Tarnowsky v. SocciTarnowsky v. Socci
- Reporters:
- , ,
- Before:
- Sullivan
Opinion
The defendant, Peter Socci, appeals from the judgment of the Appellate Court reversing the judgment of the trial court that the negligence action brought by the plaintiff, Joseph Tamowsky, was barred by
The record reveals the following undisputed facts and procedural history. On March 14,1997, the plaintiff
sustained injuries when he slipped and fell on an icy sidewalk on property in Darien. In December,
As a preliminary matter, we set forth the standard of review. “Issues of statutory construction raise questions of law, over which we exercise plenary review.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
Wiseman
v.
Armstrong,
269 Conn. 802, 809, 850 A.2d 114 (2004).
3
We begin
The defendant argues that knowledge of the identity of the tortfeasor is not an essential element of a cause of action and, therefore, under Catz, such knowledge is not required in order for the plaintiff to have suffered actionable harm. We disagree.
Whether a plaintiff has suffered actionable harm before discovering the tortfeasor’s identity is an issue of first impression for this court. In
Catz,
we concluded that the discovery of the causal connection between the breach of duty and the injury was an essential element of a cause of action, but had no occasion to
address the specific question before us here. See
Catz
v.
Rubenstein,
supra, 201 Conn. 44. Prior to its decision in the present case, the Appellate Court had addressed this question, but only indirectly. In
Peerless Ins. Co.
v.
Tucciarone,
48 Conn. App. 160, 162, 708 A.2d 611 (1998), the tenants of a commercial property and then-insurance carriers brought an action against the defendant commercial property owners, who impleaded and brought a product liability claim against the manufacturer of a defective lighting product that had caused a fire on the property. The manufacturer claimed that the action was barred by
The decisions of our sibling states on the question before us are divided. The majority of those jurisdictions have held, however, that a cause of action does not accrue until the plaintiff has discovered or should have discovered the identity of the tortfeasor. See, e.g., Siragusa v. Brown, 114 Nev. 1384, 1393-94, 971 P.2d 801 (1998) (“trier of fact must determine whether [plaintiffs] discovery of [defendant’s] involvement was delayed due to her alleged attempts to conceal her role and whether [plaintiff] could have, nonetheless, discovered her identity earlier through diligent inquiry”); Adams v. Oregon State Police, 289 Or. 233, 239, 611 P.2d 1153 (1980) (statute of limitations “does not commence to run until plaintiff has a reasonable opportunity to discover his injury and the identity of the party responsible for that injury” [emphasis added]); Wyatt v. A-Best, Co., 910 S.W.2d 851, 855 (Term. Crim. App. 1995) (“breach of a legally cognizable duty occurs when plaintiff discovers or ‘reasonably should have discovered, (1) the occasion, the manner and means by which a breach of duty occurred that produced . . . injury; and (2) the identity of the defendant who breached the duty’ ” [emphasis added]); Spitler v. Dean, 148 Wis. 2d 630, 636, 436 N.W.2d 308 (1989) (plaintiffs “cause of action did not accrue until [he] knew the identity of the defendant, or in the exercise of reasonable diligence, should have discovered the identity of the defendant” [emphasis added]). 5
We agree with the Appellate Court and the majority of our sibling jurisdictions that there is no principled reason to distinguish between, on the one hand, the discovery of a breach of duty or the discovery of a causal connection between the
We note that
Second, the legislature’s purpose in distinguishing “injury,” or actionable harm, from “the act or omission complained of’ in § 52-284, and providing a three year statute of repose, was to avoid the “draconian effect”;
Lagassey
v.
State,
supra, 268 Conn. 742-43; of running the two year limitation period from the date of the defendant’s negligence in cases in which the plaintiff is unable to bring an action because he could not discover an essential jurisdictional fact, despite the exercise of reasonable care. Id., 743. To hold that a claimant forfeits a cause of action because he is unable to identify the tortfeasor, despite reasonable efforts to do so, would undermine this
The defendant claims, however, that there is a distinction between the discoveiy of “actionable harm” and the discovery of the identity of the tortfeasor. He relies primarily on the California Supreme Court’s decision in Norgart v. Upjohn Co., 21 Cal. 4th 383, 981 P.2d 79, 87 Cal. Rptr. 2d 453 (1999), in support of this claim. In Norgart, the court considered the plaintiffs’ claim that the statute of limitations was tolled by their failure to discover the identify of the tortfeasor. The California Appellate Court was split on the issue. One court had held that “under the discoveiy rule, a plaintiff discovers, or has reason to discover, a cause of action as to all defendants when he at least suspects, or has reason to suspect, a factual basis for its elements as to any defendant.” (Emphasis added.) Id., 393, citing Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 32 Cal. App. 4th 959, 38 Cal. Rptr. 2d 298 (1995). The California Appellate Court in Norgart had held to the contrary that, “when ‘there are potentially multiple’ ‘unrelated’ ‘concurring causes,’ a plaintiff discovers, or has reason to discover, a cause of action ‘based on a particular act of wrongdoing’ by a particular defendant, only when he at least suspects, or has reason to suspect, that act of wrongdoing by that defendant.” (Emphasis added.) Norgart v. Upjohn Co., supra, 394. The California Supreme Court noted, in the language relied on by the defendant in the present case, that it previously had recognized that “the plaintiff may discover, or have reason to discover, the cause of action even if he does not suspect, or have reason to suspect, the identity of the defendant. . . . That is because the identity of the defendant is not an element of any cause of action. . . . It follows that failure to discover, or have reason to discover, the identity of the defendant does not postpone the accrual of a cause of action, whereas a like failure concerning the cause of action itself does. Although never fully articulated, the rationale for distinguishing between ignorance of the defendant and ignorance of the cause of action itself appears to be premised on a commonsense assumption that once the plaintiff is aware of the latter, he normally has sufficient opportunity, within the applicable limitations period, to discover the identity of the former. . . . He may often effectively [extend] the limitations period in question by the filing and amendment of a Doe complaint and invocation of the relation-back doctrine. . . . Where he knows the identity of at least one defendant . . . [he] must proceed thus.” (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 399.
The court in
Norgart
rejected the plaintiffs’ claim that their failure to discover the identity of a tortfeasor tolled the statute of limitations as to that tortfeasor. In doing so, however, it did not reject the trial court’s holding that “a plaintiff discovers, or has reason to discover, a cause of action based on a particular act of wrongdoing by a particular defendant, only when he at least suspects, or has reason to suspect, that act of wrongdoing by that defendant.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 406. Instead, it concluded that, even if that principle were correct, it was not applicable because the plaintiffs had had reason at least to suspect both the existence and the identity of the unidentified tortfeasor at the time that the cause of action had
Thus, the court in Norgart did not squarely address the legal question before us in the present case. Instead, it resolved the plaintiffs’ claim on the basis of factual determinations that have not yet been made here. Moreover, to the extent that the language cited by the defendant suggests that California has a stricter rule than the rule we adopt in this case, we are not persuaded that such a rule is consistent with our statutory scheme. California law permits plaintiffs to file “John Doe” complaints against unidentified defendants within the applicable statute of limitations period and grants an additional three years from the date of filing to identify and serve process on such defendants. Id., 408. Thus, in California, a plaintiff who suspects the existence of a defendant but cannot identify him, can ensure that he has at least three years to discover that identity. This fact underlies the court’s statement in Norgart that “once the plaintiff is aware of the [cause of action], he normally has sufficient opportunity, within the applicable limitations period, to discover the identity of the [defendant].” Id., 399. In Connecticut, there is no such rule. Moreover, this statement in Norgart appears to be premised on the assumption that the plaintiff has reason to suspect the existence of a specific tortfeasor. As we have noted, it is not clear that the California courts would apply the same analysis in cases where the plaintiff had no reason to suspect another tortfeasor’s involvement.
The defendant also argues that our interpretation “turns [
We also are not persuaded by the defendant’s argument that our interpretation undermines the objectives
of statutes of limitations and repose. We fully recognize that “[a] statute of limitation or of repose is designed to (1) prevent the unexpected enforcement of stale and fraudulent claims by allowing persons after the lapse of a reasonable time, to plan their affairs with a reasonable degree of certainty, free from the disruptive burden of protracted and unknown potential liability, and (2) to aid in the search for truth that may be impaired by the loss of evidence, whether by death or disappearance of witnesses, fading memories, disappearance of documents or otherwise.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
DeLeo
v.
Nusbaum,
263 Conn. 588, 596, 821 A.2d 744 (2003). As in
Catz,
our decision in this case merely recognizes that in cases in which a plaintiff, through no fault of his own and despite the exercise of reasonable care, is ignorant of an essential jurisdictional fact, the three year repose period represents a legislative compromise between the public policy of protecting individuals from the uncertainty that could result from unduly protracted time limits for filing legal claims and the public policy
Finally, the defendant claims that the legislative history and circumstances surrounding the enactment of
We conclude that the two year statute of limitations set forth in
The judgment of the Appellate Court is affirmed.
In this opinion the other justices concurred.
Notes
The legislature recently enacted No. 03-154, § 1, of the 2003 Public Acts, which provides: “The meaning of a statute shall, in the first instance, be ascertained from the text of the statute itself and its relationship to other statutes. If, after examining such text and considering such relationship, the meaning of such text is plain and unambiguous and does not yield absurd or unworkable results, extratextual evidence of the meaning of the statute shall not be considered.” “The test to determine ambiguity is whether the statute, when read in context, is susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation.”
Carmel Hollow Associates Ltd.
v.
Bethlehem,
269 Conn. 120, 134 n.19, 848 A.2d 451 (2004). Because we conclude that the word “ipjury,” as used in
See also Lawhon v. L.B.J. Institutional Supply, Inc., 159 Ariz. 179, 183, 765 P.2d 1003 (App. 1988); Pennwalt Corp. v. Nasios, 314 Md. 433, 453, 550 A.2d 1155 (1988); Raymond v. Eli Lilly & Co., 117 N.H. 164, 170-71, 371 A.2d 170 (1977); O’Keeffe v. Snyder, 83 N.J. 478, 493, 416 A.2d 862 (1980); Norgard v. Brush Wellman, Inc., 95 Ohio St. 3d 165, 167-69, 766 N.E.2d 977 (2002); Gaston v. Parsons, 318 Or. 247, 255-56, 864 P.2d 1319 (1994); Anthony v. Abbott Laboratories, 490 A.2d 43, 46 (R.I. 1985); Aragon v. Clover Club Foods Co., 857 P.2d 250, 253 (Utah App. 1993); Orear v. International Paint Co., 59 Wash. App. 249, 255-56, 796 P.2d 759, review denied, 116 Wash. 2d 1024, 812 P.2d 103 (1990); Thompson v. Branches-Domestic Violence Shelter of Huntington, West Virginia, Inc., 207 W. Va. 479, 485-86, 534 S.E.2d 33, cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1055, 121 S. Ct. 663, 148 L. Ed. 2d 565 (2000); Sawyer v. Midelfort, 227 Wis. 2d 124, 156, 595 N.W.2d 423 (1999). But see Russell v. Attco, Inc., 82 Haw. 461, 463-65, 923 P.2d 403 (1996); Wells v. Travis, 284 Ill. App. 3d 282, 287, 672 N.E.2d 789 (1996); Krasnow v. Allen, 29 Mass. App. 562, 569-70, 562 N.E.2d 1375 (1990), cert. denied, 409 Mass. 1102, 566 N.E.2d 1131 (1991); Smith v. Sinai Hospital of Detroit, 152 Mich. App. 716, 726, 394 N.W.2d 82 (1986); Staiano v. Johns Manville Corp., 304 Pa. Super. 280, 287-88, 450 A.2d 681 (1982); Mellon Service Co. v. Touche Ross & Co., 17 S.W.3d 432, 436 (Tex. Civ. App. 2000); Nowotny v. L & B Contract Industries, Inc., 933 P.2d 452, 457-58 (Wyo. 1997).
We note that
In Ayala v. Smith, 236 Conn. 89, 91, 671 A.2d 345 (1996), the plaintiff urged this court “to adopt a rule that would permit a party to institute and maintain an action against an unidentified person, under a fictitious name, for a reasonable time period within which to discover that person’s identity. ” We did not reach the merits of the claim, however, because we determined that the case was moot. Id., 93.
For example, California law provides that “ [w]hen the plaintiff is ignorant of the name of a defendant, he must state that fact in the complaint . . . and such defendant may be designated . . . by any name . . . .”