Court Opinion

ID: 9567240
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:51:07.116683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:27.670603
License: Public Domain

*18DISSENTING OPINION OF
MIZUHA, J., WITH WHOM RICHARDSON, C. J„ JOINS.
I disagree from the majority holding that the cause of action accrued in this case “from the time when burning by the radiation manifested itself.
The burns were a result of the prescribed treatment but we are not now concerned with any issue as to the propriety of that treatment. The complaint is that the burns were incurred as the result of unnecessary treatment, unnecessary because in fact the tissues were not malignant. The burns which the plaintiff received may serve as notice of the negligent administering of X rays, and may have provided a cause of action against Queen’s Hospital. But appellant’s complaint basically is that the statute of limitations should not start running against her right to sue until she discovered, or in the reasonable exercise of diligence should have discovered the alleged negligence of Dr. Dickelmann in erroneously diagnosing the benign tissues in her throat as malignant.
The majority opinion purports to apply the rule of Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, as applied in United States v. Reid, 251 F.2d 692, and City of Miami v. Brooks, 70 So. 2d 306, 308. A reading of those cases and the cases which have subsequently applied the principle there outlined, indicates that the majority opinion in this case has unnecessarily restricted the rule. The language used and the facts involved in those cases show that in each case the court required not only knowledge of an injury incurred but also that knowledge of the injury was such that it provided knowledge of a right to a cause of action. Plaintiff in this case by the exercise of reasonable diligence could not have discovered the negligent diagnosis of benign tissues from the fact of the X-ray burns alone.
In Seaboard Air Line R. R. v. Ford, 92 So. 2d 160, at 165, on rehearing, it was held in an action under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act for injuries from dermatitis caused by the use of chromate that under the rule adopted in Urie v. Thompson, supra, and City of Miami v. Brooks, supra, “the statute of limitation begins to run from the time that the employee knows or *19should have known that the disease was occupational in origin, even though diagnosis of the exact cause has not yet been made; * *
It is impossible for me to agree with the reasoning of the majority opinion based upon the rule followed in Urie v. Thompson, supra, City of Miami v. Brooks, supra, and Seaboard Air Line R. R. v. Ford, supra, in holding in this case that the statute commenced running because plaintiff “knew that the radiation treatment which burned her was the result of Dr. Dickelmann’s diagnosis, even though she did not know that the diagnosis gave rise to a cause of action.”
In Seaboard Air Line R. R. v. Ford, supra at 164, the court carefully stated upon rehearing “that when the existence of a disease of the kind here involved (contact dermatitis) is manifested and its nature as an occupational disease is fairly discoverable, the statute begins to run, even though the exact substance causing the disease has not been determined.” Can we say in this case that when the plaintiff first noticed that she was burned by the X-ray treatment, that Dr. Dickelmann’s alleged negligent diagnosis was “fairly discoverable”? There is no relationship between radiation burns and the alleged negligent diagnosis of normal tissues. In the Seaboard Air Line R. R. v. Ford, supra at 165, the court had reference to a disease which, when it manifests itself, is such that “the employee has been ‘injured’ so as to start the running of the statute, Urie v. Thompson, supra; and if the employee knows or should know that his disease is occupational in origin, he ‘has been put on notice of his right to a cause of action’, City of Miami v. Brooks, supra, and can no longer rely on ‘blameless ignorance’ as tolling the running of the statute.” In this case the plaintiff had been injured by radiation burns, but she did not know at that time that the diagnosis which led to X-ray treatment was negligent.
It was clearly stated in City of Miami v. Brooks, supra at 309, “the statute attaches when there has been notice of an invasion of the legal right of the plaintiff or he has been put on notice of his right to a cause of action. In the instant case, at the time of the x-ray treatment there was nothing to indicate any injury or *20to put the plaintiff on notice of such, or that there had been an invasion of her legal rights. It is the testimony of one of the expert witnesses that injury from treatment of this kind may develop anywhere within one to ten years after the treatment, so that the statute must be held to attach when the plaintiff was first put upon notice or had reason to believe that her right of action had accrued. To hold otherwise, under circumstances of this kind, would indeed be a harsh rule and prevent relief to an injured party who was without notice during the statutory period of any negligent act that might cause injury.”
I would adopt the rule followed by Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Quinton v. United States, 304 F.2d 234, wherein it states that a claim for malpractice accrues when the claimant discovered, or in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered the acts constituting the alleged malpractice. The claim arose out of transfusions administered to plaintiff’s wife by government employees on May 17, 1956. The three transfusions received were of RH Positive blood although the plaintiff’s wife had RH Negative blood. The plaintiff alleged that as a result of the incorrect transfusions his wife gave birth to a stillborn child on December 17, 1959, and that she could not safely bear other children. It appeared that the appellant and his wife did not learn of and, in the reasonable care, could not have leárned of this error until June 1959, during the wife’s pregnancy. Complaint was filed on August 29,1960.
The court held that the claim was not barred by the two-year statute of limitations. As authority for its decision that the cause of action accrued when the claimant discovered, or in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered, the acts constituting the alleged malpractice, the court cited only one case as authority, Urie v. Thompson, supra. The narrow interpretation given this case by the majority opinion in concluding that the statute begins to run when the burn manifested itself is in direct contrast to the broad and reasonable interpretation given it by Quinton v. United States, supra.
Furthermore, the majority opinion disagrees with Owens v. White, 342 F.2d 817, which is a case in point. The plaintiff sued *21for malpractice, claiming that the defendant doctor negligently diagnosed a lump in her left breast as a cancerous tumor when in fact it was benign. Pursuant to that diagnosis, the defendant doctor recommended surgery and the breast was unnecessarily removed. The issue was raised of when the cause of action accrued. The defendant argued that the cause of action accrued when the malpractice was committed or at the latest when the treatment was terminated, the latter being after the surgery. The plaintiff urged the same rule advocated by the appellant here, that is, that the statute commences to run when the plaintiff knows or in the exercise of due diligence should know of the injury and its cause. The court held that the statute did not bar the action adopting the due diligence standard. Under the rule which is adopted in this case before us, the plaintiff in Owens v. White, supra, would have been charged with notice of the doctor’s erroneous diagnosis of malignant tissues as soon as her breast was removed.
The argument that the more liberal rule would raise the danger of stale claims based on obscure past actions of the physician is not persuasive. As was pointed out in Daniels v. Berryllium Corporation, 227 F. Supp. 591, and Owens v. White, supra, that argument cuts both ways for the burden of proof of negligence is still on the plaintiff. I can see no sound reason for permitting the defendant to escape liability here simply because the alleged negligent diagnosis of benign tissues was such as to remain undiscovered for more than two years.