Court Opinion

ID: 9585512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:01:15.500127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:41:16.650673
License: Public Domain

Toal, Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. I adhere to my dissent in Rink v. Richland Memorial Hospital, — S.C. —, 422 S.E. (2d) 747, 749 (1992) (3-2 decision) (Toal, A.J., dissenting).
The Legislative goal in providing a longer, three-year statute of limitations for those who have first filed a claim with the governmental entity was clearly to encourage claimants to attempt informal resolution of their claim. As a less costly procedure, it benefits both the claimant and the governmental entity but it provides an additional benefit to the governmental entity in that the entity receives early notification of pending claims. The verified claim must be filed with the entity within one year of the loss occurred or when it should have been discovered. S.C. Code Ann. § 15-78-80(d) (Supp. 1991).
In Braudie v. Richland County, 219 S.C. 130, 64 S.E. (2d) 248 (1951) . . . [t]he claimant did not file a verified claim but through her attorney appeared before the appropriate commission and wrote a letter to the county commission setting forth the details of her injury within two months of her injury. In Braudie, we noted the governmental entity had more information before it within forty-five days of the injury than was required to be fur*310nished in one hundred and eighty days. Thus, we held the governmental entity had not only not been prejudiced but had benefitted from the claimant’s conduct. Therefore, the claimant should not be held to strict literal compliance of the statute.
Id. 422 S.E. (2d) at 749-50.
As with the defendants in Braudie and Rink, in the case at bar, the hospital received the benefit of the early claim. Even-more compelling here is that the claim was filed while the plaintiff was a patient in the mental ward of the hospital. The claim was presented to the plaintiff by hospital personnel. Hospital personnel assisted the plaintiff in filing her claim. The plaintiff remained in the care of the defendant hospital for at least one week due to her injuries in the incident which is the basis of her claim. The hospital had enough information to turn the claim over to its insurance carrier, who investigated and denied the claim, under these facts, I would hold that the hospital waived its right to assert the lack of verification as a defense. See e.g., Mende v. Conway Hospital, Inc., 304 S.C. 313, 404 S.E. (2d) 33 (1991).
In overruling Braudie, the majority impliedly admits, as did the Hospital,1 that Mrs. Vines substantially complied with the Act. The only issue litigated below and on appeal was whether the lack of verification on a claim will in all case foreclose the three-year statute of limitations. The majority by its decision today announces a hypertechnical rule which I believe is neither supported by the statute nor by the prior decisions of this Court.
In denying Mrs. Vines the opportunity to litigate her claim, the majority relies on Rink v. Richland Memorial Hospital, — S.C. —, 422 S.E. (2d) 747 (1992) and Searcy v. Dept. of Educ., Transp. Div., 303 S.C. 544, 402 S.E. (2d) 486 (Ct. App. 1991). Although I dissented in Rink, Rink is distinguishable from the case at bar as the majority found that Rink did not substantially comply with the Act. In Searcy, however, the Court of Appeals found that Searcy substantially complied with the Act, but nevertheless was denied the longer statu*311tory period for filing a lawsuit because the claim was not verified. Searcy relied on Cochran v. City of Sumter, 242 S.C. 382, 131 S.E. (2d) 153 (1963), overruled on other grounds, McCall v. Batson, 285 S.C. 243, 329 S.E. (2d) 741 (1985), and ignored Braudie, supra. The majority here, and the Court of Appeals in Searcy, failed to recognize that Braudie and Cochran were two different statutory schemes. In Cochran, the statute required as an element of the cause of action the filing of a verified claim. Whereas in Braudie, the filing of the verified claims was merely a prerequisite to the longer statutory period for filing a lawsuit. The Torts Claims Act, in contrast to both Cochran and Braudie, requires the reading of three different sections to reach the conclusion that a verified claim is required in order to receive the longer statutory period to file a lawsuit. I assume that the legislature was aware of both Braudie and Cochran when it wrote the Torts Claims Act. If the legislature had intended for the absence of a verification to be a complete bar to the longer statutory period to file a lawsuit, as in Cochran, they could have written the statute to so provide. It seems hypertechnical to deny this patient the ability to pursue her claims simply because the forms were not notarized, particularly in light of the fact that the hospital provided the format which was used.
In order to reach the result of the majority, three statutes must be read together, our long-standing decision in Braudie must be overruled and cases under the general law must be ignored. See Mende v. Conway Hospital, Inc., 304 S.C. 313, 404 S.E. (2d) 33 (1991) (statute of limitations may be waived by action or inaction). Under these facts, I would hold that it is inequitable to deny the plaintiff the longer period to file her lawsuit and allow the hospital to rely on the lack of verification in the claim. I would further overrule Searcy and rely on this Court’s long-standing-precedent of Braudie.
Finney, J., concurs.

 Hospital’s attorney stated in oral argument before this Court “We do not dispute in this claim that we knew about the claim, it was investigated and we had an opportunity to consider Mrs. Vines’ claim. This is not in dispute.”