Court Opinion

ID: 9549340
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:16:36.150646+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:10.338923
License: Public Domain

QUINN, Justice,
dissenting:
I join in Justice Dubofsky’s dissent and add a few additional observations about section 13-80-127(1), C.R.S.1973. This statute, as pertinent here, states that “[a]ll actions against any architect ... for injury to person or property caused by the design ... of any improvement to real property shall be brought within two years after the claim for relief arises ... but in no case shall an action be brought more than ten years after the substantial completion of the improvement to the real property .... ” The critical issue in this case, as I see it, is whether the legislature in enacting this statute in 1969 intended to include within the ten year period of limitation a statutory claim for wrongful death under 13-21-202, C.R.S.1973. Although the plaintiff first asserted the inapplicability of section 13-80-127 to wrongful death actions in his reply brief, I believe the issue should be addressed. The effect of not addressing it affects the substantial rights of the plaintiff, C.A.R. 35(e), and, in my opinion, the issue is implicit in the trial court’s grant of summary judgment for the defendant.
I believe the statutory language of section 13-80-127, which expressly applies to all actions “for injury to persons or property,” manifests a clear legislative intent not to include an action for wrongful death in the ten year limitation period. It has long been the law in this state that a cause of action for wrongful death is not based upon a “survival theory,” section 13-20-101(1), C.R.S.1973; see Espinoza v. O’Dell, 633 P.2d 455 (Colo.1981); Publix Cab Co. v. Colorado National Bank, 139 Colo. 205, 338 P.2d 702 (1959), but rather is an entirely new cause of action which comes into being at death *831and only then vests the surviving spouse with an actionable claim for relief. The separate and independent nature of this claim was recognized in Fish v. Liley, 120 Colo. 156, 160, 208 P.2d 930, 932 (1949), where a surviving wife sued for the wrongful death of her husband:
“Properly considered ... the Death Act is not a survival statute. This is true for the reason that the cause of action created by this statute is separate and distinct from the action which the deceased would have for personal injuries had he survived. The wife’s action is rooted in the statute itself and the elements of her damage are essentially different from those proper for consideration in a personal injury action to which her injured husband would have been entitled if death had not ensued.”
Thus, in the instant ease, the death of Dr. Yarbro’s wife created a claim in Dr. Yarbro “which is essentially different from any liability chargeable to the tort-feasor prior to the death .. .. ” Fish v. Liley, 120 Colo, at 162, 208 P.2d at 933. We must presume that the legislature was aware of this construction of the wrongful death statute when it enacted section 13-80-127 in 1969. If, at that time, the legislature intended the ten year limitation period to extinguish a wrongful death claim, it hardly would have drafted the limitation provisions in terms of “[a]ll actions ... to recover damages for injury to person or property.”
Excluding wrongful death actions from the 1969 version of section 13-80-127 has strong support in logic. A contrary construction results in extinguishing a claim before it ever comes into being. In enacting a statute it is presumed that the legislature intends a just and reasonable result. Section 2-4-201(l)(c), C.R.S.1973 (1980 Repl.Vol. IB). The abrogation of a statutory claim for wrongful death before the claim itself has come into being is hardly the type of result which might reasonably be inferred from legislative silence on the matter. The distance from legislative silence to statutory nullification of a claim is far too long to cover in a single step.
I would reverse the summary judgment and remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings on the plaintiff’s claim against the architects.
I am authorized to say that Justice DU-BOFSKY joins me in this dissent.