Court Opinion

ID: 9486198
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:40:56.458783+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:34.862566
License: Public Domain

LUTTIG, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Today’s decision represents a brazen circumvention of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s limitation of continuing tort liability to contexts where defendants have undertaken professional obligations to provide continuing services, in direct conflict with this circuit’s precedent. For these reasons, I dissent.
Plaintiff-appellant brought this products liability suit against E.I. Dupont de Nemours and Co., claiming that he sustained injury from inhalation of defendant’s paint and paint products during the period May 15 to June 13,1989. By his own admission, and as the district court found, J.A. at 82-83, plaintiff was first injured by inhalation of the paint fumes no later than May 29, 1989. Notwithstanding that he sustained injuries at this time, he did not file this action until June 13, 1991, more than two years after he was first injured. Under Virginia law, the statute of limitations for a personal injury tort action accrues “when any injury, though slight, is sustained as the consequence of an alleged wrong.” Scarpa v. Melzig, 237 Va. 509, 379 S.E.2d 307, 309 (Va.1989) (emphasis added); see Locke v. Johns-Manville Corp., 221 Va. 951, 275 S.E.2d 900, 904-05 (Va.1981). “Injury” in turn is defined as any “positive, physical or mental hurt.” Scarpa, *468379 S.E.2d at 309 (quoting Locke, 275 S.E.2d at 904). Therefore, under Virginia law, appellant’s action unquestionably was time-barred, as the district court held in granting appellee’s motion for summary judgment. Va.Code §§ 8.01-230, 8.01-243(A) (Michie 1992).
The majority, in what can fairly be termed a bizarre opinion, creates out of whole cloth a cause of action on Williams’ behalf for injuries sustained on the single day of June 13 which, it tells us without explanation, is wholly distinct from and independent of the causes of action brought by the plaintiff. It then holds that this cause of action, unlike those actually brought by plaintiff, is not barred by Virginia’s statute of limitations. There is, of course, no basis whatsoever in law or in the record for the court’s extraordinary holding, and the court does not even attempt to offer any. Plaintiff brought actions on implied and express warranties for injuries allegedly sustained over the single period of the “several weeks ending on or about June 13, 1989.” See Motion for Judgment, J.A. at 4-6. He did not bring a separate cause of action arising out of the events of June 13. He did not allege that the defendant owed him a duty on that day different or even distinct from that owed on any other day during the relevant period. He did not allege that the defendant separately breached an owed duty on June 13. And, directly contradictory to the court’s holding, he did not contend that he suffered on June 13 any injuries other than those already sustained.1
The majority’s holding that appellant stated a separate cause of action for injuries sustained on June 13, 1989, rests entirely upon an isolated response taken out of context that was given by appellant to a question during his deposition, which incidentally not even appellant cites or relies upon. See ante at 466-67. Standing alone, this statement in no way supports the court’s holding that appellant suffered an injury on June 13,1989, different from that suffered as a result of his previous exposures to appellee’s paint fumes, much less that appellant brought a separate cause of action for this injury. In fact, when read in context, it is obvious that not only does the statement not support the majority’s holding, it affirmatively establishes the error of that holding.
On the same deposition transcript page where appellant states that after inhaling paint fumes on June 18, 1989, he went to the hospital, he expressly affirms that he had previously (within several days of May 15) complained to his employer that he had become sick from inhaling fumes from defendant’s paint products. J.A. at 44. In response to the very next question, appellant states that the symptoms of which he had earlier complained included coughing, tight chest, dizziness and headaches — the injuries for which he now seeks recovery. Id. at 45. Thereafter, on the same deposition transcript page, appellant testifies that he believed that the symptoms of which he had earlier complained were attributable to his inhalation of the paint fumes. Id. And finally, appellant says only moments later that all of the injuries for which he seeks recovery resulted from the same exposure to defendant’s paint products. Id. at 47. Indeed, throughout his deposition, appellant was candid that he knew within several days of May 15 that he had been injured by his exposure to the paint fumes. See, e.g., id. at 41, 42, 44, 46-47, 49.2
The majority understandably labors to distinguish this case from our controlling authority Large v. Bucyrus-Erie Co., 707 F.2d 94, 98 (4th Cir.1983); see also Locke v. Johns-Manville Corp., 275 S.E.2d at 904-07, repeatedly emphasizing that the plaintiffs injuries in that case all occurred prior to the last two weeks within the two-year statute of limitations period. Ante at 465-66 (“On that account, we affirmed.”); id. at 467. This was the “factual” ground on which we distinguished in Large the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision in Farley v. Goode, 219 Va. 969, 252 S.E.2d 594 (1979), upon which the *469plaintiff relied for his claim that the final two weeks within the statutory period (as June 13 here) were part of a continuing wrong by the defendant. 707 F.2d at 98. What the majority fails to mention, however, is that we also distinguished Farley on the “legal” grounds, see id. (“While at first blush [.Farley ] may seem appealing and helpful to plaintiff, it can be distinguished both factually and legally.”), that it was expressly limited to its facts involving “a relationship of professional to client wherein the professional had undertaken to perform a duty that required a continuation of services,” id., and that the Virginia Supreme Court had held that the state’s continuing negligence theory “was explicitly limited to professional relationships that required a continuation of services.” Id. (citation omitted). Thus, even if one were to accept the majority’s factual distinction of this case from Large, plaintiff still would not escape the statutory bar because, as we explained in Large, the statute of limitations governing personal injury causes of action from exposure to allegedly defective products, such as plaintiffs, “runs from the date of injury ... not the date of last exposure.” 707 F.2d at 98 (emphasis added) (citing Locke as “on point” factually and legally controlling). That is, it is irrelevant that appellant was injured also on June 13; because he cannot base his claim on a theory of continuing tort liability, the statute accrued on the date when he was first injured.
To his credit, appellant does not even hint at any such disposition as the majority bestows upon him. He has contended throughout these proceedings that defendant’s wrong was continuing, that it was not completed until plaintiff was last exposed to defendant’s paint fumes, and therefore that his claims are not statutorily barred, even though the date when he was first injured by defendant’s wrong predated by more than two years the filing of his lawsuit. See, e.g., Appellant’s Br. at 9-10. He has repeatedly urged the court “to decide the case on what has always been the issue, that of whether the cause of action accrues and whether the statute of limitations begins to run upon initial injury, regardless of continuous exposure and injury.” Appellant’s Reply Br. at 6; id. at 5; see also Appellant’s Amended Br. at 2. I would accept appellant’s invitation and hold, as Virginia law and the precedent from this circuit unambiguously require, that the continuing tort theory is available only where there exists an agreement to provide continuing services, see Large, 707 F.2d at 98 (citing Farley v. Goode, 219 Va. 969, 252 S.E.2d 594, 600-01 (1979)), and therefore that appellant’s claims are, as the district court held, barred by the statute of limitations.

. As a consequence of these failures, on remand the district court will be bound to award summary judgment again in DuPont's favor.

. Appellant has been as candid before the court, representing to us that he "first suffered some headaches, dizziness, coughing, loss of appetite and tight chest on May 17 or May 18, 1989.” Appellant's Amended Br. at 6.