Court Opinion

ID: 9571695
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:34:19.565164+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:49.445901
License: Public Domain

Benham, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the statute of repose abrogates appellee’s timely-filed renewal action.
Relying on foreign and federal case law, the majority describes a statute of repose as an absolute, unyielding barrier to a plaintiff’s right of action, not related to the accrual of any cause of action. Majority, p. 845. However, in Browning v. Maytag Corp., 261 Ga. 20 (401 SE2d 725) (1991), we held that a statute of repose cannot be applied retroactively to bar a cause of action that accrued prior to the enactment of the statute of repose. See also Smith v. Cobb County-Ken*847nestone Hosp. Auth., 262 Ga. 566 (3) (423 SE2d 235) (1992). In Browning, a clothes dryer purchased by the Brownings in 1976 malfunctioned and allegedly caused a fire in 1985. They filed a products liability action based on negligence in 1988. In 1987, OCGA § 51-1-11 (c), a statute of repose requiring that products liability actions based in negligence be brought within ten years of the first sale or use of the product, was enacted. In response to a certified question from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, this court held that the 1987 statute of repose could not bar the Brownings’ cause of action that had accrued in 1985. Thus, the statute of repose can be subject to the accrual of a cause of action, and is not, in all cases, the absolute unyielding barrier the majority has erected.
Decided March 15, 1993.
Long, Weinberg, Ansley & Wheeler, Robert G. Tanner, Milton B. Satcher III, for appellants.
Remler, Koski & Near, Robert C. Koski, Marc G. Melikian, for appellee.
In the case at bar, appellee/plaintiff’s cause of action accrued by 1983, and OCGA § 9-3-71 (b), the statute of repose, was enacted in 1985. Under our holding in Browning, the statute of repose cannot be used to divest appellee of a vested right in her cause of action that had accrued prior to the enactment of the statute of repose.
As it is the accrual of the cause of action, not the date the suit was filed, that is the determinative point concerning the retroactive application of the statute of repose, the fact that appellee’s lawsuit is a timely-filed renewal action under OCGA § 9-2-61 (a) has no effect on the fact that the statute of repose cannot be used to divest appellee’s vested right in her cause of action. Appellee need only have filed her complaint within the applicable statute of limitation to enforce her cause of action. The renewal statute, in effect, does nothing more than extend the statute of limitation for six months from the date of dismissal for a case dismissed, after the expiration of the applicable statute of limitation, on grounds that do not adjudicate the merits of the case. See Hackney v. Asbury & Co., 124 Ga. 678 (52 SE 886) (1906); Bowman v. Ware, 133 Ga. App. 799 (213 SE2d 58) (1975).
As it is my understanding of our holding in Browning that the statute of repose cannot be used retroactively to divest appellee of her vested right in her cause of action, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s reversal of the trial court’s denial of appellants’ motion for summary judgment.