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Christensen v. Philip Morris USA Inc.6/8/2005
.2d at 1163.
In cases involving medical illness, Maryland courts have held that a plaintiff is on inquiry notice, and the statute of limitations begins to run, when the plaintiff has knowledge that he may have been harmed. . . .
Further, the court reasoned:
As these undisputed facts show, Mr. Christensen was on inquiry notice more than three years before the lawsuit was filed. He understood for more than 20 years that cigarettes could cause him harm, including lung cancer. More than three years before the suit was filed, Mr. Christensen had been told by his physician, and believed, that he had lung cancer, which he attributed to smoking. Indeed, both he and his physicians began to suspect he might have cancer in the Spring of 1998 based on Mr. Christensen's chronic shortness of breath, difficulty engaging in normal activities such as walking across the back yard, and his continued and progressive abnormal test results. Based on these and the other facts in Mr. Christensen's possession as of that time, ... an objectively reasonable person would have been prompted to investigate further, which Mr. Christensen did.
The court also determined that appellants' wrongful death claims were barred by limitations. Noting that such a claim is derivative in nature, it reasoned that if Christensen's individual claims were time-barred, the wrongful death claims were also barred. The court explained:
courts have long recognized that a wrongful death claim in Maryland is a derivative [action] and that the decedent's claims must have been viable, had he survived, in order for a beneficiary to bring a wrongful death claim....
Any ground that would bar a direct claim by a decedent thus bars a wrongful death claim brought by the decedent's statutory beneficiaries. . . .
This includes the bar of the statute of limitations. . . . Thus, if a decedent's claim against a particular defendant would be time-barred, the alleged wrongful conduct underlying that claim cannot constitute a "wrongful act" that would support a claim under the Wrongful Death Act.
That is the case here. Mr. Christensen would not have been entitled to maintain an action and recover damages as of the date the Complaint was filed, had he not died, because his claims were time-barred. As a matter of law, therefore Plaintiffs cannot establish the requisite "wrongful act" required by the plain language of the Wrongful Death Act and summary judgment is proper.
In addition, the court noted that Maryland law does not recognize equitable tolling of the statute of limitations during the pendency of a class action. It said:
Statutes of limitations are strictly construed and any exceptions to them must be created by the Maryland legislature. Since the Maryland legislature has not spoken on this precise matter, the Maryland three-year statute of limitations is not tolled because the plaintiffs' decedent had previously joined a class action suit.
On December 2, 2003, the circuit court issued an "Order Directing Entry of Judgment in Favor of Defendants." This appeal followed.
DISCUSSION
I.
Appellants contend that limitations was tolled during the pendency of the Richardson class action suit, which was filed in May of 1996 and decertified in a ruling issued by the Court of Appeals in May of 2000. While recognizing that no Maryland appellate case specifically recognizes the doctrine of equitable class action tolling, as announced in Am. Pipe & Constr. Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538 (1974) and its progeny, appellants nevertheless urge us to adopt the doctrine of class action tolling in the context
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