Court Opinion

ID: 9537139
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:13:07.618426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:06.251368
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice
(dissenting):
I agree with the district court’s determination that the 120-day notice of claim provision of the Idaho Tort Claims Act does not apply to minors.
The majority quotes the following passage from I.C. § 6-907 in support of its conclusion that minors were not intended to be exempted from the 120-day requirement of the act:
“ . . .If the claimant is incapacitated from presenting and filing his claim within the time prescribed or if the claimant is a minor . . . the claim may be presented and filed on behalf of the claimant by any relative, attorney or agent representing the claimant.” (Emphasis added).
This section does not say that a relative, attorney or agent representing a minor claimant must present and file a claim within 120 days; it says such a representative may file a claim within 120 days. The section recognizes that others may act to protect a minor’s rights, but it does not require them to act in order to preserve the minor’s rights.
Thus, the Idaho Tort Claims Act is not inconsistent with I.C. § 5-230, which provides :
“5-230. Persons Under Disabilities— . . . If a person entitled to bring an action, ... be, at the time the cause of action accrued, . . . ”
‘1. Within the age of majority;
“The time of such disability is not a part of the time limited for the commencement of the action.”
I.C. § 5-230 suspends the running of the statute of limitations during a plaintiff’s minority. However, the parents or next friend of a minor plaintiff may still bring suit during the plaintiff’s minority in order to protect the plaintiff’s rights, but the plaintiff’s rights cannot be terminated during his minority by a statute of limitations. There is nothing in I.C. § 6-907, or any other section of the Idaho Tort Claims Act, which shows an intent to change this policy, and thus I conclude that the legislature intended to toll the running of the notice of claim requirement for a minor tort claimant when the tortfeasor was a governmental entity. As the Washington Court of Appeals said in Hunter v. North Mason High School, 12 Wash.App. 304, 529 P.2d 898, cert. granted 85 Wash.2d 1005 (1975), in construing a nearly identical provision of the Washington code under remarkably similar facts:
“[I]t would be fundamentally unfair for a minor to be denied his recourse to the courts because of circumstances which are both legally and practically beyond his control. The legal disabilities of minors have been firmly established by common law and statute. They were established for the protection of minors, and not as a bar to the enforcement of their rights. (Citation omitted). The legislature recognized this when it inserted the provision in [the nonclaim statute] allowing a relative, agent or attorney to file a claim on behalf of the minor. However, any argument that this provision sufficiently protects the interests of the minor was disposed of in {Cook v. State, 83 Wash.2d 599, 521 P.2d 725 (1974)], wherein it was stated:
“ ‘The possibility that a friend or relative may possess the foresight to file a *66timely claim on behalf of an incapacitated victim, in our view, provides too slender a reed to bridge the inherent discrimination, and it becomes arbitrary and unreasonable when it penalizes the incapacitated if a friend or relative through inadvertence or ignorance fails to act.’ ”
“ . . .A minor lacks the capacity to appoint an attorney, and his capacity to appoint an agent is disputable. (Citation omitted). As stated, his right of action should not depend on the good fortune of having an astute relative or friend to take the proper steps on his behalf.
“It is noteworthy that minority alone is a disability which tolls the general statute of limitation. (Citation omitted). There is no reason why the minor should not be similarly protected when the alleged wrongdoer is a governmental entity. To grant the minor protection in one situation and not the other is arbitrary and manifestly unjust.
“We . . . hold that a person under the age of 18 is as a matter of law excused from compliance with [the non-claim statute]. Also, ... we hold that the right of action must be preserved by filing the claim within 120 days from the removal of the disability. Our reason is that the minor, whether mature or immature, seriously disabled or otherwise, lacks the means for personally complying with the statute until the time the disability caused by his age is removed.” 529 P.2d at 899-900.
I agree with the analysis of the Washington Court of Appeals insofar as it bases its decision upon statutes tolling the notice of claim requirement during a plaintiff’s minority and upon a minor plaintiff’s legal inability to protect his rights by initiating suit on his own behalf. I cannot believe it was in the contemplation of the legislature to implicitly repeal I.C. § 5-230 by a sentence in the Idaho Tort Claims Act allowing a minor’s adult representative to protect the minor’s interests by filing a claim on the minor’s behalf.
The majority avoids the question of construing I.C. § 5-230 and I.C. § 6-907 by rejecting the argument that the notice of claim requirement is a statute of limitations. I cannot agree with this analysis. “The requirement [of the statute] . that before suit may be instituted against any municipal corporation . . . for injury to person or property, it must be notified in writing within 6 months of the event upon which the claim is predicated is a statute of limitation.” City of Barnesville v. Powell, 124 Ga.App. 132, 183 S.E.2d 55 (1971). The filing of the notice of claim is an integral part of the initiation of an action against a governmental entity. If it is not technically a statute of limitations as the Georgia Appellate Court holds, nevertheless it is so closely akin to one that minors are excused from compliance with its requirements during their minority for the same reason that they are excused from compliance with a statute of limitations. McDonald v. City of Spring Valley, 285 Ill. 52, 120 N.E. 476 (1918); Haymes v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 33 Ill.2d 425, 211 N.E.2d 690 (1965); Lazich v. Belanger, 111 Mont. 48, 105 P.2d 738 (1940); Fornaro v. Town of Clarkstown, 44 A.D.2d 596, 353 N.Y.S.2d 516 (1974); McCrary v. City of Odessa, 482 S.W.2d 151 (Tex.1972). To hold otherwise would be to reach the ridiculous conclusion that a 10 year old injured by a governmental entity must file his notice of claim within 120 days of his injury, but then, because I.C. § 5-230 will toll the running of the statute during his minority, may wait the remaining 8 years of his minority before initiating suit in the district court. I cannot agree with such a result.
Finally, although this was not the situation in the case before us, it is not infrequent in automobile accidents for very young children to be orphaned or to lose the only parent that they are living with who is caring for them. See, e. g., Jorstad v. City of Lewiston, 93 Idaho 122, 456 P.2d *67766 (1969). It cannot be seriously asserted that children in such circumstances are capable of protecting their interests or that there will be a party available who can protect the children’s interest by filing a notice of claim within 120 days. I cannot believe the legislature intended to prevent such claimants from bringing their action by non-compliance with the notice of claim statute. Yet, if the majority’s holding is the law, this Court will be inexorably bound to such a result.