Court Opinion

ID: 9553398
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:28:56.107845+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:30:58.754274
License: Public Domain

Rosellini, J.
(dissenting in part) — The legislature in 1970 amended RCW 26.28.010 to read:
All persons shall be deemed and taken to be of full age for all purposes at the age of twenty-one years and upwards except as hereafter provided. All persons shall be deemed and taken to be of full age and majority for the specific purposes hereafter enumerated at the age of eighteen years and upward:
(6) To sue and be sued on any action to the full extent as any other adult person in any of the courts of this state, without the necessity for a guardian ad litem.
(Italics mine.) Laws of 1970, 1st Ex. Sess., ch. 17, § 1, p. 145. In enacting this provision, the legislature removed the disability which had heretofore existed with regard to persons over the age of 18 and under the age of 21.
“To the full extent as any other adult person” is a phrase *298which must, in my judgment, mean: having all of the rights and being subject to all the defenses that would attach if an adult were bringing the action. Such a defense is the statute of limitations.
RCW 4.16.190 was not amended until 1971. In 1970 it provided that when a potential plaintiff was, at the time the cause of action accrued, under the age of 21 years, the time of such disability should not be a part of the time limited for the commencement of the action.
The purpose of this statute was to toll the limitation statute during the period of disability owing to infancy. It is the only purpose of such statutes. See Vance v. Vance, 108 U.S. 514, 27 L. Ed. 808, 2 S. Ct. 854 (1883), cited and quoted by this court in Schlarb v. Castaing, 50 Wash. 331, 97 P. 289 (1908). The case of Owens v. McMahan, 122 Wash. 191, 210 P. 200 (1922), reveals the understanding of this court that it was the legislative purpose to toll , the statute of limitations until the plaintiff reaches majority. The act itself expressly refers to the period of disability as the time during which the statute shall be tolled.
This is in accord with the general rule as stated in 54 C.J.S. Limitations of Actions § 235 (1948), that under the various statutes, limitations do not run against infants during their minority. The corollary of that rule as stated in the encyclopedia is that, in general, the statute of limitations begins to run against the infant when he attains his majority.
After the amendment of RCW 26.28.010, by which 18-year-olds were given the right to sue and be sued, the age of 21 years had no further relevance to the disability incident to infancy.
While it is admittedly the rule that implied repeals are not favored, there is no conclusive presumption that the legislature intended an earlier statute, in apparent conflict with a later statute, to remain in full force and effect. The fundamental object of judicial interpretation or construction is to ascertain and give effect to the legislative intent. *299Greenwood v. State Bd. for Community College Educ., 82 Wn.2d 667, 513 P.2d 57 (1973).
The majority assumes that an implied repeal can be found only if it were impossible for the legislature to grant a power to sue without making the right of action subject to the statute of limitations. I do not so understand the rule. If the two acts are in conflict and cannot reasonably be harmonized in a manner consistent with the manifested legislative purpose, the proper course for the court is to find that an implied repeal has been effected.
The purpose of the 1970 amendment of RCW 26.28.010 was to remove the disability to sue and be sued of persons over the age of 18 and under the age of 21. That purpose can be given proper effect only if we hold that RCW 4.16.190 was amended by implication, so that thereafter the words “21 years” meant “age of majority” as defined by the legislature.
In Gates v. Shaffer, 72 Wash. 451, 130 P. 896 (1913), this court held that a statute providing that an unmarried female over 21 years of age might maintain an action as plaintiff for her own seduction must be construed literally since it was a specific statute pertaining to a specific cause of action. The trial court in that case had held that the words “21 years” should not be construed literally but rather as meaning “age of majority.” It had reasoned that, since a female in this state reached the age of majority at the end of her 18th year, the statute of limitations relating to an action for seduction should run from that time. In rejecting this rationale as applied to the particular statute under consideration there, this court said that were the statute a general statute (as is the statute in this case), it would be inclined to follow the trial court’s interpretation. While the statement was dictum, I believe the idea expressed was sound. The court recognized there that it is not unreasonable for a court to construe the words “21 years,” when used in a statute, as meaning the age of majority. That is the *300interpretation which is required if the legislative purpose is to be given effect in this case.
I agree with the majority opinion insofar as it holds that the doctrine of interspousal immunity did not operate to toll the statute. I would hold that when the 1970 amendment to RCW 26.28.010 was enacted, the statute of limitations began to run on the plaintiff’s claim. I would therefore sustain the trial court’s judgment in dismissing the action.
Hunter and Wright, JJ., concur with Rosellini, J.