Court Opinion

ID: 9844337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:01:00.46726+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:32.950214
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting.
A beginning point for analysis of the majority opinion is its bare and unsupported statement that as of July 1, 1976, “the appellant had fair notice of the new requirements of when application for medical indigency benefits had to be filed and had forty-five days in which to make such application.” As the author of the majority opinion concedes, this postulate was adopted from District Judge Schroeder’s opinion in Children’s Hospital v. Planting, No. 59455, (4th Dist.Ct., April 1, 1977), which similarly involved an action to recover medical indigency benefits. In his opinion, however, Judge Schroeder, showed an awareness for reality. What he actually wrote was that the plaintiffs in that case (plaintiffs and appellants in this) “have fair notice, so far as anybody is aware of statutory law, and they have an opportunity to act within the limitations established.” (Emphasis added.) Judge Schroeder’s opinion quoted the following passage from Greenhalgh v. Payson City, 530 P.2d 799 (Utah 1975):
“It is well established that the legislature may reduce a period of limitations and apply a new and shorter period to previously accrued causes of action, so long as a reasonable time is allowed to bring such an action; and that the effect of the new statute commences upon the effective date of the statute.” 530 P.2d at 803 (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added).
Judge Schroeder did not, according to my reading, discuss the fair notice question, other than to astutely imply (as it seems to me that he did) that few people are aware of statutory law — by which I would suppose that he especially meant drastic changes in statutory law. Certainly, however, Judge Schroeder, unlike the majority of this Court, was aware that changes in statutory law may be a trap for the unwary. Simi*178larly, Judge Schroeder, whose opinion was also an order denying a motion to dismiss predicated upon grounds of untimeliness, failed to address the reasonable time issue — a key to the Utah court’s statement. The majority opinion of this Court accepts without discussion both that forty-five days is a reasonable time to bring an action and that appellants had fair notice of the change in the law. Both unwarranted and unsupported assumptions are, however, necessary to the Court’s reasoning in order to reach a conclusion which upholds the denial of benefits.
The majority has impermissibly amended the 1976 amendment to I.C. § 31-3504 in order to suit its own view as to what the legislature might have done in order to avoid or limit the statutory duty imposed upon counties to care for the medically indigent. In doing so, the Court similarly chooses to ignore that the legislature, in not making any provision for claims against the county which had accrued or would accrue prior to the amendment’s effective date of July 1, 1976, was obviously under the impression that accrued claims would remain subject to the limitations which were in effect at the time the right giving rise to those claims had accrued. Most persons would so reason; hence, there is no need for the majority to speculate and legislate. The legislature in avoiding any change that might alter existing claims chose the wiser and more just approach.
The Utah court in Greenhalgh, supra, correctly stated the law that a legislature can reduce a period of limitations even as to an existing claim or cause of action, but doing so is conditional on its providing a reasonable time to bring such an action. In this case the legislature did not do so. The majority of the Court, however, rushes in to fill the breach with its own provision — one which self-servingly defeats the appellants’ claim. Nor does the majority reason around the holding of the Utah court — although it cites its Greenhalgh opinion.
It is helpful to note an earlier Utah case relied upon for the Greenhalgh holding which, after all, was a 3-2 decision. In Toronto v. Sheffield, 118 Utah 460, 222 P.2d 594 (1950) the Utah court also wrote in terms of what the legislature could do— how far it could go — in reducing the time limitation in which an action could be brought as applied to a then existing claim. In this case, again, it must be repeated that the Idaho legislature did not even purport to reduce the time limitation as to existing and accrued claims. Just how a court can do that, when it is at once apparent that the legislature carefully avoided any attempt at shortening the time on accrued claims, will forever be a mystery — other than that earlier opinions authored by some members of the Court have clearly demonstrated an antipathy toward the concept of huge hospital bills being paid by Idaho’s counties — especially to Utah hospitals.1 FAIR NOTICE
The majority avoids discussing just how the appellants were given “fair notice” of the 1976 amendment. If my powers of recollection continue to serve me, not one member of this Court has professed to have known of the 1976 amendment in question prior to our preparation for the oral argument. Yet, it is said that these lay appellants had “fair notice of the new requirements” as of July 1,1976, when the amended version of I.C. § 31-3504 became effective. It is unclear whether this concept of “fair notice” originates in the cliche that “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” or in some other judicial fiat that as frequently serves injustice as it does justice. Even were we to hold the Harrises to an exemplary standard of laypersons’ awareness of the law, had they checked the applicable law at the time of their daughter’s discharge from the hospital, inquiry would have informed them of a one-year statute of limitation on medical indigency claims. How they received or should have acquired knowledge of the change in the law is a proposition which is difficult to comprehend. I know of no principle of reason or justice which requires daily inquiry into existing statutes of limitation.
*179REASONABLE OPPORTUNITY
Had the legislature purported to make the shortened time applicable to accrued rights — which it did not do — and had it enacted as legislation that which the Court now establishes by judicial fiat, it would be difficult to uphold forty-five days as a reasonable time within which to bring a claim.
Although it is uncontroverted that legislatures have the power to shorten or lengthen statutes of limitation, the majority fails to recognize that courts in turn will make a determination of the reasonableness of the new time allowed to assert a claim when applied retroactively to a previously accrued right. Indeed, several cases cited by the Court in support of its conclusion prescribe such an examination. In Olivas v. Weiner, 127 Cal.App.2d 597, 274 P.2d 476 (1954), the court qualified its application of a new statute of limitation to an accrued cause of action: “It has repeatedly been held that the Legislature may reduce a statute of limitations and that the new period applies to accrued causes of action provided a reasonable time is allowed within which to assert the cause.” 274 P.2d at 478 (emphasis added). In that instance, a new limitation of six years was held not unreasonable. After adopting almost identical language as found in Olivas, the Supreme Court of Utah in Greenhalgh v. Payson City, 530 P.2d 799, determined a new one-year limitation to be reasonable. See also Day & Night Heating Co. v. Ruff, 19 Utah 2d 412, 432 P.2d 43 (1967) (new one-year limitation held reasonable); Earle v. Froedtert Grain & Malting Co., 197 Wash. 341, 85 P.2d 264 (1938) (new six-month limitation held reasonable).
The lack of any holding by the majority, or any discussion whatever, regarding the reasonableness of the time period allowed for filing, in contravention of the very authority cited in support of its position, compels me to address the question, albeit in dissent. I am wholly unable to see that a forty-five day statute of limitation is a reasonable amount of time to assert an accrued claim which at the time of its accrual was subject to a one-year limitation.2 Forty-five days is not a long time in most circumstances. It is an exceedingly short period of time in which to by happenstance learn that the legislature has without fanfare shortened a one-year statute to a bare forty-five days. It cannot be said as a matter of law that the appellants’ filing on November 5,1976, approximately two and one-half months after the expiration of the forty-five day period as creatively applied by the Court, is unreasonable. Certainly, four months is not an excessive amount of time to allow a plaintiff who thinks he has one year to discover a change in the law and file a claim or notice. The Court’s opinion has impermissibly, but effectively, foreclosed the appellants’ opportunity to recover the benefits statutorily due medical indigents, yet no fault has been found against them.

. Fortunately, a 1982 amendment, 1982 Idaho Sess.Laws, Chap. 190 § 3, is aimed at providing a formula for a statewide sharing of medical indigency claims.

. The 120-day limitation of the Tort Claims Act is frequently condemned as unreasonable. To further shorten it to fifteen days, as to existing claims, would be the equivalent of the majority’s cutting 365 days to forty-five days, and hence “acceptable” — a proposition even proponent’s of the 120-day limitation would see as extremely doubtful.