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Porter v. Philbrick-Gates2/28/2000
lack of memory of the circumstances surrounding an auto accident because the plaintiffs had engaged an attorney and an accident reconstructionist within three months of the accident and had at all times believed that the accident was caused by a city employee. See id. at 889. We also rejected the plaintiffs' claim that they had failed to meet the deadline due to the requirements of M.R. Civ. P. 11 and M. Bar R. 3.7. The Court observed:
notice of claim is not a pleading or motion to which Rule 11 applies. ven if the professional constraints of M. Bar R. 3.7 barred the [plaintiffs'] attorney from filing a notice of claim, an interpretation we do not adopt, nothing prevented the [plaintiffs] themselves from filing a timely notice . . . .
Id.
Begin effectively disposes of the Porters' claim that it would have been inappropriate for them to have filed a notice of claim based on the information they had within the 180-day time frame. The notice is not a pleading and can be filed when a party has less than complete understanding of the facts forming the basis of his or her suit.
In Gardner v. City of Biddeford, 565 A.2d 329 (Me. 1989), we rejected an argument that the plaintiff parents and son had no reasonable means of obtaining information forming the basis of their claim against the defendant school teacher within the 180-day period, when they learned of an act of sexual abuse against the son only after the mother talked with another parent some 20 months after the alleged act of sexual abuse. See id. at 329. We held as a matter of law that plaintiffs failed to establish good cause because they did not generate a genuine issue of fact concerning their inability to obtain information or that they were prevented from obtaining the information. See id. at 330. The plaintiffs argued, inter alia, that it would have been too embarrassing and difficult to make inquiries of other parents. See id.
The instant case is similar to Gardner insofar as the Porters claim that they were prevented from getting information because of the absence of voluntary disclosures from the children or the school's administrators. Gardner establishes that plaintiffs are expected to endeavor to obtain information on their own if help is not forthcoming.
The trial court committed no error of law in determining that the Porters had failed to demonstrate good cause for filing their notice of claim nearly a year after the 180-day deadline had passed.
The entry is:
Judgment affirmed.
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