Court Opinion

ID: 9809364
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:10:10.896305+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:27:20.869257
License: Public Domain

*320Ervin, J.,
dissenting: This dissent is based on the conviction that the law is correctly stated in Wilson v. Chastain, 230 N.C. 390, 53 S.E. 2d 290.
Since it must furnish the myriad rules necessary to regulate the affairs of men in the manifold relations of life, the law inevitably tends to become a labyrinth in which the unwary is likely to miss his way. For this reason, courts should cherish consistency and simplicity in law whenever that is possible. It is certainly highly desirable that they refrain from engrafting useless exceptions on general principles.
Till now this twofold rule of procedure has been uniformly observed in civil actions: (1) What the pleader must allege, he must prove; and (2) what the pleader must prove, he must allege. This rule merits commendation and preservation if there be any virtue in consistency and simplicity.
The majority of the Court now strike down this rule in actions for wrongful death. They adjudicate that the plaintiff in\such a case need not allege what he is required to prove, i.e., that his action was brought within one year after the death of the decedent. G.S. 28-173.
The majority opinion advances no reason in support of this anomalous ruling. In my judgment, the cases cited in it do not sustain the decision of the majority. Indeed, they imply that the converse is the law. They hold this and nothing more: That the statutory requirement that an action for wrongful death must be brought within one year after the death is a condition annexed to the plaintiff’s cause of action, and not a statute of limitation, which the defendant must plead; and that in consequence the plaintiff cannot successfully maintain such an action unless he proves at the trial that it was commenced within the time prescribed by the statute. See McGuire v. Lumber Co., 190 N.C. 806, 131 S.E. 274.
Consistency and simplicity ought not to be worthless in the legal market place. To be sure, a philosopher has declared with confidence that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Perhaps, I now contend for such a consistency. Be that as it may, some little minds draft pleadings in civil cases, and their task is at best sufficiently abstruse. It ought not to be further complicated by the promulgation of conflicting rules in procedural matters. Moreover, the law might well devise a more practical occupation for those who possess big minds than that of remembering needless exceptions to salutary general principles.
I see no insuperable objection to permitting a plaintiff in a wrongful death action to amend his complaint so as to allege what he is required to prove, i.e., that his action was brought within one year after the death. By so doing, we could preserve intact a consistent and simple rule of procedure, and at the same time permit a decision of the action on the merits.