Court Opinion

ID: 9550823
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:43:05.24084+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:31.039321
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION OF
LEVINSON, J.
The majority opinion is a collapsible house of cards built with a stacked deck which includes a joker in the form of equating the statutory word “State’’with the opinion’s “State or political subdivision.” It offers no support for its conclusion that the two-year statute of limitations for tort actions against the “State,” HRS § 662-4, applies to this tort claim against the City and County of Honolulu.1 As Mr. Justice Marumoto notes in his dissenting opinion in this case, a county is not an “executive department, board, or commission of the State” within the meaning of section 662-*2221(1) of the State Tort Liability Act, HRS ch. 662. Indeed, the majority’s ipse dixit correlation of counties with the State is contrary to the reasoning of Kamau v. County of Hawaii, 41 Haw. 527 (1957), wherein this court held that the differences between State and local governments in terms of their law-making powers justified the rejection of the common-law doctrine of sovereign immunity with respect to the latter. Similarly the agents of counties cannot logically be viewed as agents of the State for the purpose of State liability under the doctrine of respondeat superior. See Fisher v. State, 10 N.Y.2d 60, 176 N.E.2d 72, 217 N.Y.S.2d 52 (1961). The majority advocates, perhaps unwittingly, a dangerous line of analysis when it holds HRS § 662-4 applicable to this case because “it would be unreasonable to hold that a party’s right to recover damages in tort from the City and County ... is more restricted than his right to recover from the State itself.” I have always considered this court’s decision in Kamau v. County of Hawaii, supra, to be an important advancement of the law in its holding that the substantive liability of a political subdivision of the State is not circumscribed by common law doctrine of immunity to the same extent as the liability of the State. If the majority in this case suggests that the parameters of liability for cities and counties can be no less, and by implication, no more than those of the State, the advances of Kamau are rendered nugatory. The State Tort Liability Act contains numerous procedural and substantive restrictions on liability which, if applicable to cities and counties, severely undercut the rights of private litigants in tort suits against these governmental subdivisions.2
In the circumstances I cannot agree that HRS § 662-4 has any relevance to the timeliness of the plaintiffs’ claims in this case.
*223The parents of the minor plaintiff sued individually for damages stemming from the alleged negligence of the City and County resulting in injury to their son. However, they failed to file notices of claims against the City and County within six months after the accident in which their son was injured as required by HRS § 46-72 and section 12-106 of the Charter of the City and County of Honolulu. This failure was fatal to their claims, and summary judgment was therefore properly granted against them. See Oakley v. State, 54 Haw. 210, 216, 505 P.2d 1182, 1185-86 (1973) (“the statutory requirement of filing a written notice of claim within the time specified cannot be waived”).3
It does not follow, however, that the claim of the minor plaintiff is similarly foreclosed. Notice of claim requirements have as their purpose the protection of counties against fraud arising out of stale claims. Such a purpose, however, is not served by the imposition of a filing requirement on those who are presumed legally incapable of fulfilling it. Of course, a child is not excused from filing a notice of claim by virtue of the tolling provision in HRS § 657-13 (Supp. 1972),4 even assuming that notice of claim requirements are “statutes of limitations” and not “conditions precedent” to suit, since section 657-13 by its terms applies only to the limitations periods contained in Part I of HRS ch. 657, and none of those *224provisions refer directly or indirectly to the notice of claim requirements at issue in this case. Compare Williams v. Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, 68 Cal. 2d 599, 440 P.2d 497, 68 Cal. Rptr. 297 (1968). However, I am of the opinion that the notice of claim requirements themselves should be read to excuse compliance by minors until they are properly represented by guardians ad litem. While as a general rule courts decline to read exceptions into otherwise seemingly absolute statutory requirements, a considerable line of authority in other jurisdictions has held that legal incapacity constitutes a valid excuse for non-compliance with notice of claim provisions which appear absolute on their faces, as do those in this case. See, e.g., Maier v. City of Ketchikan, 403 P.2d 34 (Alas. 1965); McDonald v. City of Spring Valley, 285 Ill. 52, 120 N.E. 476 (1918); Lazich v. Belanger, 111 Mont. 48, 105 P.2d 738 (1940); City of Tulsa v. Wells, 79 Okla. 39, 191 P. 186 (1920); McCrary v. City of Odessa, 482 S.W.2d 151 (Tex. 1972). But see Artukovich v. Astendorf, 21 Cal. 2d 329, 131 P.2d 831 (1942).
The minor plaintiff was four years of age when the injury giving rise to this lawsuit occurred. His inability in law as well as in fact to give effective notice personally to the City and County seems obvious. Although a guardian ad litem was subsequently appointed for him, it cannot be presumed that during the crucial time period — i.e., for six months after the injury — his interests were being protected. See Artukovich v. Astendorf, supra at 340, 131 P.2d at 837 (Carter, J., dissenting). Unless the notice of claim requirements of HRS § 46-72 and the Honolulu Charter are read to excuse compliance by the minor plaintiff until his acquisition of proper legal representation, his claim will be forfeited through no fault of his own. Such a result is harsh in the extreme, and cannot have been intended by the enactment of these provisions.
This court has declared that the notice of claim requirements involved in this case should be given a “liberal construction” in favor of victims of governmental torts. Oakley v. State, supra at 216, 505 P.2d at 1186. Consonant with this attitude, I would hold that because of the *225impossibility of the minor plaintiff’s compliance, these requirements impliedly excepted him from their operation until he acquired a legal representative to prosecute his claim. See McCrary v. City of Odessa, supra. Since the complaint in this case contained all the information required by HRS § 46-72 and City and County of Honolulu Charter § 12-106, and since it was filed within six months of the appointment of a guardian ad litem, it follows from my analysis that the minor plaintiff’s claim was timely.

 Compare L. Carroll, Through the Looking Glass 229-30 (Illustrated Junior Library Ed. 1946):
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘ it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master— that's ah.”

 For example, HRS § 662-5 provides that “[a]ny action against the State under this chapter shall be tried by the court without a jury.” Similarly, under HRS § 662-15(4) the “State” is not liable for the intentional torts of its agents.

 But see Turner v. Staggs,_Nev___ 510 P.2d 879 (1973) (holding notice of claim requirement unconstitutional as a violation of equal protection on the theory that there is no rational basis for treating municipalities differently from private defendants for the purpose of tort liability). I cannot agree with the reasonsing of the Turner court, however, since the purpose of protecting the public fisc from fraudulent claims justifies the imposition on victims of governmental torts a more onerous requirement of prompt notice of claims than on victims of private torts. See Oakley v. State, 54 Haw. 210, 216, 505 P.2d 1182, 1186 (1973).

 HRS § 657-13 (Supp. 1972) provides in pertinent part:
If any person entitled to bring any action specified in this part (excepting actions against the sheriff, chief of police, or other officers) is, at the time the cause of action accrued . . .
(1) Within the age of eighteen years;
such persons shall be at liberty to bring such actions within the respective times limited in this part, after the disability is removed or at any time while the disability exists.