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Nixon v. State9/30/2005
od in the Act. This section provided:
Every claim against the state permitted under this chapter shall be forever barred, unless within two (2) years after such claim accrued or prior to July 1, 1967, whichever is later, the claim is made in writing to the state appeal board under this Act and a suit is begun under this Act.
Id. § 13.
There is no dispute that the legislature desired to place a limitation on the retroactive effect of the statute by defining viable claims with reference to the beginning date of January 1, 1963. This date was two years and three months before the effective date of the statute, March 30, 1965. Thus, the retroactive effect of the statute was two years and three months. The statute-of-limitation provision included in the Act then required any claim to be brought within two years or prior to July 1, 1967, whichever was later. Id. Therefore, under the statute, all claims within the retroactive period of time were required to be brought before July 1, 1967, and claims that "accrued" after needed to be brought within two years.
The need for interpretation is illustrated by the positions taken by the parties. The State claims the January 1, 1963 date was a "sunrise" provision that barred all claims that occurred before that date. The appellees claim it only barred claims discovered prior to July 1, 1963. Both positions hinge on the intended meaning of the word "accrued." The dispute turns on the shifting manner in which the law has used the term to express its principles. This transfiguration explains much of the debate today, which requires its meaning to be explored in a historical context.
The term "accrue" is largely embedded in the law governing limitations on actions. In this context, a general rule emerged from our early cases that a cause of action accrued when the injured party had a right to institute and maintain a lawsuit. Chrischilles v. Griswold, 260 Iowa 453, 461, 150 N.W.2d 94, 99 (1967); Dean v. Iowa-Des Moines Nat'l Bank & Trust Co., 227 Iowa 1239, 1242, 281 N.W. 714, 717 (1938). In addition, our legislature has long used the term "accrue" to refer to the point when the statute of limitations begins to run on a cause of action. See Iowa Code § 614.1 (2003) ("Actions may be brought within the times [specified] after their causes accrue, and not afterwards, except when otherwise specially declared . . . ."). Thus, it was generally understood from the earliest development of our law that an action accrued at the time the elements of the cause of action occurred. Ogg v. Robb, 181 Iowa 145, 152-53, 162 N.W. 217, 220-21 (1917). This meant a cause of action for negligence accrued from the time of the act and injury, not the discovery of the injury. Id.; see also Schnebly v. Baker, 217 N.W.2d 708, 721 (Iowa 1974) ("The general rule in tort cases is that the period of limitation commences when the tort is committed." (citing 51 Am. Jur. 2d Limitation of Actions § 146, at 715; 54 C.J.S. Limitations of Actions § 205, at 216)). This view was also the early view of the law outside Iowa. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 899 cmt. e, at 444 (1969) ("Under the early interpretation of the English statutes of limitations, knowledge by the injured person of the existence of the tort was immaterial, and it is still true in many of the states that, in the absence of fraud or concealment of the cause of action, the statutory period runs from the time the tort was committed although the injured person has no knowledge or reason to know of it."). Thus, the term "accrue" has always meant " o come into existence as an enforceable claim," Black's Law Dictionary 22 (8th ed. 2004), but the law attached a special meaning to it by using it w
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