Court Opinion

ID: 9714546
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:40:17.669066+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:27.013375
License: Public Domain

BERGER, Justice,
dissenting:
Before the current malpractice statute of limitations was enacted in 1976, health care providers faced open-ended liability for “inherently unknowable” injuries.36 The present statute, 18 Del.C. § 6856, eliminates that perceived problem. Now, a “blamelessly ignorant” person has no recourse for negligent health care if the injury does not manifest itself within three years. The time frame is reduced to two years where, as here, the injury is discoverable within two years. The issue before this Court is whether Section 6856 should be construed in such a way as to further restrict the statute of limitations from the stated two years down to one and one half years.
In December 1994, after Mary Meekins’ annual mammogram, the radiologist examined Meekins’ film and advised her to re*901turn in one year for another mammogram. In slightly less than one year, however, Meekins discovered a lump in her breast, which was diagnosed as cancer. Meekins alleges that she should have been called back for another mammogram in six months, not one year. Her expert’s supporting affidavit states that the radiologist should have advised Meekins to return in six months and should have followed up with a reminder if Meekins did not return by June 1995 for another mammogram.
Everyone agrees that the two-year limitation in § 6856 is controlling, since Mee-kins discovered the cancer within two years after the injury occurred. The question is, when did the injury occur? The majority, relying on Dunn v. St Francis Hospital,37 says “the date upon which such injury occurred” must be construed to mean the date on which the wrongful act or omission occurred. But the statute does not use that language and Dunn addressed a very different question. This Court could follow Dunn, and carry out the General Assembly’s statutory mandate, by simply reading § 6856 as written and applying the limitations period to the facts of this case.
In Dunn, the issue was whether the “inherently unknowable” injury rule survived the enactment of § 6856. Plaintiff underwent back surgery in 1970, and did not realize that the surgery was performed improperly until he started having leg pain five years later. The question on appeal was “whether the statute of limitations commenced to run when the negligent act or omission was committed or when the harm first manifested itself to the patient.” 38 The Court reviewed the legislative history and concluded that the clear intent of § 6856 was to eliminate the open-ended limitations period for inherently unknowable injuries.
Plaintiff tried to avoid the three-year statute of limitations by arguing that the “date upon which such injury occurred” means the date on which he became aware of the injury. According to plaintiff, (i) he suffered no damage until he felt pain from the botched surgery; (ii) he had no cause of action for negligence until he had damages; and (iii) the statute of limitations does not begin to run until there is a cause of action. This Court properly rejected plaintiffs argument. First, the Court noted that the “no-pain, no-injury rationale” would frustrate the purpose of § 6856. Under plaintiffs approach, the limitations period for unknowable injuries would be open-ended. Second, the Court disputed plaintiffs premise that there was no damage before the pain in his leg began:
The statutory context and history makes it unnecessary for us to explore when damage occurred in the context the plaintiff argues, but it seems to us that it is not necessarily the same time as the first manifestation of pain in the leg given the initial and allegedly wrongful entry into the body from the right side of the back.39
The Dunn decision, read in context, is correct. The Court there was deciding whether the patient’s injury occurred at the time of the negligent act (when the surgery was performed) or at the later, and undefinable, time of discovery of the injury (when the leg pain began). In Dunn, as in most cases, the injury actually occurred at the same time as the negligent act. Thus, the Court did no violence to the statute when it said that date of injury means date of negligent act.
In this ease, howeyer, the date of the negligent act and the date of injury are not the same. The date of the negligent act was December 21, 1994, when the radiologist told Meekins to come back in one year instead of six months. The date of the injury was six months later, June 21, 1995, when Meekins would have begun cancer *902treatment if she had come back for another mammogram. Since the Dunn Court never considered when the statute begins to run in cases where the date of negligent act is not the same as the date of injury, its holding provides little guidance. Rather than use the Dunn formulation out of context, I would follow settled principles of statutory construction, and give effect to the plain language of § 6856. The statute provides that the limitations periods runs from the “date upon which such injury occurred.” That date is the date on which the negligent act caused harm (whether known or unknown). In this case, it was June 22,1995.
The majority asserts that Meekins had a cause of action for medical malpractice as early as December 21, 1994, although she did not know of her claim then and her damages would have been difficult to quantify. I understand the majority to mean that Meekins suffered some actionable harm on that date, but I do not understand what that harm was. There is no treatment that even the most prudent doctor would have initiated at that time. If Mee-kins had discovered the error within six months, she could have gone for a follow up mammogram and would have been in the same position as if there had been no negligence at all. It was only after June 21,1995, that the radiologist’s error caused injury by depriving Meekins of immediate cancer treatment.
In sum, the majority has reduced the statute of limitations for Meekins from two years to eighteen months. She could not have stated a claim for relief before June 22, 1995, because she suffered no harm before then, yet the majority holds that the statute of limitations began to run six months earlier. I understand the need to construe § 6856, consistent with the intent of the legislature, to bar claims brought more than two (or in some cases, three) years after the date of the injury. I do not understand the need to construe “date of injury” to mean “date of negligent act” in a case like this, where the two dates are not the same. I respectfully dissent.

. Layton v. Allen, Del.Supr., 246 A.2d 794 (1968).

. Del.Supr, 401 A.2d 77 (1979).

. Id. at 78.

.Id. at 80.