Court Opinion

ID: 9778107
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:32:51.915546+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:03.805670
License: Public Domain

WELLIYER, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The obvious flaw in the principal opinion lies in the ease with which it reaches its conclusion without constitutional analysis and without the application of a constitutional test or standard. Under the guise of construing our State Constitution, a majority of this Court has emasculated the legislature’s latest effort to deal with the malpractice crisis and the crisis of escalating medical costs. This they have done while the legislature was considering further limitation and restriction of the existing law of malpractice. Such action is reminiscent of the Lochner era, as it came to be known,1 when state and federal courts acted like super-legislatures in striking down legislation not consistent with their own views.
The principal opinion correctly suggests that in some instances state constitutions offer protections not secured by the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution, but it is in the area of rights of criminal defendants and certain fundamental rights such as free speech that judges and commentators generally have urged state courts to delve into their own state constitutional provisions, not in the area of protecting and expanding tort litigation. See generally Brennan, State Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights, 90 Harv.L.Rev. 489 (1977); Howard, State Courts and Constitutional Rights in the Day of the Burger Court, 62 U.Va.L.Rev. 873 (1976); Liberal Trend?: State Constitutions Gain Sway, 72 A.B.A.J. 20 (January 1986); Linde, First Things First: Rediscovering the State’s Bills of Rights, 9 U.Balt. L.Rev. 379 (1980); Symposium, The Role of a Bill of Rights in A Modern State Constitution, 45 Wash.L.Rev. 453 (1970); Wilkes, The New Federalism in Criminal Procedure: State Court Evasion of the Burger Court, 62 Ky.L.J. 421 (1974); Williams, State Constitutional Law Processes, 24 Wm. & Mary L.Rev. 169 (1983); Vermont v. Jewett, 500 A.2d 233 (Vt.1985). However, state courts seeking to base decisions on provisions of their own state constitutions are obliged to conduct a constitutional analysis of their own constitutions in the same fashion as a constitutional inquiry under the federal constitution. See Nettik-Simmons, Towards A Theory of State Constitutional Jurisprudence, 46 Mont.L.Rev. 261 (1985).
Examination of Mo. Const, art. I, § 14 indicates that this section is but another due process clause. Cf. Sax v. Votteler, 648 S.W.2d 661, 664 (Tex.1983) (court held that its “Open Courts Provision” was a second due process clause).
A majority of state constitutions contain language similar to that in Mo. Const, art. I, § 14. The origin of this language is well known and can be traced back to the Mag-na Carta, chapter 40:
To no one will we sell, to none will We deny or delay, right or justice.
This line followed the language in the Magna Carta securing what is now called “due process of law.” Magna Carta, Ch. 39. Chapter 40 was “intended as a deathblow to the corrupt judiciary in demanding oppressive gratuities for giving or withholding decisions in pending cases.” Henderson v. State, 137 Ind. 552, 36 N.E. 257, 260 (1894). See generally Knee v. Baltimore City Pass. Ry. Co., 87 Md. 623, 40 A. 890, 892-93 (1898); Lommen v. Minneapolis Gas Light Co., 65 Minn. 196, 68 N.W. 53, 54 (1896); Conley v. Woonsocket Inst., 11 R.I.147 (1875); Harrison Pepper, & Co., v. T.J. Willis, 7 Tenn. 35, 48-9 (1871); State v. Cadigan, 73 Vt. 245, 50 A. 1079, 1081 (1901). The noted constitutional scholar, A.E. Dick Howard, explains:
*16Because the oppressions of the King and the unjust exactions of officials often went unredressed through failure to abide by legal procedures and the laws of the realm, Magna Carta pays special attention to the machinery of justice and carefully spells out where courts are to sit, what procedures shall be followed, and how punishments can be meted out. * * * Prior to Magna Carta the courts followed the person of the King wherever he went. Persons seeking justice therefore had to undergo the expense, delay, and frustrations of pursuing the King in his constant movements about the countryside; indeed, one plaintiff followed the King through England and France for five years before his case could be heard.
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Chapter 40 states, “To no one will We sell, to none will We deny, delay, right or justice.” This does not mean that litigants in the courts can expect to be charged no fees at all; it simply means that justice is not an article of trade, and its price is not to be determined according to what the market will bear. In King John’s time chapter 40 served to eliminate at least the worst abuses; as a standard to guide the administration of justice in later centuries, its influence was great. If taken to mean that the courts should be open to rich and poor alike, it commends itself to modern times as well.
Howard, Magna Carta: Text and Commentary 12, 15 (1964) (emphasis added). See also W. McKenchnie, Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John 459 (1905); H. Taylor, The Origin and Growth of the English Constitution 389 (1890); R. Thomson, An Historical Essay on the Magna Charta of King John 229 (1829). Despite Chapter 40, the evils the chapter was designed to remedy persisted in English practice during our country’s colonial period. One need only read Blackstone’s Commentaries, 3 Blackstone 267-69 (1768), or Charles Dickens or the following excerpt from an eminent legal historian to grasp the problem that concerned Englishmen and ultimately Americans:
Heart-breaking delays and ruinous costs were the lot of suitors. Justice was dilatory, expensive, uncertain, and remote. To the rich it was a costly lottery: to the poor a denial of right, or certain ruin. The class who profited most by its dark mysteries were the lawyers themselves. A suitor might be reduced to beggary or madness, but his advisers revelled in the chicane and artifice of a lifelong suit and grew rich. Out of a multiplicity of forms and processes arose numberless fees and well-paid offices. Many subordinate functionaries, holding sinecure or superfluous appointments, enjoyed greater emoluments than the judges of the court; and upon the luckless suitors, again, fell the charge of these egregious establishments. If complaints were made, they were repelled as the promptings of ignorance: if amendments of the law were proposed, they were resisted as innovations. To question the perfection of English jurisprudence was to doubt the wisdom of our ancestors ... a political here-say which could expect no toleration.
T. May, Constitutional History of England 384 (Holland ed.1912). Colonists were well aware of the potential for corruption in the administration of justice2 and they included in their colonial charters or state constitutions provisions taken from chapters 39 and 40 of the Magna Carta. For the most part, Missouri’s Bill of Rights, which includes what is now Mo. Const, art. I, § 14, was drafted in accord with Bill of Rights found in earlier constitutions from other states. The provision originally appeared *17as the State’s general due process clause.3 Mo. Const, art. XIII, § 7 (1820). See generally F. Shoemaker, The First Constitution of Missouri, 6 Mo.Hist.Rev. 51 (1912). See also Shoemaker, A Sketch of Missouri Constitutional History During the Territorial Period, 9 Mo.Hist.Rev. 1 (1914).
Present Mo. Const, art. I, § 14 has been interpreted on many occasions by our courts.4 The opinions, together with the *18constitutional history of § 14, recognize that this section together with Mo. Const, art. XIII, § 9 (1820) constituted our then due process clause. After the adoption of the general due process clause, Mo. Const, art. II, § 30 (1875) (now art. I, § 10), in the form of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, retention of art. I, § 14 as a part of our state concept of due process requires that it be examined and interpreted in accordance with the same standards and tests that are employed in any due process analysis.
Today, the majority of jurisdictions treat challenges under their state “Open Courts Provision” in the same fashion as a due process challenge.5 See Hartford Fire Ins. v. Lawrence, Dykes, Goodenberger, 740 F.2d 1362 (6th Cir.1984); Cheswold Volunteer Fire Co. v. Lamertson Const. Co., 462 A.2d 416, 422 n. 9 (Del.1983); Nelms v. Georgian Manor Condominium Ass’n, Inc., 453 Ga. 410, 321 S.E.2d 330 (1984); Crier v. Whitecloud, 455 So.2d 1279 (La.Ct.App.1984); Klein v. Catalano, 386 Mass. 701, 437 N.E.2d 514, 519 n. 6 (1982); Saultz v. Funk, 64 Ohio App.2d 29, 410 N.E.2d 1275 (1979). At least one jurisdiction has held that the constitutional provision was directed toward the action of courts and not the legislature. Reeves v. Ille Electric Co., 170 Mont. 104, 551 P.2d 647, 650 (1976). See also Harmon v. Angus R. Jessup Associates, Inc. 619 S.W.2d 522, 524 (Tenn.1981). Many courts have held that the legislature may abolish a common law cause of action, regardless of the presence of such a constitutional provision. See Hartford Fire Ins. v. Lawrence, Dykes, Goodenberger, supra. The provision does not prohibit imposing reasonable limits upon the time within which one must seek redress in the court. See Phelan v. Hanft, 471 So.2d 648, 649 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1985); Academy Park Imp. v. City of New Orleans, 469 So.2d 2, 3 (La.Ct.App.1985); Rosnick v. Marks, 218 Neb. 499, 357 N.W.2d 186, 191 (1984). See also Noetzel v. Glascow, Inc., 338 Pa.Super. 458, 487 A.2d 1372, 1378 (1985); Walsh v. Gowing, 494 A.2d 543, 547 (R.I.1985). While the initial question of reasonableness is up to the legislature, it is still" the province of the courts to determine if the challenged restriction is arbitrary and unreasonable and thereby denies a litigant due process. Such an inquiry should apply equally to statute of limitations in all areas, filing fees in all areas, and all other similar restrictions.
It seems clear, therefore, that the challenged statute neither violates Mo. Const, art. I, § 10 nor Mo. Const, art. I, § 14 unless it is plainly unreasonable.6 In *19Laughlin v. Forgrave, 432 S.W.2d 308 (Mo. banc 1968), this Court stated the general rule that,
[t]he legislative branch of the government has the power to enact statutes of limitations and inherent in that power is the power to fix the date when the statute commences to run. Statutes of limitations are favorites of the law and will not be held unconstitutional as denying due process unless the time allowed for commencement of the action and the date fixed when the statute commences to run are clearly and plainly unreasonable.
Laughlin v. Forgrave, supra, at 314. See also Caccarelli v. Casey Canadian Mines, Ltd., 757 F.2d 548, 555 (3d Cir.1985). This Court already has upheld the general two year statute of limitations for a claim against a health care provider. Ross v. Kansas City Gen. Hospital & Medical Center, 608 S.W.2d 397 (Mo. banc 1980); Laughlin v. Forgrave, supra. The inquiry, then, should turn on whether it is unreasonable to apply this same rule to minors over the age of ten.
It is not unreasonable for the legislature to expect or require that others protect the interests of a minor. When balancing the need to assure health care providers and their insurers that potentially stale claims will not be brought some ten to twenty years after the alleged malpractice against the needs of minors who are victims of medical malpractice, ours is not the only legislature that presumed parents, guardians or others would protect a minor’s rights.7 “A majority of states have changed their statutes of limitation as these apply to minors, no longer permitting suit for injury during minority to be brought by claimants when they reach majority.” P. Danzón, The Frequency and Severity of Medical Malpractice Claims 48 (1982). Most of these states to some extent followed the ABA proposal which recommended applying the statute of limitations to minors except that a “minor’s representative” should have until the minor’s eighth birthday to commence a suit. ABA, 1977 Report of the Commission on Medical Professional Liability. I, therefore, cannot believe that it is unreasonable, from a constitutional perspective, for our legislature to expect that others will protect a minor’s rights. Indeed, in almost all areas, the law expects that parents or guardians will look after and protect the child’s interest. Absent the presence of a fundamental right, parents are expected and allowed to exercise broad decision-making authority over their children. See Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622, 99 S.Ct. 3035, 61 L.Ed.2d 797 (1979); Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584, 602-03, 99 S.Ct. 2493, 61 L.Ed.2d 101 (1979). The statute, therefore, should pass constitutional muster under a due process analysis.
The principal opinion’s reliance on some of the jurisdictions of the minority view is misplaced. The Arizona court applied a strict scrutiny analysis because of a specific constitutional provision creating a fundamental right to recover damages for negligence; this analysis led the court to strike down the state’s general statute of limitation and the one as applied to minors. See Barrio v. San Manuel Div. Hosp., Magma Copper, 143 Ariz. 101, 692 P.2d 280 (1984); Kenyon v. Hammer, 142 Ariz. 69, 688 P.2d 961, 973 (1984). That court’s reasoning would require that we overrule Laughlin v. Forgrave, supra, and strike down all of § 516.105. The same would be true under the reasoning of Carson v. Maurer, 120 N.H. 925, 424 A.2d 825 (1980), wherein the court invalidated a statute abrogating the discovery rule and applying the statute of limitations to minors because the challenged classifications failed to satisfy a middle-tier scrutiny under an equal protection analysis. The reasoning adopted by the Texas court, holding that the analysis is governed by a two-step balancing test under its state’s two due process clauses, would also require that we overrule Laughlin. Neagle v. Nelson, 685 S.W.2d 11 (Tex.*201985); Nelson v. Krusen, 678 S.W.2d 918 (Tex.1984); Sax v. Votteler, 648 S.W.2d 661 (Tex.1983). Cf. Desemo v. Gafford, 692 S.W.2d 571 (Tex.App.1985). It might be noted that a major factor in the balancing test employed in Sax is that under Texas law minors may not initiate their own suit and any attempts to do so are subject to abatement. See generally Keith, The Texas Medical Liability and Insurance Improvement Act — A Survey and Analysis of Its History, Construction and Constitutionally, 36 Baylor L.Rev. 265 (1984); The Law of Texas Medical Malpractice, 22 Houston L.Rev. 1, § 8 (1985); Comment, Sax v. Votteler: The Texas Supreme Court Prescribes Strong Medicine for the Legislature, 21 Houston L.Rev. 295 (1984).
Appellant also argues that the statute violates her rights to equal protection. It is well settled that such challenged classifications which neither burden a fundamental right nor implicate a suspect class will be upheld if the classification is rationally related to a legitimate state interest. State Bd. of Registration v. Giffen, 651 S.W.2d 475, 479 (Mo. banc 1983). I believe that the classification of minors who are tort victims of a health care provider and minors who are victims of other tortfeasors is rationally related to the legitimate state interest of controlling malpractice insurance costs.8 See generally Redish, Legislative Response to the Medical Malpractice Insurance Crisis: Constitutional Implication, 55 Tex.L.Rev. 759 (1977); Brubaker v. Cavanaugh, 741 F.2d 318 (10th Cir.1984); Hargett v. Limberg, 598 F.Supp. 152, 157-58 (D.Utah 1984); Reese v. Rankin Fite Mem. Hospital, 403 So.2d 158, 160-61 (Ala.1981); American Bank & Trust Co. v. Community Hospital, 36 Cal.3d 359, 204 Cal.Rptr. 671, 678, 683 P.2d 670 (1984); Kite v. Campbell, 142 Cal.App.3d 793, 191 Cal.Rptr. 363, 366-67 (1983); Licano v. Krausnick, 663 P.2d 1066, 1068 (Colo.App.1983); Anderson v. Wagner, 79 Ill.2d 295, 37 Ill.Dec. 558, 402 N.E.2d 560, 562 (1979); Rohrabaugh v. Wagoner, 274 Ind. 661, 413 N.E.2d 891, 893 (1980); McCarroll v. Doctors Gen. Hospital, 664 P.2d 382 (Okl.1983). It is not the function of this Court to determine whether or not there exists a malpractice crisis or a medical cost crisis. These are questions of legislative fact for the people of this state to decide via their legislature. Nor do I believe that it was irrational for the legislature to distinguish between minors over ten and minors under ten. The legislature may have determined that at age ten and older a minor is old enough to become aware of the result of any medical malpractice and capable of communicating their physical complaints to their parents or others. See Rohrabaugh v. Wagoner, supra, 413 N.E.2d at 895.
This case does not involve an access to the courts question. The sole question is whether or not the statute of limitations set by the legislature meets muster when examined in light of due process and equal protection. The majority of jurisdictions say that such provisions are constitutional and we too should recognize the reasonableness of the action taken by our legislature. The most significant aspect of this case lies in the future precedential effect of the case. If it is unconstitutional to apply such a statute of limitation to actions for malpractice, why is it not also unconstitutional to attempt to limit the amount of recovery or place a cap on the amount of recovery in medical malpractice actions?9 If this statute of limitations is unconstitutional because it limits access to the courts, why are not all statutes of limitations relating to minors unconstitutional for the same reason.
David Randolph Smith of the University of Vanderbilt Law Faculty, writing for the *21Oklahoma Law Review in an article entitled, “Battling A Receding Tort Frontier: Constitutional Attacks on Medical Malpractice Laws,” suggests:
Central to this trend of judicial reversals of tort reform laws is the discovery or rediscovery of state constitutional interpretation by state court judges. In stark terms, medical malpractice remedial laws undermine a tradition that many state court judges hold dear: the personal injury suit and the plaintiff’s lawyer. Because of these factors, successful personal injury tort law reform must come through federal legislation. Reliance on state legislation is very much misplaced. Smith, Battling A Receding Tort Frontier: Constitutional Attacks on Medical Malpractice Laws, 38 Okl.L.Rev. 195, 200 (1985).
I would affirm the judgment.

. See generally A. Paul, Conservative Crisis & the Rule of Law: Attitudes of Bar & Bench, 1870-1895 (1976); B. Siegan, Economic Liberties and the Constitution (1980); Currie, The Constitution in the Supreme Court: The Protection of Economic Interests,” 52 U.Chi.L.Rev. 324 (1985).

. See generally B. Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967); R. Ellis, The Jeffersonian Crisis: Courts and Politics in the Young Republic (1971); J.G.A. Pocock, the Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republic Tradition 506-52 (1975); J.R. Pole, Political Representa*17tion in England and the Origins of the American Republic 228 (1966).

.The language suggesting that a remedy should be afforded for every injury to person, property or character is drawn from the ancient common law maxim which developed in response to the English writ system.
Whenever, it became necessary to enlarge the scope of the King’s Court, the change could be effected simply by the invention of a new set of forms, and so the early development of jurisdiction of the King's Court very closely resembles the enlargement of the sphere of an administrative body by means of the invention of new administrative routines. Once the habit was formed, future development for a long time seemed simple. Glanvill had described a royal court which had very little interest in enlarging its jurisdiction beyond certain matters. Two generations later Brac-ton described this same court and shows us how greatly it had elaborated its machinery; indeed, Bracton was even ready to contemplate an indefinite expansion of the common law in virtue of which the King’s Court was to administer a law as rich in its variety and as wide in its extent as Roman law itself. The means whereby such a prodigious expansion was to be effected was the invention of new forms of action; many new forms were invented by Bracton's hero Raleigh, and Brac-ton had no hesitation in saying that there will be as many forms of action as there are cause of action. “There ought to be a remedy for every wrong; if some new wrong be perpetrated then a new writ may be invented to meet it.” This was a bold programme. It contemplated special sets of forms through which the King’s Court would exercise general jurisdiction and afford a remedy for every wrong.
T. Plucknett, A Concise History of the Common Law 354 (1956). Blackstone observed:
[I]t arises principally from the excellence of our English laws; which adapt their redress exactly to the circumstances of the injury, and do not furnish one and the same action for different wrongs, which are impossible to be brought within one and the same description: whereby every man knows what satisfaction he is entitled to expect from the courts of justice, and as little as possible is left in the breast of the judges, whom the law appoints to administer, and not to prescribe the remedy. And I may venture to affirm, that there is hardly a possible injury, that can be offered either to the person or property of another, for which the party injured may not find a remedial writ, conceived in such terms as are properly adapted to his own particular grievance.
3 Blackstone Commentaries 266 (1768). Such a principle of law assures that “for any wrong, recognized as such by the law, a person shall have a remedy to obtain the redress to which he is entitled according to the principles of law." Francis v. Western Union Tel. Co., 58 Minn. 252, 59 N.W. 1078, 1079 (1894). See also Cheswold Volunteer Fire v. Lambertson Const., 462 A.2d 416, 422 (Del.Super.Ct.1983).

. In Landis v. Campbell, 79 Mo. 433, 439 (1883), the court held that the provision only was designed to assure equal access to the administration of justice when the law recognized a wrong. See also Quinn v. Buchanan, 298 S.W.2d 413, 417 (Mo. banc 1957). Cf. State ex rel. National Refining Co. v. Seehorn, 344 Mo. 547, 127 S.W.2d 418, 424 (1939). Similarly, in Schulte v. Missionaries of LaSalette Corp. of Mo., 352 S.W.2d 636, 641 (Mo.1961), the Court observed that “[sjection 14, Art. I, was never intended to create rights, but merely to protect citizens in enforcing rights recognized by the law without discrimination.” A previous case had expounded on the concept of rights recognized by law and held that it referred to common law actions subject to judicial or legislative change. DeMay v. Liberty Foundry Co., 327 Mo. 495, 37 S.W.2d 640, 645-48 (1931). Another decision suggests that it prohibits the legislature from encroaching upon the province of the judiciary. Ex Parte French, 315 Mo. 75, 285 S.W. 513, 515 (1926). Yet another opinion relates that the provision “means that persons will not be barred from Missouri courts in cases where there is proper venue and jurisdiction of the parties and the subject matter.” Collar v. Peninsular Gas. Co., 295 S.W.2d 88, 93 (Mo.1956). See also Loftus v. Lee, 308 S.W.2d 654, 661 (Mo.1958); State ex rel. Southern Ry. Co. v. Mayfield, 362 Mo. 101, 240 S.W.2d 106, 108 (banc 1951).
More recently, this Court discussed art. I, § 14 in State ex rel. Cardinal Glennon Memorial Hospital v. Gaertner, 583 S.W.2d 107 (Mo. banc 1979). In that case, this Court held only that the legislature cannot prohibit a litigant from filing his or her malpractice action before submitting the claim to the Board. Cardinal Glen-non obviously suggests a broader application of art. I, § 14 than any of our prior cases. The passage of time and subsequent decisions from other jurisdictions persuades me that Morgan, J. dissenting, with whom Judge Rendlen concurred, did more accurately analyze the consti*18tutional challenges and what has proved to be the view of the majority of jurisdictions.

. Some courts and commentators merely presume knowledge of the intended directive of this constitutional language and proffer a different view fashioned out of whole cloth. See generally Bass, Article I, Section 21: Access to Courts in Florida, 5 Fla.Stat.L.Rev. 871 (1977).

. There should be no doubt that the vast array of medical malpractice statutes pose no serious federal constitutional challenge. Federal courts routinely recognize that state legislatures may abolish, limit, and restrict the recovery for common law causes of action as long as there is no impairment of a vested legal right. See Hartford Fire Ins. v. Lawrence, Dykes, Goodenberger, 740 F.2d 1362 (6th Cir.1984); Lauter, High Court Rejects Challenge to California Fee "Cap,” National Law Journal, December 2, 1985, at 5. Consequently, the statute must, almost of necessity, be analyzed under state constitutional challenges.
Under the United States Constitution, access to the courts is embraced within the due process clause only when a fundamental right or interest is involved. See generally Walters v. National Ass’n of Radiation Survivors, — U.S. -, 105 S.Ct. 3180, 87 L.Ed.2d 220 (1985); Ortwein v. Schwab, 410 U.S. 656, 93 S.Ct. 1172, 35 L.Ed.2d 572 (1973); United States v. Kras, 409 U.S. 434 (1973); Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 91 S.Ct. 780, 28 L.Ed.2d 113 (1971). The issue generally arises in cases involving criminal defendants and litigation access fees. See generally Michelman, The Supreme Court and Litigation Access Fees: The Right to Protect One's Rights, 1973 Duke L.J. 1153; Anriot., Access to Courts, 52 L.Ed.2d 779 (1978). Moreover, the right to petition government for grievances is a first amendment free speech guarantee assuring citizens free speech before the legislative body and is not implicated by a malpractice statute. See generally McDonald v. Smith, — U.S. -, 105 S.Ct. 2787, 86 L.Ed.2d 384 (1985).

. The provision is not a traditional statute of limitations which specifies a time period after which an accrued cause of action becomes barred; rather, the statute is more accurately described as a statute of repose.

. In American Bank & Trust Co. v. Community Hospital, the court observed that 23 states and 3 federal circuits passing upon similar equal protection challenges involving malpractice statutes have upheld the constitutionality of such classifications. American Bank & Trust Co. v. Community Hospital, 36 Cal.3d 359, 204 Cal.Rptr. 671, 678 n. 10, 683 P.2d 670, 677 n. 10 (1984).

. In other respects, the Court has stated that it will not examine the amount of damages. Firestone v. Crown Center Redevelopment Corp., 693 S.W.2d 99 (Mo. banc 1985).