Court Opinion

ID: 9633526
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:50:43.90922+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:54:29.895206
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.-
— I dissent. The majority opinion is based on a purely cold legalistic theory without regard to considerations of justice or the rights of those who because of disability are entitled to greater protection than the law extends to normal persons. The applicability of claim statutes to minors must necessarily lead to absurd results. A minor of tender years is not legally competent to commence a civil action or do anything affecting his property or legal rights. The requirement that a claim be filed presupposes a competent person as claimant: Section 4075 of the Political Code contains no provision for the filing of a claim by anyone other than the claimant. The law does not require the performance of an impossibility. Yet, to require a minor of tender years to file a claim amounts to just that. How could a child five years of age or less sign or verify a claim? Even if he could write his name, any document signed by such child would have no validity. What then is the effect of the majority opinion holding that a minor must file a verified claim as a prerequisite to maintaining a suit on a cause of action for personal injuries against a county? The only answer is that a minor’s cause of action in such a case is lost and he is barred from enforcing liability created by statute for his benefit. Such a construction renders the statute discriminatory and unconstitutional as a denial of equal protection of the law. It is not to be supposed that the Legislature intended any such discriminating operation be given to the statute. Under such interpretation an adult may recover for an injury resulting from the negligence of a county employee but an infant may not. The only rule consonant with justice is that *341the infancy tolls the time within which the claim might be filed. Respectable authority establishes that there may be read into the statute excuses, based upon disability, for failure to file a claim. (See Gold v. City of Kingston, 210 App. Div. 523 [206 N.Y.S. 735]; MacMullen v. City of Middletown, 187 N.Y. 37 [79 N.E. 863, 11 L.R.A. N.S. 391] ; Murphy v. Tillage of Fort Edward, 213 N.Y. 397 [107 N.E. 716, Ann.Cas. 1916C, 1040] ; Forsyth v. City of Oswego, 191 N.Y. 441 [84 N.E. 392, 123 Am.St.Rep. 605] ; Winter v. City of Niagara Falls, 190 N.Y. 198 [82 N.E. 1101, 123 Am.St.Rep. 540] ; Russo v. City of New York, 258 N.Y. 344 [179 N.E. 762] ; McDonald v. City of Spring Talley, 285 Ill. 52 [120 N.E. 476, 2 A.L.R. 1359]; Randolph v. City of Springfield, 302 Mo. 33 [257 S.W. 449]; Hartsell v. City of Asheville, 166 N.C. 633 [82 S.E. 946]; City of Tulsa v. Wells, 79 Okla. 39 [191 P. 186] ; Bowles v. City of Richmond, 147 Va. 720 [129 S.E. 489, 133 S.E. 593]; Doerr v. City of Freeport, 239 Ill. App. 560; Foster v. City of Charlotte, 206 N.C. 412 [174 S.E. 412]; City of Colorado Springs v. Colburn, 102 Colo. 483 [81 P.2d 397] ; Costello v. City of Aurora, 295 Ill.App. 510 [15 N.E.2d 38] ; White v. City of Auburn, 8 N.Y.S.2d 575; Lazich v. Belanger, 111 Mont. 48 [105 P.2d 738].) These cases are based upon the proposition that the Legislature did not intend to require the impossible nor enact legislation which would be unconstitutional because of its discriminatory operation. At most the authorities may be said to be evenly split on the proposition. No reason is given for the adoption in California of the inhuman and unjust rule announced in the majority opinion. It is based upon a purely legalistic and reactionary approach to the problem.
The majority opinion states: “The conclusion is therefore inescapable that there is an established legislative policy to provide for no exceptions in favor of minors in claims statutes, and we are of the opinion that this court would commit an unwarranted trespass into the legislative field if it should write an exception into section 4075 contrary to such established legislative policy.” The majority opinion then refers to the rule announced in other jurisdictions where the courts have construed such statutes in favor of granting exceptions to minors and persons under disability. The majority opinion then states: ‘ ‘ The basis of these minority rule decisions has usually been the asserted impossibility of compliance with the statute by the injured minor. But under the statute before *342us, the claim of the minor plaintiff could have been presented at any time within one year and could have been presented by a parent or guardian.” I have examined the statute in question with exceptional care and I fail to find any provision therein susceptible to the interpretation that a claim on behalf of a minor may be filed by a parent or guardian. In fact, no reference is made in said statute to a minor or person under disability. The exact language of the statute is that “such claim shall be stated in writing, signed by the claimant or someone authorized by him.” The majority opinion does not attempt to point out how a minor of tender years could authorize anyone to sign, verify or present a claim on his behalf. While the majority opinion is reluctant to ‘ ‘ commit an unwarranted trespass into the legislative field” in creating an exception in favor of minors so far as the necessity for filing a claim is concerned, no reluctance is shown in reading into the statute a provision that a claim may be presented by a parent or guardian on behalf of a minor. But even conceding for the sake of argument that the majority opinion is not “trespassing into the legislative field” in holding that section 4075 of the Political Code authorizes a parent or guardian to file a claim for personal injury on behalf of a minor, the opinion offers no solution for the ease in which a minor of tender years without parent or guardian might suffer an injury as the result of the negligence of a county employee, and because of his disability, fail to file a claim within the time specified in said section. Obviously, under the rulé announced in the majority opinion, no recovery could be had by such minor. If there is any consideration of public policy which can support such an unjust and inhuman rule, it has not been disclosed by any utterance which has come to my attention from any legislative or judicial source.
It is obvious from what I have said in the foregoing opinion that the judgment should be reversed.