Court Opinion

ID: 9883984
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:30:09.433805+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:34.100053
License: Public Domain

STRINGER, Justice
(dissenting).
While the ruling of the majority may make sense from a policy standpoint — that a child is conclusively presumed to be incapable of knowing that he or she has been sexually abused, and therefore has an additional six years after becoming an adult to bring a cause of action — that clearly is not the policy of the legislature as reflected in Minn.Stat. § 541.073 (2000). As the responsibility of the judicial branch is to apply the laws adopted by the legislature, and not selectively, I respectfully dissent. A strict statutory analysis, as outlined below, leads to the conclusion that the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of PATH. Therefore I would affirm.
The limitations period for negligence actions is typically governed by Minn.Stat. § 541.05(5) (2000), but the delayed discovery statute provides a special limitations period for actions involving sexual abuse, as appellant alleges here. The delayed discovery statute provides, in relevant part:
(a) An action for damages based on personal injury caused by sexual abuse must be commenced within six years *392of the time the plaintiff knew or had reason to know that the injury was caused by the sexual abuse.
⅜ ⅜ # *
(d) This section does not affect the suspension of the statute of limitations during a period of disability under section 541.15.
Minn.Stat. § 541.073, subd. 2 (2000).
The error of the majority is that it basically ignores subpart (d), the legislative declaration that Minn.Stat. § 541.15 (2000), the minority tolling statute, is unaffected by the delayed discovery statute. Section 541.15 provides:
[A]ny of the following grounds of disability, existing at the time when a cause of action accrued or arising anytime during the period of limitation, shall suspend the running of the period of limitation until the same is removed; provided that such period, except in the case of infancy, shall not be extended for more than five years, nor in any case for more than one year after the disability ceases:
(1) that the plaintiff is within the age of 18 years; * * *.
Minn.Stat. § 541.15(a) (2000) (emphasis added). For purposes here, the critical terms are “the period of limitation * * * shall not be extended * * * in any case for more than one year after the disability ceases.”1 For nearly a century, the minority tolling statute has been so interpreted — a minor has until age 18, plus one year, to commence suit for a cause of action that arose during his or her infancy. See, e.g., Anderson v. Lutheran Deaconess Hosp., 257 N.W.2d 561, 562 (Minn.1977); Voegele v. Mahoney, 237 Minn. 43, 49, 54 N.W.2d 15, 19 (1952); Langer v. Newmann, 100 Minn. 27, 29, 110 N.W. 68, 69 (1907); . see also J.J. v. Luckow, 578 N.W.2d 17, 20-21 (Minn.App.), rev. denied (Minn. July 16, 1998).2
Although the majority correctly states that “[ujnder the minority tolling statute, * * * when a negligence action accrues during a plaintiffs infancy, the plaintiff must commence the action either within one year of reaching the age of majority or within the six-year period of limitation, whichever is later,” it ignores this rule in the context of the delayed discovery statute — despite the explicit direction in section 541.073 that it is to be applied in deference to section 541.15.3 Instead, the majority asserts that a minor is incapable of knowing that he or she was abused at the time the abuse occurs and that the six-*393year period of limitation provided in section 541.073 does not begin to run until a victim of sexual abuse reaches the age of majority. As noted above, the language of the statute does not support this conclusion, nor does our case law.
In Blackowiak v. Kemp, 546 N.W.2d 1, 3 (Minn.1996), we held that “as a matter of law one is ‘injured’ if one is sexually abused” and that an “objective, reasonable person standard” applies to determine when the complainant knew or should have known that he or she was sexually abused. We reiterated this holding in W.J.L. v. Bugge, 573 N.W.2d 677, 681 (Minn.1998), noting that because sexual abuse and personal injury “are intertwined, the victim is immediately put on notice of the causal connection between the abuse and injury” such that “the statute of limitations begins to run once a victim is abused” absent some disability “which would make a reasonable person incapable of recognizing or understanding that he or she had been sexually abused.”4
No such disability is even claimed here. D.M.S. does not claim that he lacked competence or was under a disability due to his infancy or repressed memory; he merely asserts that under section 541.073 minor sexual abuse victims categorically have until age 25 to file a claim. In support of this argument he cites to our statement in Bugge, also cited by the majority, implying that a reasonable child is incapable of knowing that he or she has been sexually abused. But this statement was not in the context of the minority tolling statute because the joint application of the two statutes was not before the court; therefore, it is not controlling here.
The result of the interplay of sections 541.073 and 541.15, as the lower courts correctly concluded, is that a minor who has been sexually abused may bring his or her claim until age 19 (age 18 plus one year), or within six years of when the minor “knew or had reason to know that the injury was caused by the sexual abuse,” whichever is later. D.M.S. turned 19 on September 10, 1998, and February 22,1999 marked the expiration of six years from the date D.M.S. clearly demonstrated that he knew or should have known of the sexual abuse and injury — when he complained to his mother about Barber’s abuse and was removed from the house. The filing of his claim on June 8, 1999 was therefore untimely and was properly dismissed on summary judgment.

.Compare the language of Minn.Stat. § 541.15(b) (2000), which provides:
In actions alleging malpractice, * * * the ground of disability specified in paragraph (a), clause (1), suspends the period of limitation until the disability is removed. The suspension may not be extended for more than seven years, or for more than one year after the disability ceases.
(Emphasis added.) As noted in the dissent from the court of appeals’ decision in Bertram v. Poole, 597 N.W.2d 309, 315 (Minn.App.) (Foley, J., dissenting), rev. denied (Minn. Sept. 28, 1999), this difference demonstrates that if the intent of the legislature was "to suspend the limitations period in paragraph (a) until the victim reaches the age of 19, after which the six-year statute of limitations would corn-mence, it would have drafted language similar to paragraph (b) evidencing such intent.”

. As the majority points out, our statement in W.J.L. v. Bugge, 573 N.W.2d 677 (Minn.1998), that the limitations period under the delayed discovery statute would begin to run one year after a complainant reaches the age of majority was a mischaracterization of the law.

. See Whitener ex rel. Miller v. Dahl, 625 N.W.2d 827, 832 (Minn.2001) (recognizing the significance of explicit language regarding the application of the minority tolling statute to a limitations period); see also Minn.Stat. § 645.26, subd. 1 (2000) (providing that if a general statutory provision appears in conflict with a special statutory provision, the two shall be construed, if possible, so that effect may be given to both).

. The majority states that, given our ruling in Blackowiak that "as a matter of law one is 'injured' if one is sexually abused,” if the six-year delayed discovery period were deemed to commence to run before a child reaches 18 the statute would provide no additional time for children to commence an action. That may be true under some circumstances, but under no circumstances would a child have less than 6 years from the date of the injury— and that would seem to be all that the legislature intended.