Court Opinion

ID: 9505415
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 20:04:27.950256+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:26.999241
License: Public Domain

DICKSON, Justice,
dissenting.
I strongly disagree with the majority's decision to reverse the trial court's denial of summary judgment in this case. In particular, I believe that the majority is incorrect in: (1) limiting the statutory term "commercial asbestos" to mean only raw asbestos; (2) construing "mined and sold" contrary to legislative intent; (8) failing to find a violation of Article 1, Section 12, of the Indiana Constitution; (4) failing to find a violation of Article 1, Section 23, of the Indiana Constitution; and (5) overruling rather than following Covalt v. Carey Canada, Inc.
1. Commercial Asbestos
Indiana Code § 34-20-3-2 12 (hereinafter "Section 2") provides an exemption from the general products liability periods of limitation and repose by generally permitting actions for injuries from exposure to asbestos to be commenced within two years after the injured person knows that he or she has an asbestos-related disease or injury. The majority construes the word "commercial" in subsection (d)(1) to limit Section 2's exception to apply only as to claims against defendants "who produce raw asbestos," but not to allow the delayed filing as to defendants "who sell asbestos-containing products." Maj. Op. at 1073.
In construing a statute, "our primary goal is to determine and effect legislative intent." Freeman v. State, 658 N.E.2d 68, 70 (Ind.1995). To give effect to the legislature's intent, we do not consider a statutory provision in isolation but rather consider the statute as a whole and interpret an individual provision so as to harmonize it with other sections of the enactment. Indiana Dep't of Pub. Welfare v. Payne, *1079622 N.E.2d 461, 466 (Ind.1993); see also Saylor v. State, 765 N.E.2d 535, 564 (Ind.2002); Robinson v. Wroblewski, 704 N.E.2d 467, 474 (Ind.1998); Douglas v. State, 663 N.E.2d 1153, 1156 (Ind.1996); Hinshaw v. Bd. of Comm'rs of Jay County, 611 N.E.2d 637, 639 (Ind.1993). "Where statutory provisions are in conflict, no part of a statute should be rendered meaningless but should be reconciled with the rest of the statute." Robinson, 704 N.E.2d at 474.
The majority's conclusions in Part I of its opinion are grounded upon its construction of the word "commercial" found in subsection (d)(1) of Section 2. In contrast, however, other provisions in Section 2 demonstrate the legislature's intent to grant Section 2's exemption to all persons injured by exposure to asbestos, regardless of its source. Subsection (a) identifies product liability actions based on "personal injury, disability, disease, or death resulting from exposure to asbestos." Subsection (b) refers generally to any person who "has an asbestos related disease or injury." Section (d)(2) applies to "payment of asbestos related disease claims." These references are in stark contrast to the majority's interpretation of subsection (d)(1) that restricts Section 2's operation to only those persons whose asbestos-related injuries result from exposure to raw asbestos. Considering Section 2 as a whole to ascertain legislative intent does not support the majority's decision to deny the benefit of Seetion 2 to persons whose asbestos-related injuries result from asbestos-containing products, as distinguished from raw asbestos.
On the other hand, appellate courts generally presume that all statutory language is used intentionally. Preston v. State, 735 N.E.2d 330, 333 (Ind.Ct.App.2000). Each word should be "given effect and meaning where possible, and no part of the statute is to be held meaningless if it can be reconciled with the rest of the statute." Allied Signal, Inc. v. Herring, 757 N.E.2d 1030, 1035 (Ind.Ct.App.2001). Thus, if possible, and if it can be reconciled with the rest of Section 2, we should infer that the insertion of the adjective "commercial" was likely intended to distinguish defendants who produced "commercial asbestos" from those who produced "asbestos." It is altogether unclear, however, what distinction was intended. The Indiana General Assembly did not define the term "commercial" as used in Section 2.
Even the Court of Appeals opinion that the majority finds persuasive, Jurich v. Garlock, 759 N.E.2d 1066 (Ind.Ct.App.2001), concludes "commercial asbestos" refers to "either 'raw' or processed asbestos that is incorporated into other products." Id. at 1071 (emphasis added). The majority quotes the Environmental Protection Agency regulation that defines "commercial asbestos" as "any material containing asbestos that is extracted from ore and has value because of its asbestos content." Maj. Op. at 1072 (quoting id., quoting 40 C.F.R. § 61.141 (emphasis added)). By including processed asbestos incorporated into other products, this is a much broader definition than the majority's view that the term is restricted to raw asbestos only. Maj. Op. at 1073.
I remain convinced that, looking to the whole of Section 2 to determine the legislature's intent, the phrase "commercial asbestos" includes asbestos incorporated into products intended for commerce. To construe "commercial" to limit the Section 2 exception only to claims against producers of raw asbestos is inharmonious and irree-oncilable with the remainder of Section 2.
2. "Mined and Sold"
Guided by its belief that "commercial asbestos" in Section 2 means "raw asbestos," the majority concludes that the legislature intended Section 2 to permit de*1080layed filing only as to claims against persons who both mine and sell raw asbestos. Because the majority's interpretation of "commercial" is questionable, the construction of the phrase "mined and sold" as used in Section 2 becomes critical.
As previously noted, Section 2 provides an exemption from the general products liability periods of limitation and repose by generally permitting actions for injuries from exposure to asbestos to be commenced within two years after the injured person knows that he or she has an asbestos-related disease or injury. Subsection 2(d)(1) states: "This section applies only to product liability actions against ... persons who mined and sold commercial asbestos. ..." (Emphasis added.) The plaintiff urges that the legislature intended the phrase to mean persons who mined and persons who sold. The defendant argues that the phrase was meant to limit Section 2 only to actions against persons who both mined and sold.
In construing an enactment, the legislative intent will prevail over the literal import of the words. FGS Enterprises, Inc. v. Shimalo, 625 N.E.2d 1226, 1228 (Ind.1998). The strict literal or selective meaning of individual words should not be overemphasized, but rather the intent must be ascertained from the enactment as a whole. Shell Oil Co. v. Meyer, 705 N.E.2d 962, 970 (Ind.1998). While the literal language favors "both mined and sold," there is compelling evidence that the legislature intended to mean "persons who mined and persons who sold." First, as noted by the majority, interpreting the phrase to mean "both mined and sold" renders the words "and sold" superfluous "since it is unlikely that there are any entities that mine but do not sell asbestos." Maj. Op. at 1072. Second, because the obvious purpose of Section 2 is to provide for fairness due to the long latency period associated with asbestos-related illnesses, it is inconsistent for it to apply only to claims against the relatively few companies that both mine and sell asbestos, and essentially to preclude actions against all others that disseminate asbestos and asbestos-containing products. Third, the "both mined and sold" interpretation would prohibit delayed filing of actions against solvent companies that sold but did not mine asbestos, but not against such companies in bankruptey with the funds described in subsection (d)(2). The plaintiff argues that the legislature did not likely intend to thus "immunize solvent companies and place greater burdens on the insolvent ones." Br. of Appellee at 18-14.
In Black v. ACandS, Inc., 752 N.E.2d 148 (Ind.Ct.App.2001), our Court of Appeals thoughtfully addressed the construction of "mined and sold." Writing for the Court, Judge Mattingly-May noted that a reviewing court may "make minor substitutions of words where necessary to give vitality to the legislative intent." Id. at 153 (quoting Dague v. Piper Aircraft Corp., 275 Ind. 520, 526, 418 N.E.2d 207, 211 (1981)). She pointed out that the Da-gue court itself, in construing a product liability statute of repose, modified the enacted language by changing the disjunctive "or" to the conjunctive "and" because to literally construe the language would "fily] in the face of a clearly contrary legislative intent." Id. Judge Mattingly-May persuasively explained:
The strict literal interpretation urged upon us by the defendants would lead to the illogical result that "asbestos-related actions" were limited to those actions brought against miners of asbestos, and did not include actions against manufacturers and sellers if they did not also mine the product. Because the statute of repose is concerned not with the introduction of the asbestos into the marketplace but with exposure to the haz*1081ardous foreign substance that causes disease, an interpretation of the statute that permits or denies recovery based solely on the nature of the entity that introduced the asbestos into the marketplace cannot stand. We believe the legislature could not have intended to permit actions against an entity that both mined and sold asbestos but to preclude actions against entities that introduced asbestos into the marketplace as miners only or as sellers only.
Id. at 154 (internal citation omitted). This analysis has since been noted with approval in Harris v. A.C. & S., Inc., 766 N.E.2d 383, 391 (Ind.Ct.App.2002); Jurich, 759 N.E.2d at 1069-70; Herring, 757 N.E.2d at 1035; Fulk v. Allied Signal, Inc., 755 N.E.2d 1198, 1202 (Ind.Ct.App.2001); Parks v. A.P. Green, Indus., Inc., 754 N.E.2d 1052, 1058 (Ind.Ct.App.2001); and Poirier v. A.P. Green Services, Inc., 754 N.E.2d 1007, 1010 (Ind.Ct.App.2001).
In accord with Judge Mattingly-May's analysis, I am convinced that the legislature intended "persons who mined and sold" to mean "persons who mined and persons who sold."
3. Article 1, Section 12
I also believe that Section 2, as construed by the majority, violates the Right to Remedy Clause, Article 1, Section 12, of the Indiana Constitution. The majority finds otherwise, rejecting the trial court's determination that the ten year product Hability statute of repose 13 was unconstitutional as applied to the plaintiff. Judge Levine's trial court findings stated:
[A]sbestos caused cancer takes between ten (10) and twenty-five (25) years to manifest itself. Even with the utmost amount of diligence Mr. Ott would not have been able to meet the time restrictions of IC [84-20-3-1]. No one would have. Just like Ms. Martin [in Martin v. Richey, N.E.2d 1278 (Ind.1999) ], Mr. Ott had an accrued claim, albeit unrecognizable, and was in the position of having the claim but no practical means of asserting it.
Appellants' App. p. 113 (footnotes and citation omitted). Because of this long latency period, asbestos-caused cancer usually does not appear until after the ten-year statute of repose. This is precisely the cireumstance that led this Court in Martin v. Richey to find that application of the medical malpractice two-year statute of limitations to the facts of that case violated Article 1, Section 12, because Martin had "no meaningful opportunity to file an otherwise valid tort claim within the specified statutory period." 711 N.E.2d 1273, 1284 (Ind.1999). We stated:
[Gliven the nature of the asserted malpractice and the resulting injury or medical condition, plaintiff is unable to discover that she has a cause of action. Stated another way, the medical malpractice statute of limitations is unconstitutional as applied when plaintiff did not know or, in the exercise of reasonable diligence, could not have discovered that she had sustained an injury as a result of malpractice, because in such a case the statute of limitations would impose an impossible condition on plain*1082tiff's access to courts and ability to pursue an otherwise valid tort claim.
Id. As we explained in McIntosh v. Melroe Co., 729 N.E.2d 972, 979 (Ind.2000), "[the holding in Martin v. Richey is that a claim that exists cannot be barred before it is knowable." Likewise here, Jerome Ott was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1998 and died in 2000. The plaintiff alleges that his lung cancer was caused by exposure to asbestos at his various places of employment from 1949 through 1983. Because of the unusually long latency period of asbestos-related cancer, it was impossible for Ott to discover that he had contracted a disease from exposure to asbestos within the statute of repose.
The majority observes "nothing in the trial court's findings that indicate one way or the other when the plaintiff's first exposure to asbestos occurred relative to the asbestos-containing product's initial delivery." Maj. Op. at 1074. This fact is irrelevant to our review of the denial of summary judgment. As the proponent of summary judgment, it was the defendant's burden to establish that the action was commenced in violation of the statutory limitation period. Burks v. Rushmore, 534 N.E.2d 1101, 1104 (Ind.1989). To succeed on summary judgment, the defendants were required to demonstrate that there was no genuine issue as to any material fact and that Ott could have discovered that he had sustained an injury in time to comply with the statutory limitation period, as required by Martin. Even though this Court in Melntosh held that "products that produce no injury for ten years are no longer subject to claims under the Product Liability Act," 729 N.E.2d at 979, the defendants failed to demonstrate that the asbestos exposure produced no injury for over ten years. The defendants' failure of proof supports the denial of summary judgment.
In its application of Martin, the majority today creates a new definition of "accrues" and declares that, "with respect to asbestos claims under Section 1, a cause of action accrues at that point at which a physician who is reasonably experienced at making such diagnoses could have diagnosed the individual with an asbestos-related illness or disease." Maj. Op. at 1075. Because this omits consideration of when the injured person (as opposed to a hypothetical physician) becomes aware of his or her own injury, today's new definition of "accrues" is wholly contrary to existing law. "[A] cause of action accrues when the resultant damage of a negligent act is ascertainable or by due diligence could be ascertained...." Burks, 534 N.E.2d at 1104 (quoting Barnes v. A.H. Robins Co., Inc., 476 N.E.2d 84, 86 (Ind.1985)). The ascertainability of damage is determined "by evaluation of the nature and cireumstances of the information known or reasonably discoverable by [the injured person], beginning at the initial point of his claimed harm." Id. at 1104. The legislature itself understands this to be the proper meaning of "accrues." Seetion 2 explains: "A product liability action for personal injury, disability, disease, or death resulting from exposure to asbestos accrues on the date when the injured person knows that the person has an asbestos related disease or injury." I.C. 34-20-83-2(b) (emphasis added).
Therefore, and contrary to the majority, Martin is clearly implicated when a person injured by exposure to asbestos did not, and could not by the exercise of due dili-genee, ascertain that he or she had been damaged by the asbestos, regardless of whether the condition hypothetically might have been diagnosed by a reasonably experienced physician within the ten-year statute of repose. Moreover, for the limitation period to bar the claim, it is a defendants' burden to establish a plaintiff's knowledge *1083of the asbestos-related injury within the statutory period.
For the reasons expressed in Martin and reaffirmed in MeJntosh, the trial court did not err in finding the product liability statute of repose to violate Article 1, Seetion 12, as applied to the facts of this case.
4. Article 1, Section 23
In response to the plaintiff's contention that the statute of repose violates Article 1, Section 28, of the Indiana Constitution, the majority finds that the plaintiff suffered no cognizable harm and declines to address the issue. This conclusion results from the majority's characterization of the essential claim as creating a constitutional distinction between asbestos victims and other victims under the product liability act. This is not the set of unequally treated classes identified in the plaintiffs appeal. To the contrary, the plaintiff alleges that, with the narrow construction of "mined and sold commercial asbestos" adopted by the majority, the statute of repose unconstitutionally grants unequal treatment to those employees who contract asbestos-related diseases from exposure to raw asbestos in contrast to those whose diseases result from exposure to asbestos-containing products.14
Article 1, Section 283, commands: "The General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens." This clause prohibits a statute from providing disparate treatment to different classes of persons if; (1) the disparate treatment is not reasonably related to inherent characteristics that distinguish the unequally treated classes, or (2) the preferential treatment is not uniformly applicable and equally available to all similarly situated persons McIntosh, 729 N.E.2d at 981; Martin, 711 N.E.2d at 1280; Collins v. Day, 644 N.E.2d 72, 80 (Ind.1994).
There are no inherent characteristics that distinguish workers with asbestos-related diseases caused by exposure to raw asbestos from those with the same diseases brought about by exposure to manufactured products containing asbestos. Thus the unequal treatment accorded to each class cannot be reasonably related to any inherent differences. With the majority's refusal to construe Section 2 to equally treat all persons with asbestos-related diseases, the product liability statute of repose clearly grants to persons whose diseases derive from raw asbestos substantial privileges and immunities that do not equally belong to identically situated persons whose diseases result from asbestos-containing products. The constitutional violation is apparent.
5. Covalt v. Carey Canada, Inc.
In Covalt v. Carey Canada, Inc., 543 N.E.2d 382 (Ind.1989), this Court held that the product lability statute of repose did not apply to claims arising out of asbestos-related disease:
Accordingly, because of the long latency period with asbestos-related diseases, most plaintiffs' claims would be barred even before they knew or reasonably could have known of their injury or disease and they would be denied their day in court if the ten year statute of repose were applied. To require a claimant to bring his action in a limited period in which, even with due diligence, he could not be aware that a cause of action *1084exists would be inconsistent with our system of jurisprudence.
Id. at 387.
The majority dismisses this holding on grounds that Covalt was decided under prior law because the language of Section 2, although then recently adopted, was not applicable to the facts there presented. We noted this fact in Covalt and described the effect of the amendment as providing "in pertinent part that an asbestos-related action must be brought within two years of the date when the injured person knows that he has an asbestos-related disease or injury." Id. at 383-84 n. 1. The effect of Covalt was to determine the application of the statute of repose with respect to asbestos-related claims in a manner quite consistent with that implemented with the legislature's enactment of the ameliorative language of Section 2, allowing access to courts by persons with asbestos-related injuries.
The majority declares that the adoption of Section 2 renders Covalt's analysis "obsolete," Maj. Op. at 1078, because Covalt expressly excluded Section 2 from its determination and noted its uncertainty regarding whether the legislature "intended the ten year statute of repose to bar claims such as this one, where the injury is the result of protracted exposure to a hazardous foreign substance." Covalt, 543 N.E.2d at 386. The majority's analysis assumes that Section 2 represents the legislature's intent to bar all such claims except those against producers of raw asbestos. However, if Section 2 is read as the Covalt court understood it, to provide a humane, fair, and just exception from the statute of repose for all persons whose asbestos-related diseases cannot be ascertained within ten years after exposure, the existence of Section 2 in no way renders Covalt obsolete.
Conclusion
For each of the reasons expressed above, I dissent from the majority.
RUCKER, J., concurs.

. Indiana Code § 34-20-3-2 provides:
(a) A product liability action thai is based on:
(1) property damage resulting from asbestos; or
(2) personal injury, disability, disease, or death resulting from exposure to asbestos;
must be commenced within two (2) years after the cause of action accrues. The subsequent development of an additional asbestos related disease or injury is a new injury and is a separate cause of action.
(b) A product liability action for personal injury, disability, disease, or death resulting from exposure to asbestos accrues on the date when the injured person knows that the person has an asbesios related disease or injury.
(c) A product liability action for property damage accrues on the date when the in-
jured person knows that the property damage has resulted from asbestos.
(d) This section applies only to product liability actions against:
(1) persons who mined and sold commercial asbestos; and
(2) funds that have, as a result of bankruptcy proceedings or to avoid bankruptcy proceedings, been created for the payment of asbestos related disease claims or asbestos related property damage claims.
(e) For the purposes of IC 1-1-1-8, if any part of this section is held invalid, the entire section is void.
(°) Except for the cause of action expressly recognized in this section, this section does not otherwise modify the limitation of action or repose period contained in section 1 of this chapter.

. Indiana Code § 34-20-3-1(b) states:
Except as provided in section 2 of this chapter, a product liability action must be commenced:
(1) within two (2) years after the cause of action accrues; or
(2) within ten (10) years after the delivery of the product to the initial user or consumer.
However, if the cause of action accrues at least eight (8) years but less than ten (10) years after that initial delivery, the action may be commenced at any time within two (2) years after the cause of action accrues.

. As an example, the plaintiff questions the resulting unequal treatment of a worker at one plant making brake linings and who was exposed to asbestos fiber causing cancer and another worker in a different city who contracted asbestos-related cancer caused from his exposure to the brake linings manufactured at the first plant. Br. of Appellee at 17.