Court Opinion

ID: 9860480
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:23:11.539238+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:15:51.808910
License: Public Domain

LeGRAND, Justice
(dissenting).
' I dissent from both Division I and Division II of the majority opinion, and I would affirm the trial court.
*263' I agree with Justice Uhlenhopp’s dissent to Division I in which he points out the reasoning of Otis v. Parrott, 233 Iowa 1039, 8 N.W.2d 708 (1943), is “irrefutable.”
However, I disagree, too, with Division II, which turhs on the effect of a 1977 amendment to section 85.26, The Code. The purpose of that amendment was to make section 85.26 consistent with section 85.23 as far as limitation of actions is concerned by deleting language making the limitation statute run from the date of the event which caused the injury. The decisive question is whether that amendment shall have prospective or retrospective effect, although the majority skirts that issue.
The majority leans on section 4.2, The Code, for statutory support in construing this amendment. I think it should have looked, rather, to section 4.5 for guidance. That section directs that we give prospective application to statutes “unless [they are] expressly made retrospective.” Under that rule, the 1977 amendment must be given prospective application only. Not only is this dictated by section 4:5, it is also the holding of Secrest v. Galloway, 239 Iowa 168, 176, 30 N.W.2d 793, 795-96 (1958). Furthermore it is the general rule, according to 100 C.J.S., Workmen’s Compensation, § 436 (1958).
The majority opinion leads to a curious result. Orr was injured in May, 1975, and filed a petition for arbitration in June, 1978. The amendment which the majority says extended the time for filing his claim became effective July 1,1977. Under the law as it existed prior to that date, both statutory and case, Orr’s claim was barred in May, 1977, two years after the accident and two months before the amendment became law. See also 51 Am.Jur.2d, Limitation of Actions, section 15 (1970).
Thus the majority does not merely extend the time for filing; it revives an already extinct claim. I do not believe any rule of “liberal construction” can, or should, reach that far.
ALLBEE, McGIVERIN and SCHULTZ, JJ., join this dissent.