Court Opinion

ID: 9627693
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:50:57.942774+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:49.243815
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
At issue here is the applicability of Code of Civil Procedure section 364,1 a provision of the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA). This provision requires a plaintiff in an action against a health care provider based on the provider’s professional negligence to give 90 days’ notice of intent to sue, and it extends the “applicable” statute of limitations for 90 days following the service of such notice. I agree with the majority that section 364’s notice requirement and extension provision apply to this case, which pertains to a plaintiff insurer’s action for indemnity against two physicians, whose alleged professional negligence aggravated the injuries of a person involved in an accident with plaintiff’s insured.
I disagree with the majority, however, that the applicable statute of limitations here is section 340, subdivision (3), which imposes a one-year limitations period for “[a]n action ... for injury to . . . one caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another . . . .” (See maj. opn., ante, at pp. 212-213 & fn. 2.) In my view, the correct statute of limitations is section 340.5, which provides for, as applicable, either a three-year or a one-year period of limitations in actions “for injury or death against a health care provider based upon such person’s alleged professional negligence.”
I
In 1993, Rebekka Pratte’s hand was slammed in the door of a van owned by the First Church of God—Santa Maria, Inc. (the Church). After Doctors Reo Reiswig and Karen S. Kolba treated the injury, Pratte developed a serious condition known as “complex regional pain syndrome.” She sued the Church, which was insured by plaintiff Preferred Risk Mutual Insurance Company. On January 24, 1996, plaintiff insurer paid Pratte the policy limit of $1 million in exchange for a release of claims against the Church. On January 16, 1997, plaintiff insurer served Doctors Reiswig and Kolba with section 364 notices of intent to sue, and on April 10, 1997, it filed a complaint in subrogation to the Church’s right of equitable indemnity *220against both physicians. The complaint alleged that defendant physicians had aggravated Pratte’s injury by negligently treating her hand, and it sought indemnification for the money plaintiff had paid to Pratte in a settlement of her lawsuit against the Church.
Defendants demurred, claiming, as relevant here, that the complaint was barred by the one-year statute of limitations of section 340, subdivision (3). The trial court sustained the demurrer without leave to amend, and the Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment.
n
Section 340.5 provides: “In an action for injury or death against a health care provider based upon such person’s alleged professional negligence, the time for the commencement of action shall be three years after the date of injury or one year after the plaintiff discovers, or through the use of reasonable diligence should have discovered, the injury, whichever occurs first.” (Italics added.) Thus, section 340.5 applies to any complaint that satisfies these three requirements: (1) the action must be “against a health care provider,” for (2) “injury or death,” based on (3) the health care provider’s “alleged professional negligence.” Here, plaintiff insurer’s action against defendant physicians for equitable indemnity meets each of these criteria.
First, plaintiff insurer’s action against defendant physicians is “against a health care provider.” (§ 340.5.) Subdivision (1) of section 340.5 provides an explicit definition of the term “[hjealth care provider.” The majority and defendant physicians do not dispute that defendants fall within this definition.
Second, plaintiff insurer’s action is for “injury.” (§ 340.5.) More specifically, it is for the financial injury that the Church suffered when plaintiff paid, on the Church’s behalf, $1 million to accident victim Pratte to compensate her. Implicit in the majority’s determination that the applicable statute of limitations is section 340, subdivision (3), which imposes a one-year limitations period on actions for “injury . . . caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another” (italics added), is a finding that the action here is for “injury.”
Third, the action is “based upon” the health care provider’s “alleged professional negligence.” (§ 340.5.) Plaintiff alleged that accident victim Pratte was injured in an accident involving the Church, which was insured by plaintiff; and that as Pratte’s health care providers, both defendant *221physicians committed acts of professional negligence that aggravated Pratte’s injury, as a result of which plaintiff insurer paid Pratte more in damages than it would have been obligated to pay if the physicians’ negligent acts had not occurred. Thus, the action squarely falls within section 340.5’s requirement that it be “based upon” defendant health care providers’ professional negligence. The majority concedes as much by concluding that plaintiff’s action falls within the notice requirement and the extension provision of section 364, which (like the third requirement of section 340.5) apply only to actions “based upon the health care provider’s professional negligence.”
Instructive here is our decision in Western Steamship Lines, Inc. v. San Pedro Peninsula Hospital (1994) 8 Cal.4th 100 [32 Cal.Rptr.2d 263, 876 P.2d 1062]. That case involved another provision of MICRA, Civil Code section 3333.2, which imposes a limitation of $250,000 on damages in “any action for injury against a health care provider based on professional negligence . . . .” That provision, like section 340.5 here, requires (1) an action against a health care provider, that is for (2) injury, and is (3) based on professional negligence. In Western Steamship, as in this case, the plaintiff, after paying damages to a third party for injuries caused by the plaintiff’s negligence, filed an action for equitable indemnity against the health care provider that had negligently treated the injured third party. This court determined that Civil Code section 3333.2’s $250,000 limitation on damages applied to the plaintiff’s action for equitable indemnity. If, as we held in Western Steamship, equitable indemnity actions satisfy the three requirements of Civil Code section 3333.2, they must also satisfy the three requirements of section 340.5, for, as I have just pointed out, the requirements of the two statutes are virtually identical.
Although the majority and I differ on the applicable statute of limitations here—whether it is section 340, subdivision (3), as the majority concludes, or section 340.5, as I conclude—the result is the same. Plaintiff’s indemnity claim accrued when plaintiff “suffered actual loss through payment.” (People ex rel. Dept. of Transportation v. Superior Court (1980) 26 Cal.3d 744, 751-752 [163 Cal.Rptr. 585, 608 P.2d 673].) Under section 340, subdivision (3), plaintiff insurer had one year from the date of injury to file its complaint. Under section 340.5, plaintiff had one year from the discovery of the injury or three years from the date of the injury to file its complaint. Irrespective of which statute of limitations is applied here, plaintiff insurer had one year from the date of its payment to Pratte (People ex rel. Dept. of Transportation v. Superior Court, supra, 26 Cal.3d 744) to file its action for equitable indemnity, and as the majority concludes, the complaint was timely filed.
*222In other cases, however, the majority’s conclusion that section 340.5 has no bearing on actions for equitable indemnity may have more serious consequences, especially in the application of tolling provisions.
The one-year statute of limitations in subdivision (3) of section 340 is subject to many tolling provisions. For example, the statute is tolled when the defendant is absent from the state (§351); when the plaintiff is a minor (§ 352); when the plaintiff is insane (ibid.); when the plaintiff is imprisoned on a criminal charge for a term less than life (§ 352.1); when the plaintiff is represented “by an attorney over whose practice a court of this state has assumed jurisdiction pursuant to Section 6180 or Section 6190 of the Business and Professions Code” (§ 353.1); when the plaintiff is under a disability caused by a state of war (§ 354); when a timely action is filed, but a judgment for the plaintiff is reversed on grounds other than the merits (§ 355); when a person entitled to bring an action dies (§ 366.1); or in any case in which the doctrine of equitable tolling applies (see generally, Addison v. State of California (1978) 21 Cal.3d 313 [146 Cal.Rptr. 224, 578 P.2d 941]; Elkins v. Derby (1974) 12 Cal.3d 410 [115 Cal.Rptr. 641, 525 P.2d 81, 71 A.L.R.3d 839]; Bollinger v. National Fire Ins. Co. (1944) 25 Cal.2d 399 [154 P.2d 399]; Aerojet General Corp. v. Superior Court (1986) 177 Cal.App.3d 950, 954 [223 Cal.Rptr. 249]).
None of these tolling provisions can extend the maximum three-year limitations period of section 340.5, enacted as part of MICRA in 1975. (Belton v. Bowers Ambulance Service (1999) 20 Cal.4th 928, 931 [86 Cal.Rptr.2d 107, 978 P.2d 591].) In contrast to those broad tolling provisions applicable to subdivision (3) of section 340, section 340.5 permits a tolling of its three-year limitations period only for fraud, intentional concealment, the presence of nontherapeutic and nondiagnostic foreign bodies, or, in certain limited circumstances, when the plaintiff is a child under the age of 8. (Stats. 1975, 2d Ex. Sess. 1975-1976, ch. 1, § 25, p. 3968.) As we explained in Young v. Haines (1986) 41 Cal.3d 883, 900 [226 Cal.Rptr. 547, 718 P.2d 909]: “MICRA established a sharply reduced statute of limitations for malpractice plaintiffs. Section 340.5 as originally enacted in 1970 contained a tolling provision which was intended to retain much of the liberality of the common law rule. [Citations.] The 1975 MICRA version of the statute, by contrast, was intended to work ‘substantial changes’ (Brown v. Bleiberg [(1982)] 32 Cal.3d [426,] 432 [186 Cal.Rptr.2d 228, 651 P.2d 815]) in the limitation period. Significant among these changes was the restriction of the tolling provisions for medical malpractice actions.” Here, the majority’s conclusion that section 340.5 is inapplicable to equitable indemnity actions against health care providers removes the Legislature’s “restriction on the tolling provisions for medical malpractice actions.” (Young v. Haines, supra, 41 Cal.3d at p. 900.)

Unless otherwise stated, all further statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure.