Court Opinion

ID: 9766180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:36:31.403967+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:20.210647
License: Public Domain

Opinion on Petition to Beheab
Mr. Special Justice Jenkins.
Subsequent to the release of the opinion in this case, Knox County filed a petition to rehear. Rule 32 of this Court governs the subject of rehearing and provides:
“A hearing will be refused where no new argument is made and no new authority adduced, and no new material fact is pointed out as overlooked/’
The purpose of a petition to rehear is not to re-argue the case on points already considered by the Court; but rather, to call to the Court’s attention some new and decisive authority which it overlooked. However, the issues advanced by Knox County in its petition are the same as those previously raised by it.
Knox County has cited no new authority, nor has it propounded any significant reason which would merit our granting its petition to rehear. Accordingly, the same is denied.
Although Moncier did not file a formal petition to rehear, in his response to Knox County’s petition he prayed that our original opinion be modified so as not to place *371upon Mm the burden of proving that his original suit was commenced within one year after the “taking” occurred ; and he also requested the Court to award interest from the time of the taking, January 1965, in accordance with our recent opinion in Sullivan County v. Pope (1969) 223 Tenn. 575, 448 S.W.2d 666.
In our original opinion we stated that the burden of proof was upon the petitioner, Moncier to show that his present action came within the saving statute, East Tennessee Coal Co. v. Daniel, supra; and finding that he did not carry that burden we remanded the case to the Circuit Court for proof on the issue of whether a suit was filed on June 1, 1965. However, after a thorough reexamination of the burden of proof question we have concluded that East Tennessee Coal Co. v. Daniel is inapplicable; and that the resolution of the issue should be governed, instead, by Railroad v. Harris (1898), 101 Tenn. 527, 47 S.W. 1096.
In Railroad v. Harris, the plaintiff alleged that the injury occurred on December 19, 1894; that suit was brought in May 1895; that on April 10,1896, the suit was dismissed and a subsequent action commenced within sixteen days thereafter. To this declaration the defendant pled the statute of limitations, as Knox County did in the instant case.
This Court sustained the trial court’s overruling of the defendant’s plea of the statute of limitations:
“The plaintiff in Ms declaration, anticipating the plea of the statute by defendant, had seen proper specifically to set out these allegations of facts, which, if true, relieved him from its bar by bringing his case witMn the saving of Sec. 4446 of the * * *. Code (now T.C.A. *372Section 28-106). It is true that he might have contented himself with a statement of his canse of action in his declaration, reserving these facts for a replication to the plea of the statute, but we know of no authority which holds that it was essential that he should do so * * *. The averments thus made were not traversed by the defendant. If true, it was immaterial, as was alleged in the plea, that the cause of action occurred more than one year before the institution of the suit; and that they were true, was conclusively admitted, ‘for all purposes of that issue,’ by the defendant, when it failed to make a denial by plea. Code (Shannon’s), Sec. 4631.” (Now T.C.A. Section 20-923).
As enunciated in East Tennessee Coal Co. v. Daniel, when the plaintiff’s declaration shows upon its face that the claim sued upon is barred by the statute of limitations, then a plea of the statute interposed by the defendant will shift the burden of producing evidence to the plaintiff who must show that his action falls within the saving statute; i.e., he must prove that his original action was instituted within one year after the taking occurred. However, when the plaintiff, as in the instant case and in Railroad v. Harris, anticipates the defendant’s plea of the statute, alleges facts in his declaration which would bring his cause of action within the saving statute, and these facts are not specifically denied by the defendant, he is then relieved from the statutory bar and need not produce any proof pertaining thereto. Accordingly, our opinion is modified so as not to require a remand to the Circuit Court on this question.
Relying upon the recent case of Sullivan County v. Pope, supra, Moncier also requested this Court to *373award interest from the date of the taking, January 1965. This, we cannot do.
The holding in Pope is clearly limited to a case where:
“ (P)ayment is postponed and litigation later ensues, dealing only with the assessment of the amount of damages * * V’ 448 S.W.2d at 668.
In the instant case the litigation in the trial court dealt not only with the assessment of the amount of damages, hut also with the question of whether there had been a “taking” at all. Consequently, interest is allowable only from the date of the judgment and not from the date of the taking.
For the aforementioned reasons, our original opinion is modified as provided herein; and the judgments of the Circuit Court and Court of Appeals are affirmed.
Dyer, Chief Justice, and Creson, Justice, and Boze-man, Special Justice, concur.
McCanless, Justice, not participating.