Court Opinion

ID: 9884168
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:40:28.490242+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:36.028622
License: Public Domain

CRIPPEN, Judge,
concurring specially.
The position of the University rests on characterization of treatment of Rosemary Offerdahl as an effort to identify an appropriate birth control device. That treatment ended in August 1977. It was evident in 1978 that the treatment had produced problems. Efforts between 1978 and 1981, aimed at eliminating the consequences of alleged malpractice, do not toll the statute of limitations. See Schmitt v. Esser, 178 Minn. 82, 84, 226 N.W. 196, 197 (1929) (“It is true that, if there be but a single act of malpractice, subsequent time and effort to merely remedy or cure that act could not toll the running of the statute.”)
This view of the case is invited by appellants’ complaint. Although the complaint identifies early treatment contacts of Rosemary Offerdahl with staff of the University of Minnesota, it alleges that negligence was singularly in the form of insertion of an intrauterine device in August 1977. The trial court granted summary judgment because of this statement of appellants’ claim, concluding that appellants had identified “a single act, insertion of the Copper 7 IUD, as the alleged act of medical malpractice.”
Another result is reached if the treatment of Offerdahl is viewed somewhat differently. In June 1977, before the Copper 7 IUD was inserted, a course of treatment began to deal with symptoms of pelvic inflammatory disease. The initiation of this treatment is stated in appellants’ com-*24plamt. It is evident that there was a close relationship between this treatment and the effort to identify an intrauterine device that would not cause further symptoms of the disease. This treatment involved continuing care between 1978 and 1981, ending in several surgical procedures. Fertility treatment beginning in 1981 was also aimed at overcoming consequences of the disease Offerdahl had suffered. In the course of this treatment, appellants allege that one act, the identification and insertion of a birth control device, involved negligence. So viewed, the single act of negligence is part of a long course of treatment that ended less than two years before this action was commenced.
The record here permits the view that this case involves a single act of negligence in the course of a six-year series of contacts to treat symptoms of pelvic inflammatory disease. It is appropriate in light of the authorities cited in the majority opinion to conclude that appellants’ cause of action accrued following the termination of this course of treatment by University staff. The single act exception has no application in a situation involving such a continuous course of treatment.