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Meekins v. Barnes2/10/2000
ent act. Thus, the Court did no violence to the statute when it said that date of injury means date of negligent act.
In this case, however, the date of the negligent act and the date of injury are not the same. The date of the negligent act was December 21, 1994, when the radiologist told Meekins to come back in one year instead of six months. The date of the injury was six months later, June 21, 1995, when Meekins would have begun cancer treatment if she had come back for another mammogram. Since the Dunn Court never considered when the statute begins to run in cases where the date of negligent act is not the same as the date of injury, its holding provides little guidance. Rather than use the Dunn formulation out of context, I would follow settled principles of statutory construction, and give effect to the plain language of §6856. The statute provides that the limitations periods runs from the "date upon which such injury occurred." That date is the date on which the negligent act caused harm (whether known or unknown). In this case, it was June 22, 1995.
The majority asserts that Meekins had a cause of action for medical malpractice as early as December 21, 1994, although she did not know of her claim then and her damages would have been difficult to quantify. I understand the majority to mean that Meekins suffered some actionable harm on that date, but I do not understand what that harm was. There is no treatment that even the most prudent doctor would have initiated at that time. If Meekins had discovered the error within six months, she could have gone for a follow up mammogram and would have been in the same position as if there had been no negligence at all. It was only after June 21, 1995, that the radiologist's error caused injury by depriving Meekins of immediate cancer treatment.
In sum, the majority has reduced the statute of limitations for Meekins from two years to eighteen months. She could not have stated a claim for relief before June 22, 1995, because she suffered no harm before then, yet the majority holds that the statute of limitations began to run six months earlier. I understand the need to construe §6856, consistent with the intent of the legislature, to bar claims brought more than two (or in some cases, three) years after the date of the injury . I do not understand the need to construe "date of injury" to mean "date of negligent act" in a case like this, where the two dates are not the same. I respectfully dissent.
Justice Hartnett, Dissenting:
I join Justice Berger in dissent, but for a slightly different reason. I am convinced that the injury occurred in June 1995, because that is the date when the radiologist should have recalled Meekins.
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