Court Opinion

ID: 9583164
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:35:32.199107+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:52.168266
License: Public Domain

CANE, P.J.
{dissenting). I dissent. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has on numerous occasions held that property rights arising from the running of the statutory limitation period are entitled to protection under the due process clauses of both the United *90States and the Wisconsin Constitutions. See Haase v. Sawicki, 20 Wis. 2d 308, 311, 121 N.W.2d 876, 878 (1963); Maryland Cas. Co. v. Beleznay, 245 Wis. 390, 393, 14 N.W.2d 177, 179 (1944). This principle was most recently restated in State v. D.B., 137 Wis. 2d 57, 403 N.W.2d 434 (1987).
In this case, the limitations period on Kohnke’s cause of action ended, and the defendant’s property right in the statute of limitations defense vested on April 28,1980. At that time, under then existing law, Kohnke’s cause of action was barred. See Rod v. Farrell, 96 Wis. 2d 349, 291 N.W.2d 568 (1980), which, under almost identical facts, held that the plaintiffs cause of action was barred under the statute of limitations. Section 893.55, Stats., did not become effective until a few months later on July 1,1980. The discovery rule in Hansen v. A.H. Robins, Inc., 113 Wis. 2d 550, 560, 335 N.W.2d 578, 583 (1983), did not take effect until 1983 and then it applied only to tort actions not already governed by a legislatively created discovery rule. At the time Hansen was decided, sec. 893.55, Stats., the medical malpractice discovery rule, was already in effect. Although Borello v. U.S. Oil Co., 130 Wis. 2d 397, 409, 388 N.W.2d 140, 145 (1986), contains some language that could support the proposition that the discovery rule applies in medical malpractice actions, it relies on Hansen for that proposition. But even a strained reading of Hansen does not allow it to stand for that proposition: It specifically excluded medical malpractice actions from the discovery rule. Hansen, 113 Wis. 2d at 557, 335 N.W.2d at 581. Significantly, both Borello and Hansen were product liability actions.
Here, the clinic’s constitutional right to due process is violated if the Hansen discovery rule applies *91in Kohnke’s case. Applying the discovery rule in Kohnke’s case revives a claim that had been barred under the previous statute of limitations and the court’s previous interpretation of when a cause of action accrued. To hold that Kohnke’s cause of action is not "revived” because it did not begin to run until discovered and therefore never died defies logic and precedent. Additionally, we now have under the majority’s interpretation a situation where a person who is negligently treated before July 1, 1980, has until discovery to commence the malpractice action, but those who are treated after July 1, 1980, have a maximum of five years to commence their medical malpractice action (presuming that sec. 893.55 is constitutional).