that his injuries arose out of the defective and unsafe condition of the culvert as constructed, his claim is barred by Minn.Stat. § 541.051, subd. 1(a), because the record before us establishes that the culvert’s alleged defective and unsafe condition was inherent in the culvert’s construction and existed at the time of the culvert’s substantial completion and because the improvement to the real property, the culvert, was substantially completed more than 10 years before Olmanson’s snowmobile accident. I would, therefore, reverse the court of appeals’ decision and reinstate the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of appellants.