Court Opinion

ID: 9854445
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:07:47.561253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:05.149450
License: Public Domain

Clarke, Presiding Justice,
dissenting.
I disagree with the majority and respectfully dissent as to Division 1. The statutory construction applied by the majority fails to preserve the orderliness of the legislative scheme in my view. The special concurrence in Dept. of Transp. v. City of Atlanta, 255 Ga. 124, 137 (337 SE2d 327) (1985), enumerates four principal methods of statutory construction:
The literal method simply dictates that we not depart from the plain meaning of the language of the statute. The golden rule method would direct that we follow the literal method unless it produces contradiction, absurdity or such an inconvenience as to insure that the legislature meant something else. The sound law approach is for the appellate court to make sense out of the statute but to be faithful to the legislative intent. Under this method, consideration should be given to the purpose of the statute in trying to make it at home with the whole body of the law. The standard old rule method is sometimes called the “mischief rule.” Here the appellate court seeks to find the law as it existed before the statute was passed and then identify the mischief sought to be corrected, the idea being that this would lead to the legislative intent and would protect the law as a seamless web.
*305Decided May 27, 1988
Reconsideration denied June 14, 1988.
Greene, Buckley, DeRieux & Jones, Steven J. Misner, Richard P. Lindsey, for appellant.
Allen & Ballard, Hunter S. Allen, Jr., Dennis A. Elisco, Long, Weinberg, Ansley & Wheeler, J. M. Hudgins TV, Stephen H. Sparwath, for appellees.
The majority applies the literal method, but I believe this statute fits the mold of those requiring review under the standard old rule. The law as it existed before the enactment of OCGA § 9-3-72 imposed a two-year statute of limitations. OCGA § 9-3-53. When the legislature enacted OCGA § 9-3-72, it allowed a one-year period after discovery for the filing of an action and in doing so signaled its recognition of a mischief needing correction. That mischief was the injustice of a claim being barred before its existence became known to the injured party. To say that OCGA § 9-3-72 shortens the limitation period provided for in OCGA § 9-3-71 renders the latter statute ineffectual as to cases involving foreign objects left in a patient’s body. This holding, in my view, also brings into play the golden rule method of statutory construction because “it produces contradiction, absurdity or such an inconvenience as to insure that the legislature meant something else.”
I believe the curative statute serves a purpose and that that purpose is to insure that a claim not be barred within an unjust period. I further believe the legislature never intended the statute to shorten the time within which a cause of action may be asserted. For this reason, I must dissent.
I am authorized to state that Justice Smith and Justice Weltner join in this dissent.