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Penley v. Honda Motor Co.8/25/2000
before the filing of the plaintiff's suit. In response, the plaintiff moved to amend her complaint to allege that the accident rendered her "mentally and physically incapacitated." The plaintiff then argued that the operation of the TPLA statute of repose was tolled by the legal disability statute, Tenn. Code Ann. ยง 28-1-106 (1980 & Supp. 1999), during the twenty days that she remained mentally incapacitated in the hospital.
Although the circuit court allowed the plaintiff to amend her complaint to allege mental and physical incapacity during her period of hospitalization, it nevertheless granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment. The plaintiff appealed to the Court of Appeals, which affirmed the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the defendants and held that the TPLA statute of repose was not tolled by a plaintiff's physical or mental incompetence. The Court of Appeals also held that the absence of a tolling provision for persons of unsound mind did not render the TPLA statute of repose unconstitutional under the Tennessee Constitution.
The plaintiff then requested, and we granted, permission to appeal on the following issue: whether the TPLA ten-year statute of repose is tolled when the plaintiff suffers temporary mental incompetency. For the reasons stated herein, we hold that the TPLA statute of repose is not tolled by the plaintiff's temporary mental incompetency, and we affirm the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the defendants.
STANDARD OF APPELLATE REVIEW
Summary judgment is appropriate only when the moving party demonstrates that there are no genuine issues of material fact and that he or she is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56.03; Byrd v. Hall, 847 S.W.2d 208, 210 (Tenn. 1993). Since our inquiry involves purely a question of law, no presumption of correctness attaches to the lower court's judgment, and our task is confined to reviewing the record to determine whether the requirements of Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 56 have been met. See Staples v. CBL & Assocs. Inc., 15 S.W.3d 83, 88 (Tenn. 2000); Seavers v. Methodist Med. Ctr., 9 S.W.3d 86, 90-91 (Tenn. 1999). Courts should "grant a summary judgment only when both the facts and the inferences to be drawn from the facts permit a reasonable person to reach only one conclusion." Staples, 15 S.W.3d at 88; see also Bain v. Wells, 936 S.W.2d 618, 622 (Tenn. 1997).
In reviewing the record to determine whether summary judgment requirements have been met, we must view all the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Eyring v. Fort Sanders Parkwest Med. Ctr., 991 S.W.2d 230, 236 (Tenn. 1999); Hall, 847 S.W.2d at 210-11. Accordingly, for purposes of this review, we will presume that the plaintiff was in fact of "unsound mind" within the definition of Tennessee Code Annotated section 28-1-106 for the twenty days she was hospitalized following her accident.
ANALYSIS
The issue of whether the TPLA ten-year statute of repose is tolled for mental incompetency appears to be one of first impression in Tennessee. Importantly, the parties do not dispute that the TPLA, including the ten-year statute of repose, governs all of the plaintiff's claims or that the plaintiff brought suit more than ten years after the product in question was "first purchased for use or consumption." Rather, the plaintiff's contention is that the ten-year statute of repose in section 29-28-103(a) is tolled during any period in which the plaintiff is mentally incapacitated.
The current text of the TPLA statute of repose reads in part as follows:
29-28-103. Limitation of actions - Exceptions.
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