Court Opinion

ID: 9602367
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:53:38.968267+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:03.031554
License: Public Domain

Dolliver, J.
(dissenting) — I concur with the result of the majority except for the imposition of the discovery rule. It may well be that in instances involving the claims of private parties, legislative inaction can be inferred to suggest a deference to judicial action. At least this is a useful fiction developed by the courts. While, as in the cases cited by the majority, it may be appropriate judicially to enact a discovery rule to protect a private litigant, I see no reason for such a rule from this court to protect the State.
As the majority points out, RCW 4.16.080 in some circumstances provides for a discovery rule but not in the situation before us. The fact that the legislature failed to include a discovery rule in RCW 90.48, a comprehensive statute dealing with water pollution, may be unfortunate but it is hardly a matter for the court to correct. It may have been oversight; it may have been deliberate. Whatever it was, the legislature has had at least since 1945 to make a change. It has not done so.
It is one thing to apply a common law discovery rule to prevent justified causes of action by private parties from being unfavorably precluded. It is quite another matter for *95this court to fill in a legislative hiatus so as to enable the State to impose a penalty against a private party. This, to me, is not a "balancing test" which is properly to be performed by the court. It is legislation which should be done by the state legislature.
Brachtenbach, C.J., and Johnson, J. Pro Tern., concur with Dolliver, J.
Reconsideration denied December 8, 1981.