Court Opinion

ID: 9473709
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:37:34.069697+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:41.770878
License: Public Domain

McKAY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The issue in this case is whether the district court’s finding that plaintiff’s medical malpractice claim was timely filed is clearly erroneous.
The relevant facts are uncontroverted. The mother of the infant plaintiff brought him to a military hospital on January 30, 1979, complaining of a nine-day fever and crankiness. After briefly examining the plaintiff, the family practitioner on duty, Dr. DePoe, diagnosed his condition as an upper respiratory infection, prescribed Triaminic Concentrate, and instructed plaintiff’s mother to return with her child within a week if his condition did not improve.
Because plaintiff’s condition had deteriorated significantly by the next day, his parents brought him to the emergency room of the military hospital. The emergency room physician, Dr. Pascua, preliminarily diagnosed plaintiff’s condition as bacterial meningitis and transferred him to a civilian hospital for specialized care. There, the diagnosis of bacterial meningitis was confirmed and appropriate treatment was administered. Plaintiff was treated for meningitis through March of 1979, at which time he exhibited signs of brain damage.
On August 19, 1981, plaintiff’s parents sought legal advice concerning the government’s insurance coverage of their son’s medical and therapy expenses. It happened that the attorney they consulted had had experience with medical malpractice cases involving the delayed diagnosis of meningitis. He informed plaintiffs parents that Dr. DePoe’s failure to diagnose and treat bacterial meningitis was possibly the cause of plaintiff’s brain damage. Plaintiff’s parents proceeded to investigate the possibility of negligence and thereafter filed their FTCA claim on December 16, 1981.
At trial, plaintiff’s attorney argued that plaintiff was suffering from the initial stages of bacterial meningitis when Dr. DePoe examined him on January 30, 1979, and that the doctor’s failure to diagnose and treat the disease caused his injuries. The government lawyers argued that plaintiff was not suffering from meningitis at the time of Dr. DePoe’s examination, and that the doctor’s diagnosis and treatment of upper respiratory infection was appropriate. The government also contended that plaintiff’s administrative claim was not timely filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b) (1982), which provides that:
A tort claim against the United States shall be forever barred unless it is presented in writing to the appropriate Federal agency within two years after such claim accrues or unless action is begun within six months after the date of mailing, by certified or registered mail, of notice of final denial of the claim by the agency to which it was presented,
(emphasis added).
The trial court found that the claim was timely filed, that the government was negligent in failing to diagnose and treat the bacterial meningitis on January 30, 1979 and that, had the disease been properly diagnosed and treated on that date, plaintiff quite probably would not have suffered the brain damage and retardation that now afflict him. The court awarded damages in *1424the amount of $1,950,000, of which $1,000,-000 was for pain and suffering.
On appeal, the government does not challenge the trial court’s finding of negligence, but argues only that the administrative claim was not timely filed. The government does not contend, as part of its statute of limitations argument, that plaintiff's parents actually knew that the delayed diagnosis was a cause of plaintiff’s injuries. Indeed, the government does not contest plaintiff’s claim that no physician who treated plaintiff during his hospitalization informed his parents that Dr. De-Poe’s failure to diagnose the meningitis on January 30, 1979 and the resulting delay in treatment might have caused his brain damage. Nor does the government contest plaintiff’s claim that Dr. Pascua, a colleague of Dr. DePoe who was retained by plaintiff’s parents to treat plaintiff after his discharge from the hospital, did not inform them that Dr. DePoe’s failure to diagnose and treat the meningitis might have caused plaintiff’s brain damage. Rather, the government argues that the administrative claim was not timely filed because plaintiff’s parents should have known of their cause of action more than two years prior to the date on which they filed this suit.
The definition of the word “accrues” in 28 U.S.C. 2401(b) has been the source of considerable judicial discussion. In United States v. Kubrick, 444 U.S. 111, 120, 100 S.Ct. 352, 358, 62 L.Ed.2d 259 (1979), the Supreme Court held that a cause of action accrues under the FTCA when “the plaintiff has discovered both his injury and its cause.” I agree with the majority that under our holding in Gustavson v. United States, 655 F.2d 1034 (10th Cir.1981), the “cause” of plaintiffs injury for purposes of statute of limitations analysis was not merely the disease of bacterial meningitis, but also the delayed diagnosis of this disease. I do not, however, agree with the majority’s decision to overturn the trial court’s conclusion that plaintiff’s parents were reasonably diligent in ascertaining the cause of plaintiff’s injuries.
The majority finds that the district court incorrectly arrived at a finding of reasonableness because it applied “a subjective standard rather than an objective standard to what the Arvayos’ duty of inquiry was under the circumstances,” Maj.Op. at 1422, and because it excused “the Arvayos’ failure to inquire on the basis of its findings that doctors at St. Joseph’s probably did not know of Dr. DePoe’s diagnosis the previous day.” Maj.Op. at 1422. In my view this misconceives the district court’s opinion. It is true, as the majority notes, that the district court refers to the plaintiff’s parents as a young couple, “wholly trusting of authority, particularly medical persons." This does not necessarily mean, however, that the court was applying a subjective standard as to the diligence required of plaintiff’s parents. The court’s characterization of plaintiff’s parents in this regard is certainly relevant to the first tier of statute of limitations analysis— whether they actually knew of the causal import of the delayed diagnosis. Moreover, the fact that the court uses the phrase “reasonably diligent claimant” in his opinion, 580 F.Supp. at 755, indicates that he was aware that the standard to be applied in the second tier of the analysis was an objective one. Further, I disagree with the majority’s assessment of the trial court’s finding that any inquiry would have been futile. Whether or not the likely futility of making inquiries of the doctors at the civilian hospital was relevant to the issue of plaintiff’s parent’s reasonableness, in my view the district court’s finding that inquiry would have been futile was merely peripheral to its independent finding that plaintiff’s failure to inquire was reasonable. Thus, the district court applied the correct standard in its statute of limitations analysis.
The question before the district court was whether it was reasonable for plaintiff’s parents to believe that Dr. DePoe’s diagnosis on January 30, 1979 was not a contributing cause to their son’s brain damage and to fail to inquire into the accuracy of the belief. The question before us is not whether the plaintiff's parents were rea*1425sonable in their conduct but, rather, whether the district court’s finding that they were reasonable is so implausible as to merit reversal.
It is well-established that the question of when a claim accrues, for purposes of the FTCA limitation period, is a matter of federal law. Exnicious v. United States, 563 F.2d 418, 420 n. 6 (10th Cir.1977); Stoleson v. United States, 629 F.2d 1265, 1268 (7th Cir.1980); Williams v. United States, 405 F.2d 234, 235 n. 5 (5th Cir.1968). The issue of when a plaintiff knew or with reasonable diligence should have known of a cause of action is a question for the finder of fact. See, e.g., Maughan v. SW Servicing, Inc., 758 F.2d 1381 (10th Cir.1985); Lundy v. Union Carbide Corp., 695 F.2d 394 (9th Cir.1982); Ballew v. A.H. Robins Co., 688 F.2d 1325 (11th Cir.1982); Renfroe v. Eli Lilly & Co., 686 F.2d 642 (8th Cir.1982).
The Supreme Court recently made clear the standard we are to apply in reviewing a trial court’s factual findings in Anderson v. City of Bessemmer City, — U.S.-, -, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985):
This standard plainly does not entitle a reviewing court to reverse the finding of the trier of fact simply because it is convinced that it would have decided the case differently. The reviewing court oversteps the bounds of its duty under Rule 52 if it undertakes to duplicate the role of the lower court. ‘In applying the clearly erroneous standard to the findings of a district court sitting without a jury, appellate courts must constantly have in mind that their function is not to decide factual issues de novo.’ ... If the district court’s account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, the court of appeals may not reverse it even though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently. Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous____
This is so even when the district court’s findings do not rest on credibility determinations, but are based instead on physical or documentary evidence or inferences from other facts.
(citations omitted).
In my view, the majority misconceives our role as a reviewing court. Not only is the district court better equipped to find facts, but fairness dictates that those findings be overturned only with great circumspection. As the Court noted in Bessemer City:
the parties to a case on appeal have already been forced to concentrate their energies and resources on persuading the trial judge that their account of the facts is the correct one; requiring them to persuade three more judges at the appellate level is requiring too much. As the Court has stated in a different context, the trial on the merits should be ‘the main event’ ... rather than a ‘tryout on the road.’____ For these reasons, review of factual findings under the clearly erroneous standard — with its deference to the trier of fact — is the rule, not the exception.
Id. (citation omitted).*
I cannot conclude that the district court’s findings as to plaintiff’s parent’s reasonableness were so implausible as to merit reversal. Certainly, the view that Dr. De-Poe’s diagnosis was not a contributing cause because plaintiff was not suffering from bacterial meningitis at the time of Dr. DePoe’s diagnosis was not so unreasonable as to prevent the government from arguing it at trial. Even had plaintiff’s parents believed that their child was suffering from the disease at the time of the diagnosis, it is far from clear that it would have been *1426unreasonable for them to have believed that the injuries suffered by their son were the inevitable consequence of bacterial meningitis and that a mere day’s delay in diagnosis had no affect on the extent of those injuries. Under these circumstances, a finding that a reasonable plaintiff would not have inquired further into the effect of the delayed diagnosis is not implausible.
I would affirm.

 In addition, we should not further burden our overburdened dockets by conducting exhaustive review of such fact-bound determinations. Cf. California v. Carney, — U.S. -, -, 10S.Ct. 2066, 2071, 85 L.Ed.2d 406 (1985) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (“By promoting the Supreme Court as the High Magistrate for every warrant-less search and seizure, this practice has burdened the argument docket with cases presenting fact bound errors of minimal significance.’’).