Court Opinion

ID: 9573417
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:54:45.534822+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:40:53.418395
License: Public Domain

PAGE, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. While the court correctly points out that we are to use a “common-sense interpretation” when defining what constitutes an improvement to real property, the court fails to apply any common sense in defining the anchor here, which was in the process of being put in place when it struck the gas pipeline, to be an improvement to real property. As a result, Jaenty’s negligence claims based on respondents’ act of drilling the anchor into the gas pipeline causing its rupture are defeated by the statute of limitations. This result is one that the statute does not contemplate.
Minnesota Statutes § 541.051, subd. 1(a) (2004), in relevant part provides:
Except where fraud is involved, no action by any person in contract, tort, or otherwise to recover damages for any injury to property, real or personal, or for bodily injury or wrongful death, arising out of the defective and unsafe condition of an improvement to real property * * * shall be brought * * * more than two years after discovery of the injury * ⅜ *.
The phrase “improvement to real property” as used in the statute and as interpreted in our case law means “ ‘a permanent addition to or betterment of real property that enhances its capital value and that involves the expenditure of labor or money and is designed to make the property more useful or valuable as distinguished from ordinary repairs.’ ” Pac. Indem. Co. v. Thompson-Yaeger, Inc., 260 N.W.2d 548, 554 (Minn.1977) (quoting Kloster-Madsen, Inc. v. Tafi’s, Inc., 303 Minn. 59, 63, 226 N.W.2d 603, 607 (1975)). In construing section 541.051, we are to give “effect to the plain meaning of the words of the statute without resort to technical legal constructions of its terms.” Pac. Indem., 260 N.W.2d at 554.
The anchor at issue in this case, at the time it was drilled into the gas pipeline, was not a “permanent addition to or betterment of real property.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, defines “permanent” as “continuing or enduring (as in the same state, status, place) without fundamental or marked change: not subject to fluctuation or alteration: fixed or intended to be fixed: lasting, stable.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1683 (1993); see also Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 863 (10th ed.2001) (defining “permanent” as “continuing or enduring without fundamental or marked change: Stable”). The word “addition” is defined as “a part added to or joined with a building.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 24; see also Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 13 (defining “addition” as “a part added (as to a building or residential section)”). The word “betterment” is defined as “a making or becoming better: * * * an improvement of an estate (as by *874the addition of new buildings) that makes it better and more valuable than mere repairing would do.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 209; see also Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 109 (defining “betterment” as “an improvement that adds to the value of a property or facility”). Giving the words in the phrase “permanent addition or betterment of real property” their common and approved usage and applying their plain meaning, it is clear that the phrase contemplates a completed addition or betterment. Indeed, if “permanent” does not mean completed, it is unclear to me what “permanent” is intended to mean.
Common sense dictates that an anchor that is drilled into a gas pipeline while in the process of being installed cannot constitute a permanent improvement to real property for purposes of section 541.051, subdivision 1(a). Because the anchor here was still in the process of being installed and was not yet “stable,” that is, not continuing or enduring without fundamental or marked change and not fixed or intended to be fixed at the time, it was not, in fact could not have been, a permanent addition or betterment of real property at the time the pipeline was ruptured. Although the anchor might at some point have become a permanent addition to real property, at the time it was being drilled into the pipeline causing the rupture, it was not. Therefore, the anchor does not qualify as an improvement to real property.
This is not to say that negligence during installation will always preclude an object from being treated as an improvement to real property. For instance, in Pacific Indemnity, the negligent installation of a furnace led to a fire that occurred 20 years later and destroyed portions of a strip mall. Pac. Indem., 260 N.W.2d at 551-52. In that case, we held that the negligent installation of the furnace led to a harm that arose out of an improvement to real property. Id. at 554. The difference between the furnace in Pacific Indemnity and the anchor in the instant case is that the installation of the furnace in Pacific Indemnity was complete and the resulting harm arose from the manner in which the furnace had been installed and not, as here, the act of installation itself. Like Pacific Indemnity, all of the other cases in which we have addressed whether there was an improvement to real property for purposes of Minn.Stat. § 541.051, subd. 1(a), have involved improvements that were completed long before the injury arose. See, e.g., Sartori v. Harnischfeger Corp., 432 N.W.2d 448, 452 (Minn.1988) (crane considered permanent improvement because it was in place for nearly 20 years); Frederickson v. Alton M. Johnson Co., 402 N.W.2d 794, 795-96 (Minn.1987) (electrical switchboard, which had been previously installed in a shopping mall, considered improvement to real property); Bulau v. Hector Plumbing & Heating Co., 402 N.W.2d 528, 529-30 (Minn.1987) (fireplace installed at least one year before injury was improvement to real property). My research has turned up no cases in which we have held that there was an improvement to real property when it was the act of installing rather than the manner of installing the improvement that resulted in the harm.
In order for the limitations provisions of section 541.051, subdivision 1(a), to apply, the injury at issue must also arise out of a defective and unsafe condition. That did not happen here. As the opinion correctly points out, whether an injury arises out of a defective and unsafe condition “turns on the individual facts alleged in the complaint.” See Griebel v. Andersen Corp., 489 N.W.2d 521, 523 (Minn.1992). The complaint in the underlying action alleges that the injury arose because the anchor *875was drilled in a negligent manner, respondents failed to warn those in danger, and respondents’ negligence prevented the gas from being turned off in time to avert an explosion. As such, the complaint contained no fact that would indicate that the gas explosion arose out of the anchor’s defective and unsafe condition. The record as developed bears this out. In fact, the National Transportation Safety Board cited the lack of procedures to prevent damage to nearby utilities when the anchor crew encountered unusual conditions as the “probable cause of this accident.”
Further, because of the legislature’s use of the conjunctive “and” in the phrase “defective and unsafe condition,” the anchor must have been both defective and unsafe for the limitations period in section 541.051, subdivision 1(a), to apply. While it can be argued that, as a result of being bent as it was being installed, the anchor was in a defective condition when it struck the pipeline, it cannot be seriously argued that the anchor was in an unsafe condition. What made the anchor unsafe was not its condition but the act of drilling it into the gas pipeline. Had the anchor not been drilled into the pipeline, the harm inflicted here would not have occurred no matter what the condition of the anchor. Therefore, the injury did not arise out of a defective and unsafe condition. Because the damage Jaenty sustained did not arise out of a defective and unsafe condition of an improvement to real property, the statute of limitations found in section 541.051, subdivision 1(a), does not bar Jaenty’s claims.
That Minn.Stat. § 541.051, subd. 1(a), does not act to bar Jaenty’s claims is supported by our statement in Sartori that “[t]he statutory limitation period [found in section 541.051, subdivision 1] is designed to eliminate suits against architects, designers and contractors who have completed the work, turned the improvement to real property over to the owners, and no longer have any interest or control in it.” 432 N.W.2d at 454 (emphasis added). Obviously, at the time the anchor was drilled into the pipeline the work had not been completed, the anchor had not been turned over to its owners, and respondents continued to have an interest in and control of the anchor. Equally obvious is the fact that the purpose of the limitations period cannot be met by applying section 541.051, subdivision 1(a), in this case.
Finally, I note that the statute of limitations found in section 541.051, subdivision 1(a), is short — two years as opposed to the six-year limitations period applicable to ordinary negligence actions. Minn.Stat. § 541.05, subd. 1 (2004). This shortened limitations period can, as in this case, work a harsh result. Yet the court broadens the application of the statute based in part on “the legislature’s decision to broaden and clarify the scope of section 541.051.” The court’s broadening of the application of section 541.051 is, at best, misguided. In clarifying and broadening the scope of the statute, the legislature did nothing more than make clear that the statute covers more types of actions than simply tort actions. The legislature did nothing to change, modify, broaden, or clarify the statute’s “arising out of the defective and unsafe condition of an improvement to real property” language. Moreover, the legislature’s changes did nothing to address the concerns raised by this court in Kittson County v. Wells, Denbrook & Associates, Inc., that “the statute has the potential of working a harsh result * * * because of the shortness of the 2-year” statute of limitations. 308 Minn. 237, 240, 241 N.W.2d 799, 801 (1976). Thus, the legislative amendments provide no basis for overruling Kittson County.