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Nixon v. State9/30/2005
new legal meaning. Yet, while the transformation to the discovery rule began with Chrischilles, what followed was not a sweeping, overwhelming movement to apply the discovery rule in all cases. See Schlote v. Dawson, 676 N.W.2d 187, 190 (Iowa 2004) (noting Chrischilles adopted the discovery rule as an exception to the general rule). More than a generation passed following Chrischilles before a majority of this court fully adopted and applied the discovery rule to actions, as in this case, brought under the Iowa Tort Claims Act. See Vachon v. State, 514 N.W.2d 442, 445 (Iowa 1994) (holding the discovery rule applies to all claims under the Act); see also Callahan v. State, 464 N.W.2d 268, 273 (Iowa 1990) (applying discovery rule to Iowa Tort Claims Act). But see id. at 274 (Andreasen, J., concurring) (opining " pplication of the discovery rule should be determined by the court on a case-by-case basis"); id. (Schultz, J., dissenting) (opining the discovery rule should only be applied "to remove statutory bars in those instances when equitable considerations demand it"). Under these circumstances, it is unlikely, if not a stretch of the imagination, our legislature would have meant to use the definition of accrue in 1965 that we use today. Moreover, the discovery-rule movement was driven by judicial pronouncements. Outside the three longstanding statutory exceptions, and a recent statutory exception for victims of childhood sexual abuse, see Iowa Code § 614.8A (2003) ("An action for damages for injury suffered as a result of sexual abuse which occurred when the injured person was a child, but not discovered until after the injured person is of the age of majority, shall be brought within four years from the time of discovery by the injured party of both the injury and the causal relationship between the injury and the sexual abuse."), the movement to the adoption of the discovery rule has been accomplished by judicial decisions.
Although the disputed statute in this case is not a statute of limitations, the historical background of the concept of accrual within the context of statutes of limitations is important to the proper determination of what the legislature meant when it used the term "accrues" in the definition of "claim" in 1965 when the Iowa Tort Claims Act was enacted. See 2B Norman J. Singer, Statutes and Statutory Construction § 49:01, at 8-9 (2000 rev.) [hereinafter Singer] (stating courts must consider the historical framework of a statute); see alsoDoe v. Ray, 251 N.W.2d 496, 501 (Iowa 1977) (" n construing a statute we must be mindful of the state of the law when it was enacted . . . ." (citing Egan v. Naylor, 208 N.W.2d 915, 918 (Iowa 1973))). We cannot give a term in a statute a definition it acquired only after the legislature enacted the statute, because the legislature cannot have attributed a definition to a term if it had not yet acquired it. See City of Fairfield v. Harper Drilling Co., 692 N.W.2d 681, 684 (Iowa 2005) ("Our goal in interpreting a statute is to determine the legislature's intent when it enacted the statute." (citing Tague, 676 N.W.2d at 201)).
Our legislature is presumed to know the usual judicial meaning of language and to intend the language it uses in its statutes to have that meaning. State v. Shafranek, 576 N.W.2d 115, 118 (Iowa 1998) (citing State v. Jones, 298 N.W.2d 296, 298 (Iowa 1980); State v. Wilson, 287 N.W.2d 587, 589 (Iowa 1980)); accord 2B Singer § 50:03, at 150 ("The interpretation of well-defined words and phrases in the common law carries over to statutes dealing with the same or similar subject matter."). Moreover, our legislature has specifically provided that " he common law or former statutory provisions, including laws upon the same or simil
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