Court Opinion

ID: 9550005
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:27:33.910176+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:10.846382
License: Public Domain

ROSSMAN, J.,
dissenting.
A summary judgment must be affirmed by this court if there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the defendant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Although the majority cites that rule, it does not apply it. Instead, it decides, as a matter of law, when plaintiff discovered her injury; i.e., it decides a disputed fact. I would reverse and remand for that determination to be made by a jury.
*201In 1987, plaintiff had been told: (1) one of her Fallopian tubes was acting as a “natural” contraceptive by preventing implantation of fertilized ova; (2) her efforts to conceive had been unsuccessful because of the abnormal location of that tube; (3) defendant might have been responsible for the tube’s location; (4) surgery was required to correct the situation; and (5) she would have no difficulty in becoming pregnant after surgery, because her fertility was unaffected. Only in 1989, after she had undergone corrective surgery and subsequent tests, was she diagnosed as permanently infertile. She gave notice of her malpractice claim within 180 days.
On those facts, a jury could find that plaintiffs belief that she had a correctible contraceptive condition did not constitute “discovery” of her permanent infertility, which is the injury that, unbeknownst to her and her doctors, she sustained in 1985. That is, a jury could conclude that her claim was timely filed. The cases relied on by the majority do not require a different result. In fact, those cases involved plaintiffs who were aware of a problem, but took no action to remedy it. They passively accepted their condition and, later, when their injuries were found to be greater than had anticipated, they were barred from suing. Here, plaintiff actively sought second opinions, tests and surgery to determine what was the matter. This court should not determine that, as a matter of law, she discovered her injury in 1987. It was not until 1989 that she learned that her inability to conceive was the result of the D & C in 1985 that had rendered her permanently infertile. Because a reasonable jury could reach a different conclusion than the majority, and because this case presents a factual question that belongs in the hands of a jury, I dissent.
Riggs, De Muniz and Durham, JJ., join in this dissent.