Court Opinion

ID: 9682149
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:06:03.13493+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:37.652539
License: Public Domain

LIMBAUGH, Judge.
This case is a challenge to the constitutionality of § 516.170, RSMo 1994, which tolls the statute of limitations for individuals who are minors or who are mentally incapacitated, to the extent that the statute excepts from its tolling provisions actions for medical malpractice.
Plaintiff JoAnn Wheeler (Conservator), as conservator of the estate of Derrel Wheeler, filed this case against Dr. Thomas Briggs; his employer, Southwest Missouri Neuro-surgical Group, Inc. (SMNG); Dr. Douglas Hacker; and his employer, Springfield Radiological Group, Inc. (SRG), alleging they were negligent in their treatment of Derrel Wheeler. The trial court dismissed plaintiffs petition on the ground that it was barred by the two-year statute of limitations for medical malpractice actions under § 516.105, RSMo 1994. Jurisdiction on appeal to this Court is based on article Y, § 3 of the Missouri Constitution. The judgment is affirmed.
According to the petition, on June 9, 1988, Derrel Wheeler suffered a stroke that was not diagnosed as such until June 13, 1988. He then suffered a “major” stroke during the course of a “four vessel angiogram” ordered by Dr. Briggs on June 13, 1988, and performed by Dr. Hacker on June 14, 1988. As a result of the strokes, on August 6, 1991, Derrel Wheeler was declared mentally incompetent and disabled by the probate division of the Lawrence County Circuit Court and JoAnn Wheeler, his wife, was appointed guardian of his person and conservator of his estate. On May 11, 1992, JoAnn Wheeler, acting as her husband’s conservator, filed a medical malpractice action concerning the initial medical treatment Derrel received, although none of the four current defendants was named as a party in that action. Dr. Briggs was added as a party to the 1992 petition on May 5, 1993. The Conservator voluntarily dismissed that petition without prejudice on May 18, 1995, and refiled a petition on August 3, 1995, against Dr. Briggs and Dr. Hacker. In an amended petition filed January 10, 1996, she also named SMNG and SRG as defendants. In the first count of the amended petition the Conservator sought a declaratory judgment that § 516.170 is unconstitutional to the extent that it bars Derrel’s action against any of the defendants. Count II of the petition stated claims for medical malpractice against Dr. Briggs, SMNG, Dr. Hacker, and SRG.
In response to the Conservator’s petition, now pending, defendants Dr. Briggs and SMNG filed a motion to dismiss and defendants Dr. Hacker and SRG filed a motion for summary judgment, with both motions asserting that the action was time barred by the two-year statute of limitations for medical malpractice actions in § 516.105. In addition, the Conservator filed a motion for *514summary judgment on Count I of her petition. The trial court sustained the defendants’ motions, overruled the Conservator’s motion, and dismissed the Conservator’s petition in its entirety.
On appeal, the Conservator argues that the trial court erred in sustaining the defendants’ motions and denying her motion, because § 516.170 violates the open courts provision of the Missouri Constitution, the equal protection and due process requirements of the United States and Missouri Constitutions, and the special law prohibition in article III, § 40(6), of the Missouri Constitution. Only the open courts issue deserves extended analysis, as the remaining constitutional arguments are wholly without merit. Just last year this Court held in Batek v. Curators of University of Missouri, 920 S.W.2d 895, 898-99 (Mo. banc 1996), that the exemption of medical malpractice actions from the tolling provisions of § 516.170 is not an equal protection violation, because it neither burdens a suspect class nor a fundamental right and the classification is reasonably related to a legitimate state interest. In Batek, this Court also held that § 516.170 does not violate the special law prohibition of the Missouri Constitution. Id. at 899. The Conservator offers no supporting argument on the alleged due process violation and asserts it only in connection with the claimed equal protection violation. We turn, therefore, to the open courts issue.
The record shows that the Conservator’s medical malpractice action was first brought nearly four years after the alleged negligent acts. Section 516.105 would ordinarily bar the action because it provides a two-year statute of limitations for medical malpractice actions, as measured from the time of the alleged negligent acts in June of 1988. The Conservator claims, though, that Derrel Wheeler has been mentally disabled since that time and should be allowed to rely on the tolling provisions of § 516.170, despite the proviso that the section does not apply to medical malpractice actions. Section 516.170 states:
Except as provided in section 516.105, if any person entitled to bring an action ... at the time the cause of action accrued be either within the age of twenty-one years, or mentally incapacitated, such person shall be at liberty to bring such action within the respective [statute of limitations] after such disability is removed. (Emphasis added.)
The Conservator takes the position that to except the provisions of § 516.105 from the coverage of § 516.170 violates the mandate of Mo. Const, art. I, § 14, which guarantees “[t]hat the courts of justice shall be open to every person, and certain remedy afforded for every injury to person, property or character, and that right and justice shall be administered without sale, denial or delay.” Her specific challenge is the constitutionality of applying § 516.170 to the mentally disabled, medical malpractice plaintiff. In analyzing the constitutional challenge, however, we begin with the recognition that the legislature has the right to modify the substantive law to eliminate or restrict causes of action. See Blaske v. Smith & Entzeroth, Inc., 821 S.W.2d 822, 832 (Mo. banc 1991); Adams v. Children’s Mercy Hosp., 832 S.W.2d 898, 905 (Mo. banc), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 991, 113 S.Ct. 511, 121 L.Ed.2d 446 (1992).
The constitutional right of access means simply the “right to pursue in the courts the causes of action the substantive law recognizes.” Adams, 832 S.W.2d at 906; Harrell v. Total Health Care Inc., 781 S.W.2d 58, 62 (Mo. banc 1989). “It does not assure that a substantive cause of action once recognized in the common law will remain immune from legislative or judicial limitation or elimination.” Adams, 832 S.W.2d at 906. Under the open courts provision, only those statutes that impose procedural bars to access of the courts are unconstitutional. Id. at 905. In Strahler v. St. Luke’s Hospital, 706 S.W.2d 7 (Mo. banc 1986), relied on by plaintiff, this Court held that § 516.105, the same statute involved in the case at hand, denied access to the courts and was constitutionally infirm to the extent that it precluded the claim of a 19-year-old woman for medical malpractice that occurred when she was a 15-year-old minor. The overriding factor in that determination was that minors lack the legal capacity to file suit under § 507.115, *515RSMo 1994, which provides that only persons of age 18 years or over are entitled to bring civil suits in their own names. Section 507.115, in conjunction with § 516.105, is a legal impediment to access to the courts created by the legislature. Stmhler did not turn on any personal or peculiar inability of the individual claimant to bring suit, but rather a state-imposed barrier to bringing suit.
In this case, the distinction is critical. Mentally incapacitated persons, unlike minors, are not legally prohibited from filing suit. They have the right to pursue in the courts any cause of action the substantive law recognizes. Instead, it is their own disability that prevents, as a practical matter, meaningful access to the courts. The legislature, in recognition of this practical inability to bring suit, included mentally incapacitated persons in the tolling provisions of § 516.170, but then excepted those persons from the tolling benefit in medical malpractice cases. Section 516.170 does not proeedurally bar access to the mentally incapacitated. The exception may, in some cases, yield harsh results, but it is, nevertheless, a legitimate legislative prerogative.
We hold, therefore, that § 516.170 does not impede a mentally incapacitated person’s access to the courts and that the trial court committed no error in sustaining defendants’ motions to dismiss and for summary judgment and in overruling the conservator’s motion for summary judgment. The judgment is affirmed.
BENTON, ROBERTSON, and COVINGTON, JJ., concur.
HOLSTEIN, C. J., dissents in part and concurs in part in separate opinion filed.
PRICE and WHITE, JJ., concur in' opinion of HOLSTEIN, C.J.