Court Opinion

ID: 9562329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:26:35.739534+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:18.005839
License: Public Domain

MARTONE, Justice,
concurring.
I agree with the court that the discovery rule can apply to some contract cases. In a very real sense, this case is no different than Tom Reed Gold Mines Co. v. United Eastern Mining Co., 39 Ariz. 533, 8 P.2d 449 (1932). Sixty-three years ago, we held that the discovery rule applied to an action in trespass, not because it was a tort, but because the defendant concealed facts from the plaintiff. So instead of applying the tort statute of limitations to the tort pled, we applied the fraud statute of limitations, which even today states that the “cause of action shall not be deemed to have accrued until the discovery by the aggrieved party of the facts constituting the fraud or mistake.” A.R.S. § 12-543(3).
*592This is that sort of case. As we note, ante, at 587, 898 P.2d at 965, Gust wrote to the building’s leasing agent and asked if anything had occurred that would invoke its most favored nation clause. “The leasing agent replied that it had not violated Gust’s most favored nation clause and that it never would.” Id. The discovery rule created by the legislature in A.R.S. § 12-543(3) applies just as it applied in the Tom Reed case.
And this is as it ought to be. Statutes of limitation are, by definition, peculiarly within the province of the legislature. As we note, ante, at 588 n. 1, 898 P.2d at 966 n. 1, the legislature has adopted the discovery rule for some contract cases and not for others. But whenever there is concealment, the statutory discovery rule applies whatever the label of the cause of action. Because the rule the court adopts is but a modest extension of the discovery rule from cases in which there is true concealment to a carefully tailored class of contract cases in which “injury is difficult for plaintiff to detect,” ante, at 590, 898 P.2d at 968, I join its opinion.
FELDMAN, C.J., did not participate in this matter; pursuant to Ariz. Const, art. 6, § 3, RUTH V. McGREGOR, Judge of the Court of Appeals, Division One, was designated to sit in his stead.