Court Opinion

ID: 9540675
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:18:48.834403+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:00:10.122022
License: Public Domain

FELDMAN, Chief Justice,
specially concurring.
I join in and fully agree with the majority opinion’s analysis and result, including the substantive discussion of why Bryant was decided incorrectly. The dissent, however, compels response. Contrary to the dissent, the court has not “[f]or the first time in Arizona legal history ... constitu-tionalize^] the law of torts.”1 The 1910 Arizona Constitution, not today’s opinion, constitutionalized the law of torts. This “exceptional proposition”2 was advanced over a half-century ago by members of this court, who had been delegates to the 1910 Constitutional Convention.
From earliest days of statehood, this court held that Ariz. Const, art. 18, § 6 “perpetuates the common-law action to recover damages.” Behringer v. Inspiration Consolidated Copper Co., 17 Ariz. 232, 241, 149 P. 1065, 1068 (1915) (Cunningham, J., concurring).3 See also Inspiration Consolidated Copper Co. v. Mendez, 19 Ariz. 151, 167, 166 P. 278, 284 (1917).4 *346Any doubt about the breadth or meaning of these statements was put to rest in Ala-bam’s Freight Co. v. Hunt, 29 Ariz. 419, 242 P. 658 (1926), in which the defendant argued that the action for damages was not constitutionally protected. This court rejected that argument in a unanimous opinion, stating that the damage action “was taken from its status as one subject to the will of the legislature and imbedded in the Constitution.” Id. at 443, 242 P. at 665.
Some have argued that this broad language about constitutionalizing tort law was meant to apply only to actions between employee and employer. See Roger C. Henderson, Tort Reform, Separation of Powers, and the Arizona Constitutional Convention of 1910, 35 ARIZ.L.REV. 535 (1993).5 That argument was dismissed decades ago. Arizona cases have long held that the constitutional protection given tort law by art. 18, § 6 goes beyond employee-employer situations and applies to all actions. See, e.g., Hunt, 29 Ariz. at 444, 242 P. at 666; Alabam Freight Lines v. The-venot, 68 Ariz. 260, 204 P.2d 1050 (1949) (applying art. 18, § 6 to bodily injury and property damage claims arising out of a motor vehicle collision); Ruth v. Industrial Commission, 107 Ariz. 572, 490 P.2d 828 (1971); Barrio v. San Manuel Division Hosp., 143 Ariz. 101, 692 P.2d 280 (1984) (applying art. 18, § 6 to a medical malpractice action). See also Davis v. Boggs, 22 Ariz. 497, 199 P. 116 (1921),6 and Layton v. Rocha, 90 Ariz. 369, 370, 368 P.2d 444, 445 (1962) (both dealing with art. 18, § 5).
In short, today’s opinion breaks no new ground but merely follows the path taken from the earliest days of statehood. It is simply incorrect to conclude, as does the dissent, that today’s opinion advances the “remarkable proposition” that Arizona has “constitutionalized the law of torts.”7
Nor is it correct to suggest that we hold the “legislature is without power to tinker” with tort law.8 It is abrogation, not “tinkering,” to erect a statute of limitations barring a damage action before the accident occurs and suit can be brought. Barrio, 143 Ariz. at 106, 692 P.2d at 285. This court has long recognized, however, that the legislature has a constitutional role and may regulate, so long as it does not abrogate. See Eastin v. Broomfield, 116 Ariz. 576, 570 P.2d 744 (1977); Barrio, 143 Ariz. at 106, 692 P.2d at 285 (describing distinction between “abrogation” and permissible legislative “regulation”) (citing Ruth and Moseley v. Lily Ice Cream Co., 38 Ariz. 417, 421, 300 P. 958, 959 (1931) and comparing Industrial Commission v. Crisman, 22 Ariz. 579, 199 P. 390 (1921)).
Believing that today’s majority opinion fully accords with the text of the Arizona Constitution, the vision of its drafters, and this court’s precedents from the beginning of statehood, I concur in that opinion.

. Dissent at 346, 861 P.2d at 631.

. Id.

. Judge Donnell LaFayette Cunningham (Democrat-Cochise County) was Chair of the 1910 Arizona Constitutional Convention’s Judiciary Committee. He had an invaluable perspective on the meaning of the Arizona Constitution’s anti-abrogation clauses [art. 18, § 6 and art. 2, § 31] because he chaired the committee that considered and proposed them, and engaged in debates on their meaning and scope. See, e.g., THE RECORDS OF THE ARIZONA CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1910, 152, 542, 548 (John S. Goff, ed. 1991) (hereinafter CONVENTION RECORDS).
The Judiciary Committee’s first version of the anti-abrogation clauses apparently only concerned employee lawsuits. Id. at 150-52. After the convention deleted any reference to employees, Judiciary Committee Chair Cunningham acknowledged that "we are going into an entirely different field.” Id. at 152.

. Chief Justice Alfred Morrison Franklin (Democrat-Maricopa County), another member of the 1910 Constitutional Convention’s Judiciary Committee, joined in Judge Cunningham’s majority opinion in Mendez. In the 1910 convention debates, Franklin disapproved of the initial labor emphasis of the original version of the anti-abrogation clauses, proposing that "this measure should be made not only to include employees but other persons." CONVENTION RECORDS at 152.

. Cited by dissent at 348, 861 P.2d at 633.

. Unanimous opinion authored by Judge Albert Cornelius Baker (Democrat-Maricopa County), who also served on the 1910 Constitutional Convention’s Judiciary Committee. As did delegate Franklin, at the 1910 convention Baker "not only favor[ed] the measure [the first version of the anti-abrogation clauses] as a protection to employees but [he] would make it to cover all persons ... where such persons were subjected to accident, death or injury.” CONVENTION RECORDS at 152.

. Dissent at 348, 861 P.2d 633.

. Dissent at 348, 861 P.2d 633.