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Penley v. Honda Motor Co.8/25/2000
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(a) Any action against a manufacturer or seller of a product for injury to person or property caused by its defective or unreasonably dangerous condition must be brought within the period fixed by [sections] 28-3-104, 28-3-105, 28-3-202 and 47-2-725, but notwithstanding any exceptions to these provisions it must be brought within six (6) years of the date of injury, in any event, the action must be brought within ten (10) years from the date on which the product was first purchased for use or consumption, or within one (1) year after the expiration of the anticipated life of the product, whichever is the shorter, except in the case of injury to minors whose action must be brought within a period of one (1) year after attaining the age of majority, whichever occurs sooner.
(b) The foregoing limitation of actions shall not apply to any action resulting from exposure to asbestos or to the human implantation of silicone gel breast implants.
(c)(1) Any action against a manufacturer or seller for injury to a person caused by a silicone gel breast implant must be brought within a period not to exceed twenty-five (25) years from the date such product was implanted; provided, that such action must be brought within four (4) years from the date the plaintiff knew or should have known of the injury. Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-28-103(a)-(c)(1) (1980 & Supp. 1999) (emphasis added).
Statutes of repose operate differently than statutes of limitation, primarily because statutes of repose typically begin to run with the happening of some event unrelated to the traditional accrual of the plaintiff's cause of action. See, e.g., Cronin v. Howe, 906 S.W.2d 910, 914 (Tenn. 1995); Wyatt v. A-Best Prods. Co., 924 S.W.2d 98, 102 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1995). Because a plaintiff's cause of action can be eliminated by a statute of repose even before it accrues, Watts v. Putnam County, 525 S.W.2d 488, 491 (Tenn. 1975), statutes of repose have been said to "extinguish both the right and the remedy," Cronin, 906 S.W.2d at 913. The courts of this state have construed statutes of repose as an absolute time limit within which actions must be brought, id. at 913, and this Court has characterized the statute of repose as "an outer limit or ceiling superimposed upon the existing statute [of limitations]." Harrison v. Schrader, 569 S.W.2d 822, 826 (Tenn. 1978). As one court has stated with regard to the application of statutes of repose, "Where the injury occurs within the [repose] period, and a claimant commences his or her action after the [repose] period has passed, an action accrues but is barred. Where the injury occurs outside the [repose] period, no substantive cause of action ever accrues, and a claimant's actions are likewise barred." Gillam v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 489 N.W.2d 289, 291 (Neb. 1992) (citations omitted).
Despite the absolute and unyielding nature of statutes of repose, however, the General Assembly has allowed plaintiffs, in some cases, to commence a lawsuit even after the general statute of repose has run. For example, the General Assembly has permitted allegations of fraudulent concealment to toll the otherwise applicable three-year statute of repose in medical malpractice cases. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-26-116 (1980 & Supp. 1999). Likewise, the four-year statute of repose for actions relating to defective improvement of real estate is tolled by statute if the injury occurs within the fourth year. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-203(a) (1980 & Supp. 1999). It appears that when the General Assembly has desired that exceptions apply to a statute of repose, however, the exception is either found with the language of the statute itself, or in another part of the c
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