Court Opinion

ID: 6553366
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-19 22:31:30.642994+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:56:10.007617
License: Public Domain

Sam Bird, Judge, dissenting. I respectfully dissent from the decision of the majority to reverse the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the appellee because I believe the majority opinion extends the existing precedent far beyond the notion that the fraudulent concealment of a cause of action tolls the statute of limitations. In my opinion, the effect of this court’s action is to hold that in the case of the tort of fraud involving concealment, the statute of limitations is tolled from the time of the commission of the fraudulent act until the cause of action is discovered or could have been discovered with reasonable diligence. There is a difference between saying, as the majority does, that when the act of fraud involves concealment, the statute of limitations is tolled, and saying that affirmative actions of concealment of a cause of action in fraud tolls the statute of limitations, which is existing precedent, O’Mara v. Dykema, 328 Ark. 310, 942 S.W.2d 854 (1997). In O’Mara, 328 Ark. at 317, 942 S.W.2d at 858, it was stated that “[w]hen there have been affirmative acts of concealment, the statute begins to run again at the time the cause is discovered or should have been discovered by reasonable diligence” (emphasis added) (citing Wilson v. General Elec. Capital Auto Lease Inc., 311 Ark. 84, 841 S.W.2d 619 (1992)). This language can only be interpreted to mean that the statute of limitations on a cause of action in tort for fraud begins to run when the acts giving rise to the cause of action (i.e., the acts of fraudulent conduct) are completed, that the running of the statute is then tolled when the tortfeasor commits positive acts of fraud to conceal the cause of action, and that the statute begins again, O’Mara, supra, when the cause of action is, or reasonably could have been, discovered. The tort of fraud necessarily includes either the false representation of a matter of fact or the concealment of that which should have been disclosed. Medlock v. Burden, 321 Ark. 269, 900 S.W.2d 552 (1995). In other words, in the absence of a false representation or concealment, there is no fraud. The affirmative acts of concealment of a fraud required to toll the statute of limitations must be acts of concealment different from the concealment that forms the basis of the cause of action for fraud. The statute of limitations on a cause of action for fraud is not tolled merely because concealment is employed in the perpetration of the fraud. The statute of limitations is not tolled unless, in addition to the concealment that constitutes the cause of action for fraud, there are- affirmative actions of concealment, so furtively planned and secretly executed as to keep the plaintiff s cause of action concealed. Chalmers v. Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc., 326 Ark. 895, 935 S.W.2d 258 (1996). It is the act of concealing the cause of action that tolls the statute of limitations, not the concealment that gives rise to the cause of action for fraud. The majority relies upon SEECO, Inc. v. Hales, 341 Ark. 673, 22 S.W.3d 157 (2000), which I do not agree supports the majority’s position at all. SEECO held that “a concealed fraud suspends the running of the statute of limitations, and the suspension remains in effect until the party having the cause of action discovers the fraud or should have discovered it by the exercise of reasonable diligence.” 341 Ark. at 712, 22 S.W.3d at 181. For this proposition, the SEECO court cited Martin v. Arthur, 339 Ark. 149, 3 S.W.3d 684 (1999), a medical malpractice case in which it was alleged that the defendant doctors were negligent in their use of an artificial ceramic block, Orthoblock, in performing plaintiffs cervical spine fusion, and that the doctors failed to disclose to plaintiff the risk involved in the use of Orthoblock. For their defense, the doctors pled the running of the two-year statute of limitations. The plaintiff countered that by their continued failure to disclose the risk of the use of Orthoblock, the doctors and their clinic fraudulently concealed the plaintiffs cause of action, thereby tolling the statute of limitations. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the doctors, holding that the statute of limitations had not been tolled. In affirming the trial court, the supreme court held that the doctors’ continued failure to disclose the risks of Orthoblock was nothing more than a “continuation of prior nondisclosure which ... is insufficient to raise a fact question relative to fraudulent concealment,” Martin v. Arthur, supra, 339 Ark. at 155, 3 S.W.3d 687, and that such continued nondisclosure did not “rise to the level of a positive act of fraud.” Id. The majority also relies on Hampton v. Taylor, 318 Ark. 771, 887 S.W.2d 535 (1994), for the proposition that the statutory limitation period begins to run, in the absence of concealment of the wrong, when the wrong occurs, not when it is discovered. I have no argument with the majority that Hampton is an accurate statement of the law. I do disagree, however, that Hampton stands for the proposition that the concealment that forms the basis for the fraud can be the same concealment that is necessary to toll the statute of limitations. The majority refers to the affrdavit of Dr. Leonard White in which White, based on his examination of 5,891 weighing tickets, opined that it would have been difficult for individual growers to have recognized that Swift was manipulating the weighing process. However, what the majority fails to reveal is that White made his discovery as early as 1993 in connection with the Taylor v. Swift-Eckrich litigation. Appellants herein offered no explanation why they were unable, with the exercise of reasonable diligence, to discover the same information about which the entire turkey-raising industry in Arkansas was aware. The fact that the discovery of the existence of one’s cause of action might be difficult, time-consuming, or expensive does not toll the statute of limitations. As the majority has correctly noted, no mere ignorance on the part of a plaintiff of his rights, nor the mere silence of one who is under no obligation to speak, will prevent the bar of the statute of limitations. It is only when the existence of the cause of action is concealed by some positive act of fraud or that the cause of action is perpetrated in such a way as to conceal itself, that the statute of limitations is tolled, and then only until the plaintiff, with the exercise of reasonable diligence, could have discovered the existence of the cause of action. O’Mara v. Dykema, supra. Although the question of fraudulent concealment is normally a question of fact that is not suited for summary judgment, when the evidence leaves no room for a reasonable difference of opinion, the trial court may resolve fact issues as a matter of law. Alexander v. Flake, 322 Ark. 239, 910 S.W.2d 190 (1995). In response to appellee’s motion for summary judgment, appellants produced no evidence whatsoever of any positive acts committed by the appellee to conceal their alleged fraudulent conduct in the misweighing of turkeys. To toll the statute, appellants rely solely upon the alleged acts of fraud by the appellees that form the basis of their cause of action. There is neither an allegation by appellants nor evidence in the record that appellees did anything other than misweigh the turkeys and record the inaccurate weights on the weighing tickets. Appellants produced no evidence that appellee did anything to conceal the weighing process, their recordation of the alleged inaccurate results, or the weighing tickets. Nor was their evidence produced that appellees concealed the records of their alleged misdeeds after they were concluded. Under the circumstances, the decision of the trial court to grant appellees’ motion for summary judgment was correct, and I would affirm that decision.