Court Opinion

ID: 9399815
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-06 16:06:30.05278+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:39.332556
License: Public Domain

NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION.
  UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL
                  AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE.

                                     IN THE
              ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS
                                 DIVISION ONE

           MICHELLE MCCARVILLE, et al., Plaintiffs/Appellants,

                                         v.

    MICHAEL CARLTON, M.D. and JANE DOE CARLTON, his wife,
                    Defendants/Appellees.

                              No. 1 CA-CV 22-0536
                               FILED 6-6-2023

           Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County
                          No. CV2018-053277
          The Honorable Sally Schneider Duncan, Judge (Retired)

                                   AFFIRMED

                                    COUNSEL

Ahwatukee Legal Office, P.C., Phoenix
By David L. Abney
Co-Counsel for Plaintiffs/Appellants

O’Steen & Harrison, PLC, Phoenix
By C. Lincoln Combs
Co-Counsel for Plaintiffs/Appellants

The Kennedy Firm, Dallas, Texas
By Kirk Kennedy
Co-Counsel for Plaintiffs/Appellants
Jennings, Strouss & Salmon, P.L.C., Phoenix
By Richard K. Delo, R. Ryan Womack, Brian Imbornoni,
Alexander J. Egbert
Counsel for Defendants/Appellees

                     MEMORANDUM DECISION

Presiding Judge Maria Elena Cruz delivered the decision of the Court, in
which Judge James B. Morse Jr. and Judge Daniel J. Kiley joined.

C R U Z, Judge:

¶1            Plaintiffs Michelle McCarville and Kirk Kennedy (“the
Parents”) appeal the superior court’s orders granting the motion to dismiss
filed by Jane Doe Carlton and Michael Carlton, M.D. (collectively “Dr.
Carlton”); denying their motion to set aside the judgment and requesting a
new trial; and entering judgment in favor of Dr. Carlton. We affirm.

              FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶2            While providing substance abuse treatment to Cameron, Dr.
Carlton prescribed him a daily dose of methadone to be taken at the clinic
and one weekly dose to be taken at home. In September 2016, Appellants’
daughter, Rachel, visited Cameron, ingested his methadone take-home
dose, and died sometime during the night. The medical examiner’s report,
prepared just two days after Rachel’s death, revealed Rachel died from
acute alcohol and methadone intoxication.

¶3           In September 2018, just two days before the two-year mark
from Rachel’s death, the Parents filed a wrongful death action against Dr.
Michael Ahmann and others who were treating Cameron “for addiction
issues.” Alleging that “the methadone clinic from which [Cameron]
obtained his methadone” improperly “permit[ted] him to take the oral
doses of methadone home with him for the weekend,” the Parents claimed
that “the methadone ingested by” Rachel the night she died “was the same
drug Defendants had given to [Cameron].” By “negligently dispens[ing]
take-home methadone to [Cameron],” they argued, the defendants
“breached their duty of reasonable care owed to [Rachel].”

¶4        In October 2019, after filing the initial complaint and two
amended complaints, the Parents moved to compel production of

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                 MCCARVILLE, et al. v. CARLTON, et al.
                       Decision of the Court

Cameron’s medical records and received them within five months.1 The
Parents named Dr. Carlton as a defendant for the first time in the third
amended complaint filed in February 2020. Dr. Carlton moved to dismiss,
arguing the two-year limitations period set forth in Arizona Revised
Statutes (“A.R.S.”) section 12-542(2) barred the Parents’ claims against him.
Dr. Carlton further argued, in the alternative, that the claims fail as a matter
of law because he owed no duty to Rachel since she was not his patient and
the two had no relationship. The superior court granted the motion, finding
both that “the claims were filed outside the applicable statute of
limitations” and that “Dr. Carlton did not owe a duty to [Rachel].” The
court subsequently entered judgment in favor of Dr. Carlton.

¶5             The Parents moved to set aside the judgment and requested a
new trial. The superior court denied the motion. The Parents timely
appealed, and we have jurisdiction pursuant to A.R.S. §§ 12-2101(A)(1),
(5)(a), and -120.21(A)(1).

                               DISCUSSION

¶6              We review the dismissal of a claim under Arizona Rule of
Civil Procedure (“Rule”) 12(b)(6) de novo. Coleman v. City of Mesa, 230 Ariz.
352, 355, ¶ 7 (2012). “Dismissal is appropriate under Rule 12(b)(6) only if
as a matter of law . . . plaintiffs would not be entitled to relief under any
interpretation of the facts susceptible of proof.” Id. at 356, ¶ 8 (citation and
internal quotation marks omitted). Courts “look only to the pleading itself”
when ruling on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion and “must assume the truth of all
well-pleaded factual allegations and indulge all reasonable inferences from
those facts . . . .” Id. at ¶ 9 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

¶7             The Parents argue the superior court erred by finding their
claims against Dr. Carlton untimely and, therefore, barred by the statute of
limitations in A.R.S. § 12-542(2). “The accrual of the cause of action and the
interpretation of a statute of limitations are legal questions, which we
review de novo.” Mertola, LLC v. Santos, 244 Ariz. 488, 490, ¶ 8 (2018).

¶8             “As a general matter, a cause of action accrues, and the statute
of limitations commences, when one party is able to sue another.” Gust,
Rosenfeld & Henderson v. Prudential Ins. Co. of Am., 182 Ariz. 586, 588 (1995).
In wrongful death actions, the discovery rule tolls the statute of limitations
“until the plaintiff possesses a minimum knowledge sufficient to recognize
that a wrong occurred and caused injury.” Ritchie v. Krasner, 221 Ariz. 288,

1      Only the Parents’ claims against Dr. Carlton are at issue here.

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304, ¶ 57 (App. 2009) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
Generally, the plaintiff must know both the “what” and “who” elements
before the statutory period begins running. Lawhon v. L.B.J. Institutional
Supply, Inc., 159 Ariz. 179, 183 (App. 1988). “The discovery rule, however,
does not permit a party to hide behind its ignorance when reasonable
investigation would have alerted it to the claim.” Elm Ret. Ctr., LP v.
Callaway, 226 Ariz. 287, 290, ¶ 12 (App. 2010). A plaintiff “may not have
been aware of all the facts but is charged with a duty to investigate with
due diligence to discover the necessary facts.” Doe v. Roe, 191 Ariz. 313, 324,
¶ 37 (1998).

¶9             The Parents argue the discovery rule tolled the limitations
period under A.R.S. § 12-542(2) until they discovered Dr. Carlton’s identity,
and they, therefore, timely brought their claims against him in February
2020. But the medical examiner’s September 2016 report stating Rachel died
from ingesting prescription methadone and alcohol should have put the
Parents on notice that a wrong may have occurred and it caused injury. See
Ritchie, 221 Ariz. at 304, ¶ 57. Moreover, the original complaint that the
Parents filed in October 2018 reflects their awareness, at that time, that the
methadone Rachel ingested had been prescribed to Cameron in connection
with treatment he was receiving for addiction issues. Although the Parents
had not yet discovered Dr. Carlton’s identity, the knowledge gained from
the medical examiner’s report that their daughter’s death was attributable,
at least in part, to the ingestion of methadone triggered their affirmative
duty to investigate the identity of the prescribing physician. See Elm Ret.
Ctr., LP, 226 Ariz. at 290, ¶ 12; see also Doe, 191 Ariz. at 324, ¶ 37.

¶10           The Parents claim from the time Rachel died they were
“diligent in trying to discover the facts and circumstances surrounding
[their] daughter’s death,” but nothing in the record shows the Parents used
any available methods to attempt to identify Dr. Carlton during the more
than three years between the medical examiner’s September 2016 report
and the Parents’ October 2019 motion to compel production of Cameron’s
medical records. The Parents do not allege they were prevented from
learning the medical examiner’s report’s contents when it was first released
two days after Rachel’s passing, and they do not deny knowing in
September 2016 that she died after ingesting a drug that had been
prescribed for Cameron. Instead, the Parents admit that in “the immediate
aftermath of Rachel’s death,” they chose to “focus[]” on Cameron, not on
attempting to identify his prescribing physician.

¶11          Section 12-542(2) provides that an action “[f]or injuries done
to the person of another when death ensues from such injuries” shall be

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commenced “within two years after the cause of action accrues.” The
Parents waited to file the initial complaint until just days before the
statutory limitations period ran, and they waited over another year before
moving to compel production of Cameron’s medical records, in hopes of
identifying Dr. Carlton. But their efforts to determine the prescribing
physician’s identity, via a motion to compel production, yielded positive
results in a matter of five months. Had the Parents investigated Dr.
Carlton’s identity with due diligence and used any available legal methods
in a timely fashion, they would have had more than adequate time to
discover Dr. Carlton’s identity sooner than three and one-half years after
Rachel’s death.

¶12           From the time the Parents became aware that a combination
of methadone and alcohol caused Rachel’s death in September 2016, they
possessed the minimum requisite knowledge to begin the statutory
limitations period in § 12-542(2) and trigger their duty to investigate with
due diligence. See Ritchie, 221 Ariz. at 304, ¶ 57. They did not name Dr.
Carlton as a defendant until February 2020, almost three and one-half years
later. The superior court correctly found the Parents’ claims against Dr.
Carlton were untimely and filed outside the limitations period set forth in
§ 12-542(2).

¶13            The Parents argue the “trial court’s good-cause
determination” allowing them to file the February 2020 third amended
complaint which named Dr. Carlton as a defendant “end[s] any statute-of-
limitations defense.” The Parents fail to provide any analysis or citations to
relevant legal authority for the proposition that a trial court’s grant of a joint
stipulated motion for leave to file a complaint is determinative of any
statute of limitations defenses that may be raised once the new party joins
the litigation. See ARCAP 13(a)(7).

¶14           Having decided the superior court correctly found the
Parents’ claims against Dr. Carlton untimely and barred by the statute of
limitations in A.R.S. § 12-542(2), we need not reach the remaining issues of
duty of care raised by the Parents.

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                MCCARVILLE, et al. v. CARLTON, et al.
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                             CONCLUSION

¶15          We affirm. The Parents request their attorneys’ fees and costs
on appeal pursuant to A.R.S. §§ 12-331, -341, and -342. They are not the
successful parties on appeal, and we deny their request. As the prevailing
party, Dr. Carlton is entitled to his costs on appeal, upon compliance with
ARCAP 21.

                         AMY M. WOOD • Clerk of the Court
                         FILED: AA

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