Court Opinion

ID: 9624983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:24:06.092467+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:58.464069
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE CARRIGAN
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
Judge Smith in his lucid dissent in the Court of Appeals pointed out that the decision reached there (and today affirmed here) blindly follows *52the words of Mr. Justice Kelley’s opinion in DeCaire v. Public Service Co., 173 Colo. 402, 479 P.2d 964 (1971) without the slightest regard for the rationale of that decision. See Crownover v. Gleichman, 38 Colo. App. 96, 554 P.2d 313, 316-17 (1976). DeCaire held that the statute of limitations did not commence to run at the time of the negligent act which ultimately gave rise to the claim for relief. Had the negligence activated the statute of limitations in DeCaire, the claim would have been barred. Thus the ratio decidendi of that case indicated a liberal attitude in interpreting the statute of limitations to avoid harsh and unjust results. The gist of DeCaire is its holding that a statute of limitations does not commence running until the tort giving rise to the claim has been completed by occurrence of the injury which is the sine qua non of the tort. In a wrongful death action that injury is the death, for there can be no wrongful death action unless there is a death.
To hold, as the majority holds today, that a statute of limitations begins to run to bar a wrongful death action, and may actually bar such an action, before the death occurs, is — in the language of Judge Smith — absurd.
Indeed, in the case before us, if the decedent had survived only four months longer than she did, the rule today adopted would have required holding that her husband’s claim for her wrongful death was barred before she died. That rationale would require that we either hold the statute of limitations unconstitutional as a denial of due process or overrule our previous holdings that a statute of limitations cannot take away a claim for relief before the claimant has an opportunity for his day in court. Owens v. Brochner, 172 Colo. 525, 474 P.2d 603 (1970); Rosane v. Senger, 112 Colo. 363, 149 P.2d 372 (1944).
The majority opinion totally overlooks the fact that the malpractice claim and the wrongful death claim are two different claims held by different claimants. Instead the two claims are treated as if they were a single “cause of action.” Moreover, the totally separate and different statute of limitations governing malpractice (Section 13-80-105, C.R.S. 1973) is treated as if it were the same statute that governs wrongful death. (Section 13-21-204, C.R.S. 1973). As a result of this confusion the two-year malpractice statute of limitations which commenced to run against the wife’s claim for malpractice is held to have barred the husband’s separate claim for wrongful death about four months after the death claim came into existence. So long as the wife lived, the husband had no control over her claim for malpractice. He could not have filed any action to recover general damages for her injuries, for that action belonged to her. Thus when the malpractice statute of limitations ran, it ran against her claim only. The effect of the majority opinion is to hold that the separate wrongful death claim owned by her surviving spouse is somehow barred about four months after her death by a statute which commenced running *53against a totally separate claim owned by her. It is fundamental that the wrongful death statute created in the plaintiff husband a new claim for relief upon occurrence of the death. Thus the two-year statute of limitations governing wrongful death actions could not have commenced to run against the husband until his wife died. At her death, the two-year malpractice statute of limitations, which had been running against her malpractice claim, simply ceased to run against her. Since the husband had not had a malpractice claim (except possibly for loss of consortium) the malpractice statue of limitation could not have run to bar the action which did not yet exist — the wrongful death action.
Statutes of limitations are enacted for the salutary purposes of discouraging delay and forestalling prosecution of stale claims. For nearly all torts in Colorado, including most professional negligence, the statute of limitations is six years. (Section 13-80-110, C.R.S. 1973). Thus the medical profession already has been provided a privileged sanctuary by enactment of the special two-year statute of limitations covering professional negligence by physicians. Today’s decision — with its adoption of a four-month limitation, on these facts, and complete immunity from suit if the malpractice victim dies two years or more after the malpractice, will not well serve the long-term interests of the healing arts or of sound public policy. Inordinately short statutes of limitations, or doubts regarding the meaning of such statutes, simply force attorneys to file actions as soon as possible rather than risk having them barred. Under those conditions, many actions are filed which would not have been filed had there been time for careful investigation and medical consultation.
In my view the majority have employed a statute intended as a shield against stale claims as a sword to cut off access to justice. As this Court recognized in Owens v. Brochner, supra: “To say to one who has been wronged, ‘You had a remedy, but before the wrong was ascertainable (or available) to you, the law stripped you of your remedy,’ makes a mockery of the law.” (Parenthetical words added). 172 Colo. 525, 530, 474 P.2d 603, 606, quoting Berry v. Branner, 245 Ore. 307, 421 P.2d 996 (1966).