Court Opinion

ID: 9674374
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:27:49.910503+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:27.260287
License: Public Domain

BLACKMAR, Judge,
dissenting.
I doubt that any opinion of this Court has played more hob with the legislature’s intent than the principal opinion in this case does.
The present version of § 516.105, RSMo 1978 was enacted by Laws of Mo.1976, p. 767, Sec. 2. At the time the legislature passed this statute it had no reason to anticipate our decisions in Missouri Pacific Railroad Co. v. Whitehead & Kales, 566 S.W.2d 466 (Mo. banc 1978), or the corollary of an independent action for contribution as established by Safeway Stores, Inc. v. City of Raytown, 633 S.W.2d 727 (Mo. banc 1982). Had the legislature been aware of those decisions I am sure that it would have expressed its intent, and I have no doubt as to what that expression would have been.
The long history of the statutory predecessors of the present § 516.105 is discussed in great depth in Laughlin v. For-grave, 432 S.W.2d 308 (Mo. bane 1968). In that case operating surgeons had sewed a rubber dam inside a patient during surgery in 1951. The foreign object was not discovered until further surgery was performed in 1962. The defendant pleaded the bar of the statute of limitations, relying on that portion of then § 516.140, RSMo 1959, relating to health providers and reading as follows:
All actions against physicians, surgeons, dentists, roentgenologists, nurses, hospitals and sanitariums for damages for malpractice, error, or mistake shall be brought within two years from the date of the act of neglect complained of, ...
The plaintiff relied on the provisions of § 516.100, RSMo 1959 providing that statutes of limitations begin to run, not “... when the wrong is done ... but when the damage resulting therefrom is sustained and is capable of ascertainment....”
The Court held that the portion of § 516.140 quoted above was a special statute of limitations applicable to physicians, surgeons and other health care providers, that its explicit provisions were in irreconcilable conflict with § 516.100, and that the special provisions prevailed so as to bar the action, even though the plaintiff could not possibly have discovered the surgeons’ negligence in time to file suit within the limitation period. The dissent argued that *775§§ 516.100 and 516.140 could be read in harmony, but the majority opinion was emphatic and unequivocal, and it tendered to the legislature and to the public the Court’s position as to the proper application of the statutes of limitations to the situation in which the wrongdoing was undiscoverable.
The legislative response to Laughlin came in 1976. The health care provisions were severed from § 516.140 and were included in a new section, later numbered 516.105, reading as follows:
All actions against physicians, hospitals, dentists, registered or licensed practical nurses, optometrists, podiatrists, pharmacists, chiropractors, professional physical therapists, and any other entity providing health care services and all employees of any of the foregoing acting in the course and scope of their employment, for damages for malpractice, negligence, error or mistake related to health care shall be brought within two years from the date of occurrence of the act of neglect complained of, except that a minor under the full age of ten years shall have until his twelfth birthday to bring action, and except that in cases in which the act of neglect complained of its introducing and negligently permitting any foreign object to remain within the body of a living person, the action shall be brought within two years from the date of the discovery of such alleged negligence, or from the date on which the patient in the exercise of ordinary care should have discovered such alleged negligence, whichever date first occurs, but in no event shall any action for damages for malpractice, error, or mistake be commenced after the expiration of ten years from the date of the act of neglect complained of.
This statute adopted very narrow exceptions dealing with specific inequity noted in Laughlin but generally affirmed, and even strengthened, the firm two-year bar. It did not establish a broad exception based on “ascertainment,” such as is found in § 516.100, but rather set out a specific exception applicable only to foreign objects. Even as to these, it established a firm ten-year bar, without regard to discovera-bility of the wrong. The firmness of the general two-year period is also shown by the portion of the 1976 act dealing with suits by minors. The new statute essentially started the period of limitation running against minors as they reach the age of 10, rather than tolling the statute during minority. The conclusion is inescapable that the legislature intended to foreclose all claims against health providers for negligence or malpractice after two years, unless the plaintiff could point to a specific exception within the four corners of the special statute. Because of the legislature’s unequivocal response, it would be highly irresponsible to overrule the firm holding in Laughlin that § 516.100 does not apply to the actions now encompassed by 516.105.
The citations of such cases as Barnhoff v. Aldridge, 327 Mo. 767, 38 S.W.2d 1029 (1931); State ex rel. Sisters of St. Mary v. Campbell, 511 S.W.2d 141 (Mo.App.1974); and National Credit Associates, Inc. v. Tinker, 401 S.W.2d 954 (Mo.App.1966), support my position and militate against the holding in the principal opinion. These cases hold that an artful pleader cannot avoid the firm bar of § 516.105, in an action which is essentially a malpractice action against a health care provider, by pleading the action as a contract action so as to have the benefit of the longer statute of limitations.
There is no warrant in reason or authority for such statements in the principal opinion as the following:
While § 516.105 clearly covers all claims brought by consumers of health care services against health care providers for injuries related to such services, we find no words indicating a legislative intent to include suits for contribution among health care providers....
Of course there are no words! The legislature had no idea, in 1976, that a tort-feasor had an action, either directly or by third party proceedings, for contribution against a health care provider, in the ab*776sence of a joint judgment. What possible reason is there for assuming that the legislature had any purpose of treating Whitehead & Kales claimants more liberally than it treated the customers of health care providers?
The principal opinion gains absolutely nothing by arguing that the legislature in the 1976 act took no steps to include “the statutory right to contribution among joint judgment debtors under § 537.060” within the two-year bar of § 516.105. Of course it took no such steps! There was no need to. A plaintiff could not obtain a judgment against a health care provider, joint or otherwise, if the action were barred by the two-year statute of limitations. Unless there is a judgment against the health care provider, there is no statutory right to contribution.
The appellant places strong reliance on Gramlich v. Travelers Insurance Co., 640 S.W.2d 180 (Mo.App.1982). The case does not help it. It simply holds that when malpractice is alleged to have caused death the wrongful death statute of limitations, § 537.100, RSMo Cum.Supp.1983 prevails over the provisions of § 516.105. The contest there was between two special statutes, not between a general statute and a special one. The case involved a problem that did not surface until 1979, when the limitation period for death actions was increased from one year to three. Before that time the death limitation was firmly applied to defeat claims which could not be barred by the terms of such statutes as 516.120, RSMo 1978, governing negligence. There would be no reason to hold- that the exclusivity feature of the death statute was destroyed simply because the statute was lengthened.
The right of contribution, newly recognized in Whitehead & Kales, is not unlimited. The Court has been careful not to apply it in a disruptive way. Thus interfa-milial immunity remains. Kendall v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 634 S.W.2d 176 (Mo. banc 1982). The ban of the workers compensation statutes precludes recovery of contribution from the plaintiffs employer. Parks v. Union Carbide Corp., 602 S.W.2d 188 (Mo. banc 1980); State ex rel. Maryland Heights Concrete Contractors, Inc. v. Ferriss, 588 S.W.2d 489 (Mo. banc 1979). The prevailing view seems to be that a plaintiff may settle with any tortfeasor in such a way as to bar an action for contribution against the settling litigant. See Mil-holland, “The Sequel to: Settlement by Covenant to Sue?” 31 J.Mo.B. 559 (1982). Under this state of the authorities, it is entirely in order to give effect to a firm, special statute of limitations.
As my opinion concurring in result shows, the “general rule” established by State ex rel. General Electric Co. v. Ga-ertner, 666 S.W.2d 764 (Mo. banc 1984) goes far beyond the necessities of that case, and is therefore dictum. Even so, the “general rule” is not appropriately applied to a case involving a special statute of limitations which is not subject to extension as other statutes of limitations are.
Nor is there any logic in the statements in the principal opinion as follows:
§ 516.105 encompasses those actions where the consumer of health services seeks damages for injuries resulting from some improper, wrongful or careless acts or omissions on the part of a health care provider in the delivery of health care to the consumer....
The principal opinion finds a “qualification” in the broad opening language referring to “all actions” in the phrase, “for damages for malpractice, negligence, error or mistake related to health care.” The obvious purpose of the qualification is to distinguish actions related to health care from actions not so related, as, for example, if a patient slipped and fell on the newly waxed floor of a physician’s office. Cf. Gerba v. Neurological Hospital Association, 416 S.W.2d 126, 128 (Mo.1967). The present action is clearly an action “for malpractice, negligence, error or mistake related to health care.” It is idle to suggest that the legislature had any purpose of distinguishing between an action for contribution and an action for damages. As had been demonstrated earlier, it had no *777way of knowing that a person in the position of this appellant would be able to file an action for contribution under the fact situation presented by this record.
The principal opinion would open up an extremely long limitation period in some cases. Discovery of a defect in a medicinal product might be delayed for as much as 20 years, as in the DES cases. See, e.g., Bichler v. Eli Lilly and Co., 55 N.Y.2d 571, 450 N.Y.S.2d 776, 436 N.E.2d 182 (1982) (DES ingested in 1953; action filed in 1974). A manufacturer might then implead the treating physician, or, under State ex rel. General Electric v. Gaertner, supra, might wait until after judgment. That such a suit might be maintained would come as a distinct surprise to the legislators who tried to compose a firm two-year statute of limitations, with only carefully guarded exceptions, and who in 1976 took steps to tighten up the limitation period in infants’ suits, which was the principal situation in which there might be a long delay. Now the Court imposes another exception, which we can say with perfect assurance that the legislature did not contemplate. Even if we assume that the defendant’s claim for contribution against the physician was “undiscoverable,” until it was sued on by the plaintiff, the legislature has excluded undiscoverable malpractice for § 516.-105 only in cases involving a “foreign object.”
The majority, rather than suggesting fanciful reasons why the third party is not within the compass of § 516.015, should frankly admit that it has chosen to disregard that section in the interest of furthering the newly recognized action for contribution. I am not willing to enhance the new right to this extent, and would affirm the judgment dismissing the third party petition.