Court Opinion

ID: 9847055
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:52:57.898876+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:59.942403
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I concur in the judgment, but disagree with the ratio decidendi of the opinion.
The Court of Appeal, through Justices Thompson and Lillie, properly held that both the one-year and four-year provisions of Code of Civil Procedure section 340.5 are tolled under appropriate circumstances. I therefore adopt that portion of the Court of Appeal opinion as my dissent:
Code of Civil Procedure section 340.5 states: “In an action for injury ... against a physician or surgeon ... or a licensed hospital as the employer of any such person, based upon such person’s alleged professional negligence ... or for error or omission in such person’s practice [the action must be commenced] four years after the date of injury or one year after the plaintiff discovers, or through the use of reasonable diligence should have discovered, the injury, whichever first occurs. This time limitation shall be tolled for any period during which such person has failed to disclose any act, error, or omission upon which such action is based and which is known or through the use of reasonable diligence should have been known to him.”
*104Dr. Pilson and the hospital argue that the tolling provision of Code of Civil Procedure section 340.5 is applicable only to the maximum four-year period of limitations and does not apply to the one-year period from discovery of the injury. Plaintiff argues that the tolling provision is applicable to both time periods.
The syntax of section 340.5 supports a conclusion that the tolling provision is applicable to both the four- and one-year time periods. The period of limitations is phrased in terms of the four-year period from injury or the one-year period from discovery, “whichever first occurs.” It is followed by the tolling provision prefaced by the phrase, “This time limitation shall be tolled.” The words “This time limitation” are expressed in the singular and apparently qualify and refer to the combined period of limitations “whichever first occurs.” [1] Thus tolling is applicable irrespective of whether the first to occur of the limitation periods is four years from injury or one year from discovery.
The legislative history of Code of Civil Procedure section 340.5 supports the same construction.
Beginning with the 1936 decision of our Supreme Court in Huysman v. Kirsch, 6 Cal.2d 302 [57 P.2d 908], California adopted the proposition that the statute of limitations upon medical malpractice commenced to run not from the date the injury was inflicted but rather from the date that it was discovered. By the late 1960’s, the rule was established in California that, “ ‘In a suit for [medical] malpractice the statute of limitations commences to run when the plaintiff discovers the injury and its negligent cause or through the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered it.’” (Whitfield v. Roth, 10 Cal.3d 874, 885 [112 Cal.Rptr. 540, 519 P.2d 588], quoting from Wozniak v. Peninsula Hospital, 1 Cal.App.3d 716, 722 [82 Cal.Rptr. 84], italics in original.)
Motivated by the “medical malpractice crisis,” the California Medical Association, beginning in 1968, sponsored legislation to shorten the open-end statute of limitations resulting from the rule of accrual of the *105claim upon discovery of injury and its negligent cause. (Comment, Medical Malpractice Cases (1971) 2 Pacific L.J. 663, 668-669.) The effort was fruitless in the 1968 and 1969 sessions of the Legislature. (Id., p. 669.)
In 1970, the bill creating what is now section 340.5 of the Code of Civil Procedure was introduced in the California Senate. As originally worded, the bill read that the statute of limitations applicable to medical malpractice was “four years after the date of injury or one year after the plaintiff discovers, or through the use of reasonable diligence should have discovered, the injury, whichever first occurs.” (2 Pacific L.J., supra, at p. 669.)
On April 17, 1970, at a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, representatives of the California Trial Lawyers Association claimed that the bill as then worded would severely limit the right of recovery for the injured plaintiff whose delay in filing a claim was caused by fraudulent concealment by the medical practitioner of his own misconduct. (2 Pacific L.J., supra, at p. 669.) The bill was amended in committee to add a provision for tolling which read: “ ‘[the] time limitation shall be tolled for any period during which such person [medical practitioner] has intentionally concealed any act, error, or omission upon which such action is based.’ ” (Id., at p. 670; Sen. Bill No. 362, 1970 Reg. Sess., as amended Apr. 17, 1970.) The bill, as amended to include the tolling provision, passed committee to the floor of the state Senate.
The bill was further amended on the floor of the Senate on April 27, 1970, to read in its present form providing that “[t]his time limitation shall be tolled for any period during which such person has failed to disclose any act, error, or omission upon which such action is based which is known or through the use of reasonable diligence should have been known to him.” (2 Pacific L.J., supra, at p. 670.)
The major thrust of the legislative activity leading to the adoption of Code of Civil Procedure section 340.5 was thus directed toward the ultimate four-year period of limitations (2 Pacific L.J., supra, at p. 668, fn. 41, citing letter from Senator Gordon Cologne, the bill’s sponsor, to then Governor Ronald Reagan stating that the bill’s purpose was to alleviate the need for malpractice insurers to maintain policy reserves past a four-year period). There is not the slightest hint in any of its history that the bill was intended drastically to affect the case law definition of “discovery” which could cause the period of limitations to *106expire at a time prior to the four-year maximum. By providing that the statute of limitations begins to run from discovery or reasonable opportunity to discover the injury and not mentioning negligent cause of the damage, section 340.5 confers upon the medical practitioner a benefit of broader application of the statute of limitations than that previously in the law. The statute substitutes for the eliminated tolling provision for lack of discovery of negligent cause an obligation upon the medical practitioner to disclose facts relevant to negligent causes which he knows or should know.
We thus conclude that both the one-year and four-year provisions of Code of Civil Procedure section 340.5 are tolled for failure of the medical practitioner to disclose any act, error, or omission upon which the action for malpractice is based if the act, error, or omission is known to the practitioner or through the use of reasonable diligence should be known to him.
The foregoing constitutes that part of the Court of Appeal opinion with which I agree. I voted to grant a hearing in this case, however, to consider where the burden lies, on motion for summary judgment, to establish the facts which are to guide the trial court in determining whether a tolling of the statute is to be permitted. The majority fail to reach this issue.
Plaintiff insists that a defendant medical practitioner moving for summary judgment on the ground of the statute of limitations (Code Civ. Proc., § 340.5) must affirmatively establish by affidavit that he has not failed to disclose to the plaintiff any relevant facts. The defendant would thus have the burden of proving a negative in order to prevail under the tolling provisions of the code section.
This proposed new doctrine would conflict with the firmly established rule that “a litigant who relies on facts in order to avoid the bar of the statute of limitations bears the burden of proving such facts [citations].” (De Vault v. Logan (1963) 223 Cal.App.2d 802, 809 [36 Cal.Rptr. 145].) In Mock v. Santa Monica Hospital (1960) 187 Cal.App.2d 57, 64-65 [9 Cal.Rptr. 555], the court stated; “In order to show that his cause of action is not barred where the act of the defendant. . . occurred more than a year before the commencement of the action, the plaintiff must state in *107his complaint ‘when the discovery was made, the circumstances under which it was made, and facts to show that the plaintiff is not at fault for not having made an earlier discovery ....”’ Although Mock refers to facts that must be pleaded in order to prevent dismissal by demurrer, a similar standard is appropriate to avoid summary judgment because the issue is the same, i.e., whether the action is barred by the statute of limitations. Witkin summarizes the present rule regarding section 340.5 as follows: “As in fraud and mistake cases . . . the plaintiff must make a sufficient showing of excusable late discovery of the facts; otherwise the statute runs in the usual manner.” (2 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (2d ed. 1970) Actions, § 317, p. 1160.)
By all recognized standards the defendants’ moving papers in the case at bar in support of summary judgment were sufficient. Defendants asserted that the last contact plaintiff had with defendants was March 30, 1972, the date of her hospital discharge—more than one year prior to filing the action. The papers also show that plaintiff knew of the alleged negligent treatment since the time of the original surgery in March 1972. Defendants incorporated portions of plaintiff’s deposition in which she. admitted that when she left the hospital, immediately after the surgery, she “had decided to sue” her doctor. In this deposition plaintiff also stated that an orderly at the hospital had told her “They have done a mess with you” and advised her to report her treatment to the hospital, director.
Plaintiff filed no affidavit opposing the motion for summary judgment, and never raised in the trial court the issue of the tolling of section 340.5. Consequently, the court’s granting of summary judgment was proper.
Nonetheless, plaintiff urges reversal on the ground that Code of Civil Procedure section 437c compels the medical practitioner to bear the burden of negating any failure to disclose. This theory is premised on the insistence that plaintiff need not by her pleading anticipate affirmative matter that may be raised by the defendants. But the content of plaintiff’s pleadings is not at issue; the question is whether plaintiff is required to raise the tolling provisions by counteraffidavits, not whether she must anticipate the defense in her pleadings. Moreover, it is settled that an opponent’s failure to file counteraffidavits admits the truth of the movant’s affidavit. (Brewer v. Reliable Automobile Co. (1966) 240 Cal.App.2d 173 [49 Cal.Rptr. 498].)
*108It is urged that although in general the plaintiff must prove that a statute of limitations is tolled, a different rule is necessary for section 340.5 because the statute has a “special character.” Plaintiff contends that the statute of limitations is tolled by reason of the medical practitioner’s failure to disclose acts, errors, or omissions: facts peculiarly within the knowledge of the defendant practitioner and by definition unknown to the plaintiff claiming medical malpractice unless disclosed.
The difficulty with this proposition is that it overlooks that plaintiff, by bringing suit, is claiming the defendant has committed negligent acts. The filing of suit per se indicates that someone, though perhaps not the defendant doctor, has disclosed to plaintiff the defendant’s alleged negligence or the result thereof. Because suit is brought to recover for negligent acts of which she is then aware, or can then discover, the plaintiff does have the ability to raise the tolling provisions of section 340.5.
Finally, plaintiff relies upon the fifth paragraph of section 437c. That paragraph gives the trial court discretion to deny summary judgment on grounds of credibility in limited circumstances: “where the only proof of a material fact offered in support of the summary judgment is an affidavit or declaration made by an individual who was the sole witness to such fact; or where a material fact is an individual’s state of mind, or lack thereof, and such fact is sought to be established solely by the individual’s affirmation thereof.” It is urgéd that unless the burden of negating the elements of tolling is placed upon the medical practitioner, the discretion to deny summary judgment contained in section 437c is read out of the section. If the. burden is upon the plaintiff-patient, the medical practitioner by silence precludes the court from exercising the discretion granted it.
The allegation is generally correct, but the proposed result does not necessarily follow. Plaintiff apparently assumes that unless the medical practitioner raises the tolling issue, the matter ends there. However, the summary judgment procedure anticipates the filing of affidavits and counteraffidavits. In fact, plaintiffs have affirmatively invoked the malpractice tolling provisions of their own accord ever since the tolling rule was first established by case law in Huysman v. Kirsch (1936) 6 Cal.2d 302 [57 P.2d 908]. It is difficult to conclude that in normal practice *109a reconciliation of sections 340.5 and 437c can be achieved only by shifting the burden to the defendant to negate tolling.
I would, affirm the judgment, but, as indicated, not upon the rationale of the majority.

 add to the Court of Appeal opinion the following quotation from Porto Rico Ry. etc. Co. v. Mor (1920) 253 U.S. 345, 348 [64 L.Ed. 944, 945-946, 40 S.Ct. 516]; “When several words are followed by a clause which is applicable as much to the first and other words as to the last, the natural construction of the language demands the clause be read as applicable to all.” (Cited with approval in Wholesale T. Dealers v. National etc. Co. (1938) 11 Cal.2d 634, 659 [82 P.2d 3, 118 A.L.R. 486], and People v. Kahn (1936) 19 Cal.App.2d Supp. 758, 762 [60 P.2d 596]; also see United States v. Standard Brewery (1920) 251 U.S. 210, 218 [64 L.Ed. 229, 234-235, 40 S.Ct. 139].)]