Court Opinion

ID: 9672750
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:59:31.841167+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:18.073770
License: Public Domain

Boslaugh, J.,
dissenting.
The majority opinion concludes that Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-222 (Reissue 1979) codifies the discovery rule and therefore permits the legal disabilities of insanity and infancy when applicable to toll the running of § 25-222 such that an action may be brought even after 10 years has passed from the date of the alleged negligent act or omission. See Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-213 (Reissue 1979). This is an incorrect interpretation of § 25-222, which is a statute of ultimate repose requiring all actions based upon a claim of professional negligence to be brought within 10 years.
Section 25-222 provides: “Any action to recover damages based on alleged professional negligence or upon alleged breach of warranty in rendering or failure to render professional services shall be commenced within two years next after the alleged act or omission in rendering or failure to render professional services providing the basis for such action; Provided, if the cause of action is not discovered and could not be reasonably discovered within such two-year period, then the action may be commenced within one year from the date of such discovery or from the date of discovery of facts which would reasonably lead to such discovery, whichever is earlier; and provided further, that in no event may any action be commenced to recover damages for professional negligence or breach of warranty in rendering or failure to render professional services more than ten years after the date of rendering or failure to render such professional service which provides the basis for the cause of action.” (Emphasis supplied.)
*826The legislative history of 1972 Neb. Laws, L.B. 1132, codified as § 25-222, reveals that the Legislature clearly intended to create an absolute limit of 10 years within which an action for professional negligence must be brought. All such actions will be barred if brought after that time, despite the presence of any applicable infancy or insanity.
The committee statement, Committee on Judiciary, L.B. 1132, 82d Leg., 2d Sess. (Jan. 31, 1972), states: “This bill would place an overall limitation of 6 years [later amended to 10 years] in which an action is to be brought or it would be barred. . . . [N]o action could be brought in any case after 6 years had passed.” (Emphasis supplied.) In the floor debate on February 25, 1972, Senator Carstens, who introduced the bill, explained the purpose of L.B. 1132 as follows at 4573-74: “At the present time, there is no upper amendment [sic] or outside limit of time in which action may be brought. It can be brought ten years or fifteen years after the alledged [sic] act of negligence has occurred. And this bill would limit ... It places an overall limitation . . . on the statute of limitation.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Throughout the legislative history, the legislative concern with prevention of stale claims, particularly those involving medical malpractice, is apparent. In the introducer’s statement of purpose the following appears: “Physicians and surgeons need some type protection to prevent actions being brought long after the incident of alleged malpractice took place, when the incident is so remote that it is difficult for the physician or surgeon to protect himself, and defend himself, from the charges because the evidence has been lost, the witnesses who would know are gone, no defense is available because the defenses which existed have been erased by the passage of time.”
From this history it can be concluded that the Legislature intended that § 25-222 bar all suits if not *827brought within the 10-year time limit. The statute therefore limits to 10 years the time during which the infancy and insanity provisions of the earlier enacted § 25-213 would permit an action to be brought. See Colton v. Dewey, 212 Neb. 126, 321 N.W.2d 913 (1982).
In O’Connor v. Abraham Altus, 67 N.J. 106, 335 A.2d 545 (1975), the court reached the same conclusion in determining the application of the tolling statute for infancy and insanity to a statute which required that certain actions against architects be brought within 10 years. “From this it follows that in our view the legislature did not intend the ten-year period after construction to be ‘expanded’ by reason of one’s infancy. This.is not to say that the tolling statute is to be disregarded entirely. Rather, it seems reasonable — and serves the salutary purpose of harmonizing the statutes under examination — to conclude that the tolling statute will safeguard a remedy for a cause of action of the type affected by N.J.S.A. 2A: 14-1.1 accruing during infancy, but only to the extent that the period within which suit must be brought against one included in the favored class does not extend beyond ten years after completion of construction.’’ Id. at 123, 335 A.2d at 554. See, also, DeLay v. Marathon LeTourneau Sales, 48 Or. App. 811, 618 P.2d 11 (1980), aff’d 291 Or. 310, 630 P.2d 836 (1981); Hill v. Forrest & Cotton, Inc., 555 S.W.2d 145 (Tex. Civ. App. 1977).
Application of the rules of statutory construction and interpretation warrant a conclusion that the enactment of § 25-222 did not incorporate the provisions of § 25-213 as an exception to the 10-year limit expressed in § 25-222. Rather, the Legislature intended to modify the provisions of § 25-213 as applied to professional malpractice cases. When a legislative act is complete in itself but is repugnant to or in conflict with a prior statute not referred to in the act, the earlier statute is repealed or modified by implication by the later act, to the extent of the *828repugnancy or conflict. Ferry v. Ferry, 201 Neb. 595, 271 N.W.2d 450 (1978); Connor v. City of Omaha, 185 Neb. 146, 174 N.W.2d 205 (1970).
It is a well-settled rule of construction that special provisions in a law relating to a particular subject matter will prevail over general provisions, so far as there is a conflict. State v. Cornell, 53 Neb. 556, 74 N.W. 59 (1898). An act complete and independent in itself may incidentally amend, modify, or have impact upon the provisions of existing statutes without controverting the constitutional requirement that an amendatory act contain the section amended. State ex rel. Douglas v. Gradwohl, 194 Neb. 745, 235 N.W.2d 854 (1975).
Other courts have interpreted statutes similar to §25-222 as providing absolute “outer limits’’ within which certain types of actions must be brought. Courts have also upheld these acts against claims that they violate a plaintiff’s due process rights.
In Mathis v. Eli Lilly and Co., 719 F.2d 134 (6th Cir. 1983), the court reviewed various decisions dealing with statutes which imposed an absolute time limit for bringing certain types of actions. That case involved a Tennessee statute of limitations that barred products liability actions against manufacturers and sellers more than 10 years after the product was purchased, which was held valid against claims that the statute violated due process. The court held the statute valid even though it effectively extinguished some claims before they could arise.
The court of appeals in the Mathis case cited with approval several cases in which it was held that language similar to that used in § 25-222 creates an absolute time limit after the expiration of which all claims are barred. “In Hawkins, plaintiff was injured in 1979 by an allegedly defective machine bought in 1966, and he filed suit within one year of the accident, which involved very serious permanently disabling injuries. Judge Wilson held that *829the ten-year bar to the Tennessee statute precluded the suit. He described this statute as follows: ‘TCA § 23-3703 is clearly not a conventional statute of limitation based upon the occurrence of an event giving rise to a cause of action. Instead it establishes an absolute limit of ten years from the date a product was sold for use or consumption after which all product liability actions are barred.’ Hawkins v. D & J Press Co., 527 F. Supp. at 388. He noted the legislative preface and held the law as ‘clearly an attempt by the Legislature to create a reasonable time frame to enable manufacturers and distributors as well as their insurance carriers to calculate injury claims arising from the production of goods without compromising the rights of users or consumers of such goods to bring actions for damages within a reasonable number of years after the sale of the product. Although the proposed Uniform Product Liability Act (63 A.L.R.3d Product Liability § 221, 1980 Supplement) provides for a ten year limit without an absolute cutoff date, the Court cannot say that the Tennessee act which does provide an absolute limit would be impermissibly arbitrary. The Court also notes the existence of other absolute time limitations existing under Tennessee law which have been approved by the Tennessee Supreme Court ....’” Mathis, supra at 140, quoting Hawkins v. D & J Press Co., Inc., 527 F. Supp. 386 (E.D. Tenn. 1981).
The court in Mathis, supra at 140-41, went on to say: “In a comparable kind of situation, statutes of limitation barring suits against professionals such as architects and engineers after lapse of a specific period following the design, plan, supervision or construction have been upheld in federal courts despite the fact that the injury arising from a claimed defect may have occurred after the limitation period. The effect of holding such a state limitation bar valid is to preclude an injured party from suing a party claimed to be responsible, although his knowl*830edge of the defect, or his injury as a consequence of the effect, did not come about, or could not have come about, until after the statutory period prescribed. See Wiggins v. Proctor & Schwartz, 330 F. Supp. 350 (E.D. Va. 1971), aff’d, No. 71-1952 (4th Cir., 3/8/72, per curiam); Smith v. Allen-Bradley Co., 371 F. Supp. 698 (W.D. Va. 1974); Agus v. Future Chattanooga Dev. Corp., 358 F. Supp. 246 (E.D. Tenn. 1973).”
The court of appeals in Mathis, supra at 142-43, also cited with approval Harrison v. Schrader, 569 S.W.2d 822 (Tenn. 1978).
“In Harrison v. Schrader, supra, the Tennessee Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of the Medical Malpractice Act and the three-year limitation, set out in Tenn.Code Ann. § 23-3415(a), which reads, in pertinent part: ‘in no event shall any such action be brought more than three (3) years after the date on which the negligent act or omission occurred except where there is fraudulent concealment . . . .’ The Tennessee Supreme Court in a decision by its Chief Justice, now deceased, in Harrison, 569 S.W.2d at 824, observed: ‘It should be noted at the outset that this is not a conventional statute of limitations. Rather it is an outer limit or ceiling superimposed upon the existing [negligence] statute .... Suits must be brought within one year from and after the date of the injury or damage, or the date such injury or damage was discovered, subject to the three-year ceiling fixed by Sec. 23-2415(a). See Watts v. Putnam County, 525 S.W.2d 488 (Tenn. 1975).’
“The Supreme Court concluded that the three-year ‘outer limit or ceiling’ was not demonstrably unreasonable and irrational even though it applied only to those suffering injuries from ‘health care providers.’ 569 S.W.2d at 825. There was a recognized ‘medical malpractice insurance crisis,’ and ‘premiums had risen astronomically.’ 569 S.W.2d at 826. The court observed, quoting from Barnes v. Kyle, 202 Tenn. *831529, 535 (1957), that ‘[t]he constitutional guaranty providing for open courts and insuring a remedy for injuries does not guaranty a remedy for every species of injury, but applies only to such injuries as constitute violations of established law of which the courts can properly take cognizance.’
“In addition, the Tennessee Supreme Court in Harrison v. Schrader, 569 S.W.2d at 827, quoted with approval United States District Judge Frank Wilson’s decision in Hargraves v. Brackett Stripping Machine, 317 F. Supp. at 682, that ‘[t]he legislative body, in enacting such legislation, may weigh the conflicting interests between one person’s right to enforce an otherwise valid claim and another person’s right to be confronted with any claim against him [within a reasonable time].’ ”
Section 25-222 was enacted as a statute of ultimate repose. In so doing, the Legislature sought to balance the rights of the injured party with the right of a defendant to protect himself from stale claims and to enable him to present an effective defense. While it may be considered unfortunate that in some cases the 10-year period will have run before suit can be brought, the legislative history reveals that the Legislature was aware that such events may occur. However, the Legislature intended to impose an absolute time bar in professional negligence cases rather than leave the time period somewhat open-ended. The majority opinion fails to give effect to. the clear intentions of the Legislature with regard to § 25-222.
Hastings, J., joins in this dissent.