Court Opinion

ID: 9796214
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:52:07.201322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:48:14.864390
License: Public Domain

CARPENETI, Justice,
dissenting in part.
I agree with Justice Bryner that the 1997 tort reform act's noneconomic damages cap and punitive damages forfeiture provisions are unconstitutional. I write separately because I would also hold that the limitations tolling procedure, as it applies to minors under eight years of age, is unconstitutional.
Alaska Statute 09.10.070(a) states the general rule that the limitations period for tort actions is two years. Alaska Statute 09.10.140 provides that this period will be tolled for minors until they reach the age of majority, which is eighteen years of age.1 The parties dispute both the meaning and constitutionality of AS 09.10.140.
1. AS 09.10.140 creates two classes of child personal injury plaintiffs.
The court correctly sets out the parties' positions: The plaintiffs contend that AS 09.10.140 treats two classes of child personal injury plaintiffs differently, treating those younger than eight years of age at the time of injury less favorably than those older than eight years of age at the time of injury. The plaintiffs claim that AS 09.10.070(a) and 09.10.140(c) together provide that the younger children have until their tenth birthday to file a personal injury action, while the older children are treated more favorably, since they have until their twentieth birthday to file an action.
The state rejects this view, contending that the tolling provisions of AS 09.10.140 only apply to children under the age of eight at the time of injury. Therefore, in the state's view, children over the age of eight at the time of injury have two years after their injury in which to file suit, like all other tort plaintiffs.
I agree with the court's observation in today's opinion that
[when interpreting the language of a statute, we normally give unambiguous language its plain meaning.112 We may also rely on legislative history as a guide to interpretation, "but the 'plainer the language of a statute, the more convincing contrary legislative history must be' to interpret a statute in a contrary manner." 113, 2
112 See In re Johnstone, 2 P.3d 1226, 1231 (Alaska 2000).
113 Id. (quoting Ganz v. Alaska Airlines, Inc., 963 P.2d 1015, 1019 (Alaska 1998)).
While today's opinion nowhere explicitly says so, it flatly rejects the state's view. It *1080is correct to do so, because the state's interpretation is impossible to reconcile with the unambiguous language of AS 09.10.140. Alaska Statute 09.10.140 creates a tolling provision for the two-year statute of limitations in AS 09.10.070(a). Alaska Statute 09.10.140 contains a general rule and an exception. The general rule, in AS 09.10.140(a), tolls the statute of limitations for all children until they reach the age of majority, which is eighteen years of age:
Except as provided under (c) of this seetion, if a person entitled to bring an action mentioned in this chapter is at the time the cause of action accrues ... under the age of majority ... the time of [the plaintiff's minority] ... is not a part of the time limit for the commencement of the action.
This general rule existed in former AS 09.10.140.3 Chapter 26, SLA 1997 modified this tolling procedure with an exception to the general rule, now codified in AS 09.10.140(c)4 As AS 09.10.140(a) states, the tolling for the plaintiff's minority applies "except as provided under [AS 09.10.140}(c)" Alaska Statute 09.10.140(c) provides:
In an action for personal injury of a person who was under the age of eight years at the time of the injury, the time period before the person's eighth birthday is not a part of the time limit imposed under AS 09.10.070(a) for commencing the civil action.
The unambiguous language of subsection (c) indicates that it applies to personal injury plaintiffs who were "under the age of eight years at the time of the injury," and creates a different tolling rule for these plaintiffs. For those plaintiffs under the age of eight at the time of injury, the statute of limitations is only tolled until those plaintiffs reach the age of eight. Therefore, AS 09.10.140 distinguishes between children and creates two different classes of minor personal injury plaintiffs: (i) those who were under the age of eight at the time of injury; and (i) those who were eight years old or older at the time of injury. Children under the age of eight at the time of injury have until their tenth birthday to file suit, while children over the age of eight at the time of injury have until their twentieth birthday, subject to the statute of repose.5
2. The tolling provision in AS 09.10.140 violates equal protection.
The plaintiffs contend that AS 09.10.140 violates equal protection, because it creates two classes of child personal injury plaintiffs who are treated differently.6
As noted earlier in the court's opinion,7 under our equal protection test the relative importance of the plaintiff's interest and the state's interest are weighed. If the plaintiffs interest is not very important, the state need only show that its objectives were "legitimate"; if the plaintiff's interest is important, the state must show a "compelling" state interest. If the state can meet this part of the test, to satisfy the next part the state must show the required "nexus" or "fit" between its regulations and its objectives. The required nexus depends on the importance of the plaintiffs interest, and a continuum of *1081possibilities exists. If the plaintiff's interest is not very important, this fit must be merely "a substantial relationship between means and ends"; however, if the plaintiff's interest is very important, the regulation must be the least restrictive means available to achieve the objective.8
Alaska Statute 09.10.140 clearly fails the third part of this analysis, because even if the plaintiffs' interests are unimportant, and the state's interest is compelling, there is no substantial relationship between AS 09.10.140 and the legislature's goals. The state only offers one legislative goal underlying AS 09.10.140-the state claims that the statute was enacted "to provide finality and to protect the courts and defendants from the difficulties and unfairness of litigating stale claims." But as noted earlier, AS 09.10.140 treats two classes of minors differently.
To take the most dramatic example, a personal injury plaintiff who was injured one day before her eighth birthday has only until her tenth birthday to file suit before her claim is barred; however, a plaintiff who was injured one day after her eighth birthday has ten years in which to file suit before the claim is barred, and will be able to make the decision herself. The state has not supplied any reasons for why these two classes of children should be treated differently, and a review of the legislative history reveals no discussion of any possible rationale. The required nexus does not exist here, because the differential treatment of these two groups of children has no substantial relationship to the goal of "provid[ing] finality and protecting] the courts and defendants from the difficulties and unfairness of litigating stale claims."
While the state is unable to justify the disparate treatment of children below eight years of age and those eight and above at the time of injury, the court purports to find a justification in the statute of repose, AS 09.10.055. But reading the statute of repose in conjunction with section .140 creates two more classes of minors: those minors who are given the opportunity to file suit themselves and those minors who must rely on a parent or guardian to take action on their claims. The court's opinion does not view this distinction among minors as problematic and finds the line drawn in subsection .140 logical: It serves to separate those children for whom the statute of repose would block the child's ability to make the decision as an adult from those who, because they were within ten years of adulthood when injured, would be able to decide for themselves.
I would find the individual injured child's interests-the interest in being able to make the decision whether to sue for oneself, as a competent adult-to be quite important. I would also find that the state has a legitimate interest in minimizing stale claims. But even assuming that the plaintiffs' interests here are unimportant, there is not a substantial relationship between the classification of children and the state's goals. The importance of being able to file suit on one's own, rather than being forced to rely on a third-party-parent or guardian-is sufficient to justify tolling AS 09.10.070's limit for children above the age of eight. While potential tortfeasors would be subject to a longer period in which they may be subject to suit for children under eight, that increased length would be, at most, eight years. There is no justification offered by the state to support this differentiation when the impact on children under the age of eight is considered. Further, the court's suggestion that the statute of repose furnishes a sufficient reason is unpersuasive.
It is unpersuasive for three reasons: First, this classification works a perverse twist. Those children who are unlikely to realize that they have a potential claim, the youngest, are those that receive the least protection of the laws. The closer a child is to reaching the age of majority, the more likely that he or she is better able to understand the basic workings of the legal system and any potential claims he or she may have. By giving these older children more time to realize their potential claims, but denying the same right to younger children, today's decision compromises the rights of younger children. At age eight, when the statute of limitations begins running under the court's *1082view, these children will have barely graduated from their Big Wheels *- Such a child is absolutely dependent upon a parent or guardian to protect his or her rights. Conversely, a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old, who may well have at least an inkling of the need to sue to protect one's rights, has additional years to consider the matter: the statute of limitations will not begin to run until that child's eighteenth birthday and will not expire until the twentieth. To deprive the younger children of their claims while protecting the claims of those children who are better able to understand their situation and to articulate their thoughts creates an impermissible divide within the group of injured children.
Second, today's decision utterly ignores what the law has, in other respects, historically recognized: that children, by definition, are in their formative years.9 If any group can lay strong claim to the need for additional time to assess the effects of physical, emotional, and other types of injury, surely it is young children. Yet in consigning the youngest injured children to a two-year limitations period, the court deprives them and their parents or guardians of an important opportunity to fully know the extent of the injured children's injuries.
Finally, in hypothesizing that the effect of the statute of repose provides a justification for the disparate treatment of injured children, the court ignores that the statute of repose treats other persons under disability differently than it treats children. Alaska Statute 09.10.140(a) tolls the statute of limitations for both the disability of mental incompetence and the disability of minority. But the statute of repose, AS 09.10.055, provides only that the statute applies "[nlotwithstand-ing the disability of minority described under AS 09.10.140(a),"10 making no mention of the disability of mental incompetence. No reason appears why those people suffering from a mental disability are not subject to the same statute of repose as children under the age of eight are. This failure is especially anomalous given that there is a definite time at which children will be relieved of their disability whereas those suffering from incompetency may never be relieved of their disability. In these cireumstances, the court's reliance on the statute of repose to justify the disparate treatment of injured children seems problematic.
For these reasons, I would find the tolling provision for children, when read in conjunction with the statute of repose, to be a deprivation of equal protection for injured children under the age of eight and, therefore, unconstitutional.

. AS 25.20.010; see also Neary v. McDonald, 956 P.2d 1205, 1209 n. 3 (Alaska 1998) (noting that the age of majority is eighteen years of age).

. Opinion at 1065.

. Former AS 09.10.140 (1996) provided, in part:
Disabilities of minority and incompetency. (a) If a person entitled to bring an action mentioned in this chapter is at the time the cause of action accrues ... (1) under the age of majority ... the time of [the] disability [of minority] is not a part of the time limit for the commencement of the action.

. Ch. 26, § 8, SLA 1997.

. Since AS 09.10.140(c) by its own terms does not apply to minors over the age of eight at the time of injury, AS 09.10.140(a) applies and tolls the statute of limitations for those minors until the age of majority. However, the statute of repose, AS 09.10.055, also applies and imposes a ten-year limitations period. Therefore, minors injured between the ages of eight and ten would have ten years to file suit, instead of until their twentieth birthday.

. The state argues that we need not reach the plaintiffs' constitutional challenge, because the plaintiffs' claim concerning AS 09.10.140 is not ripe. However, the state does not discuss the requirements for ripeness, or cite a single an-thority in support of this argument. Therefore, the argument is waived for lack of sufficient briefing. See In re Dissolution of Marriage of Alaback, 997 P.2d 1181, 1184 n. 3 (Alaska 2000) ("Points given only a cursory treatment in the argument portion of a brief will not be considered, even if developed in the reply brief.").

. Opinion at 1051-1052.

. Gilmore v. Alaska Workers' Comp. Bd., 882 P.2d 922, 926 (Alaska 1994).

. Cf. State v. F.L.A., 608 P.2d 12, 18 (Alaska 1980) (quoting Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622, 635, 99 S.Ct. 3035, 61 LEd.2d 797 (1979), for the proposition that, during formative years of childhood and adolescence, children often lack experience, perspective and judgment); P.H. v. State, 504 P.2d 837, 841 (Alaska 1972) (stating that principal precept behind children's courts is that children do not have mature judgment).

. AS 09.10.055(a) (emphasis added).