Court Opinion

ID: 9453704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:21:06.720367+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:46.042880
License: Public Domain

EDWARDS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Respectfully, I dissent.
This case presents the single question of whether or not the two-year limitation of time for filing claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2401 (b), bars plaintiff’s claim for the asserted negligent death of her husband. The District Court dismissed her claim on motion because it was not filed in time. Her suit was filed more than two years after her husband’s death, but within two years of the autopsy which first advised her of the fact that he died from berylliosis.
Beryllium is a dangerous element employed in automic energy production. Appellant claims that her husband was exposed to this element while he worked for the University of California at a government-owned plant at Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 1946 and 1947 and that she had no way of knowing of the existence of a Federal Tort Claims action until she received the autopsy report.
My colleagues properly point out that thereafter under the facts of this case she still had 22 months of the two-year period of limitations to run and that she reasonably could have filed the instant action within that time.
The difficulty I have with this reasoning is that if, because this plaintiff had 22 months remaining, we adopt the rule that the cause of action “accrues” at death, regardless of whether or not appellant could then have known of the ex-listence of the cause of action, we commit this circuit to a rule which is bound to have totally unreasonable results in other cases where the cause of death is not so promptly discovered.
The extensive nature of the United States Government’s participation in atomic energy work suggests that we approach such possibilities with caution as other circuits are doing.
I agree with the opinion of the court in holding that under normal circumstances where the parties have knowledge of the existence of the cause of action, the word “accrues” as used in the Tort Claims Act should refer to the event (here, the death) which gives rise to the cause of action.
However, there is a class of cases involving both illness and death where the claimant does not, and in the exercise of normal diligence could not, know of the existence of the cause of action. In such instances, compliance with a statutory time limitation may be imposssible. The courts generally seek to avoid a harsh result which cannot be construed as arising from any fault on the part of the plaintiff. In such instances the claim is said not to “accrue” until the element of knowledge, absence of which prevents the filing of the complaint, has been supplied.
Thus in Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, 69 S.Ct. 1018, 93 L.Ed. 1282 (1949), dealing with a three-year limitation in the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, the Supreme Court said:
“In our view, however, neither of the outlined constructions of the statute of limitations can be sustained. For, if we assume that Congress intended to include occupational diseases *13in the category of injuries compensable under the Federal Employers’ Liability and Boiler Inspection Acts, such mechanical analysis of the 'accrual’ of petitioner’s injury — -whether breath by breath, or at one unrecorded moment in the progress of the disease— can only serve to thwart the congressional purpose.
“If Urie were held barred from prosecuting this action because he must be said, as a matter of law, to have contracted silicosis prior to November 25, 1938, it would be clear that the federal legislation afforded Urie only a delusive remedy. It would mean that at some past moment in time, unknown and inherently unknowable even in retrospect, Urie was charged with knowledge of the slow and tragic disintegration of his lungs; under this view Urie’s failure to diagnose within the applicable statute of limitations a disease whose symptoms had not yet obtruded on his consciousness would constitute waiver of his right to compensation at the ultimate date of discovery and disability.
* * * * * *
“We do not think the humane legislative plan intended such consequences to attach to blameless ignorance. Nor do we think those consequences can be reconciled with the traditional purposes of statutes of limitations, which conventionally require the assertion of claims within a specified period of time after notice of the invasion of legal rights.” Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, 169, 170, 69 S.Ct. 1018, 1024-1025 (1949).
For purposes of this appeal we must assume that appellant did file her claim within the “specified period of time after notice of the invasion of [her] legal rights.” 1
In general accord with this principle of the Urie case, and relying on it are Brush Beryllium Co. v. Meckley, 284 F.2d 797 (6th Cir. 1960); Young v. Clinchfield Railroad Co., 288 F.2d 499 (4th Cir. 1961); Kossick v. United States, 330 F. 2d 933, 7 A.L.R.3d 726 (2nd Cir.), cert. denied 379 U.S. 837, 85 S.Ct. 73, 13 L. Ed.2d 44 (1964) ; Hungerford v. United States, 307 F.2d 99 (9th Cir. 1962); Quinton v. United States, 304 F.2d 234 (5th Cir. 1962).
In the last three cases cited, the Fifth, Ninth and Second Circuits have applied the reasoning of Urie (quoted above) to the Federal Tort Claims Act limitation in 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b) — the identical section which we construe here.
I would reverse and remand for trial.

. In this regard we rely upon the language of appellant’s complaint which, of course, tlie government had to accept for purposes of its motion to dismiss.