S.V. v. R.V.

Page 1

933 S.W.2d 1

64 USLW 2626, 39 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 386

S.V., Petitioner, v. R.V., Respondent.

No. 94-0856.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Argued Feb. 8, 1996.

Decided March 14, 1996.

Rehearing Overruled Nov. 15, 1996.

Concurring Opinion by Justice Cornyn

Filed Nov. 15, 1996.

Concurring Opinion on Rehearing by

Justice Gonzalez Filed Nov. 15, 1996.

Appeal from Dallas Court of Appeals, Fifth Judicial District; Frances Maloney, Justice.

Joann N. Wilkins, Mr. David M. Weaver, Dallas, for Petitioner.

Mike Patterson, Tyler, Jam Ferguson, Austin, for respondent.

HECHT, Justice, delivered the opinion of the Court in which PHILLIPS, Chief Justice, and ENOCH, SPECTOR, BAKER and ABBOTT, Justices, join.

R. intervened in her parents' divorce proceeding, alleging that her father, S., was negligent by sexually abusing her until she was seventeen years old. (Given the sensitive nature of these allegations, we refer to the parties only by initials to avoid the use of proper names.) Because R. did not sue her father within two years of her eighteenth birthday as required by the applicable statutes of limitations, her action is barred as a matter of law unless the discovery rule permits her to sue within two years of when she knew or reasonably should have known of the alleged abuse. R. contends that the discovery rule should apply in this case because she repressed all memory of her father's abuse until about a month after she turned twenty, some three months before she intervened in the divorce action. The district court directed a verdict against R. on the grounds that the discovery rule does not apply in this case, and that R. adduced no evidence of abuse. A divided court of appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial. 880 S.W.2d 804. We reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and affirm the judgment of the district court on limitations grounds.

I

Before we review the evidence in this case it is important to have clearly in mind the issue that is crucial in determining whether to apply the discovery rule. To pose that issue we begin with an analysis of our discovery rule jurisprudence.

We have long recognized the salutary purpose of statutes of limitations. In Gautier v. Franklin, 1 Tex. 732, 739 (1847), we wrote that statutes of limitations

are justly held "as statutes of repose to quiet titles, to suppress frauds, and to supply the deficiencies of proof arising from the ambiguity, obscurity and antiquity of transactions. They proceed upon the presumption that claims are extinguished, or ought to be held extinguished whenever they are not litigated in the proper forum at the prescribed period. They take away all solid ground of complaint, because they rest on the negligence or laches of the party himself; they quicken diligence by making it in some measure equivalent to right...." [JOSEPH P. STORY, CONFLICTS OF LAW 482.]

More recently, we explained:

Limitations statutes afford plaintiffs what the legislature deems a reasonable time to present their claims and protect defendants and the courts from having to deal with cases in which the search for truth may be seriously impaired by the loss of evidence, whether by death or disappearance of witnesses, fading memories, disappearance of documents or otherwise. The purpose of a statute of limitations is to establish a point of repose and to terminate stale claims.

Murray v. San Jacinto Agency, Inc., 800 S.W.2d 826, 828 (Tex.1990).

The enactment of statutes of limitations is, of course, the prerogative of the Legislature. At the time this case was filed and tried, the applicable statute was the one governing personal injury actions generally, which provided: "A person must bring suit for ... personal injury ... not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues." Act of May 17, 1985, 69th Leg., R.S., ch. 959, § 1, 1985 Tex.Gen.Laws 3242, 3252, formerly codified as TEX.CIV.PRAC. & REM.CODE § 16.003(a). The code contains two other provisions relevant to this case. One is: "If a person entitled to bring a personal action is under a legal disability when the cause of action accrues, the time of the disability is not included in the limitations period." TEX.CIV.PRAC. & REM.CODE § 16.001(b). The other is: "For the purposes of this subchapter, a person is under a legal disability if the person is: (1) younger than 18 years of age...." Id. § 16.001(a). Thus, a person has until his or her twentieth birthday (or the next business day, id. § 16.072) to bring suit for personal injury from sexual assault if--and here we come to the root of the problem in the case before us--the cause of action "accrued" while the person was a minor.

In 1995, the Legislature enacted a special five-year statute of limitations for sexual abuse cases: "A person must bring suit for personal injury not later than five years after the day the cause of action accrues if the injury arises as a result of conduct that violates: (1) Section 22.011, Penal Code (sexual assault); or (2) Section 22.021, Penal Code (aggravated sexual assault." TEX.CIV.PRAC. & REM.CODE § 16.0045(a); Act of May 27, 1995, 74th Leg., R.S., ch. 739, 1995 Tex.Gen.Laws 3850. This new statute was not enacted until long after the present case was filed and tried and therefore does not govern. Raley v. Wichita County, 123 Tex. 494, 72 S.W.2d 577, 579 (1934). We mention it here to point out that under both the new statute and its predecessor, the prescribed period begins to run on the day the cause of action "accrues".

Many other statutes peg the beginning of the limitations period on the date the cause of action "accrues". Occasionally the date of accrual is defined. E.g., TEX.CIV.PRAC. & REM.CODE § 16.003(b) (a wrongful death cause of action "accrues on the death of the injured person"). More often, however, the definition of accrual is not prescribed by statute and thus has been left to the courts. As a rule, we have held that a cause of action accrues when a wrongful act causes some legal injury, even if the fact of injury is not discovered until later, and even if all resulting damages have not yet occurred. Trinity River Auth. v. URS Consultants, Inc., 889 S.W.2d 259, 262 (Tex.1994); Quinn v. Press, 135 Tex. 60, 140 S.W.2d 438, 440 (1940). We have not applied this rule without exception, however, and have sometimes held that an action does not accrue until the plaintiff knew or in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have known of the wrongful act and resulting injury. Trinity River Auth., 889 S.W.2d at 262. (Deferring accrual and thus delaying the commencement of the limitations period is distinct from suspending or tolling the running of limitations once the period has begun.)

We first referred to this exception as the "discovery rule" in Gaddis v. Smith, 417 S.W.2d 577, 578 (Tex.1967). We have sometimes used the phrase to refer generally to all instances in which accrual is deferred, including fraud and fraudulent concealment. Williams v. Khalaf, 802 S.W.2d 651, 657 (Tex.1990) (citing a case that "involved the 'discovery rule' since there was a claim of fraudulent concealment"); Moreno v. Sterling Drug, Inc., 787 S.W.2d 348, 351 (Tex.1990) (citing fraud case as one in which discovery rule applied). See also Robinson v. Weaver, 550 S.W.2d 18, 24 n. 2 (Tex.1977) (Pope, J., dissenting) ("The 'discovery rule' applies in actions based on fraud ... and fraudulent concealment in medical malpractice cases...."). At other times we have distinguished between fraudulent concealment and the discovery rule. Willis v. Maverick, 760 S.W.2d 642, 647 (Tex.1988) (besides asserting the discovery rule, plaintiff also alleged that fraudulent concealment tolled limitations); Weaver v. Witt, 561 S.W.2d 792, 793-794 (Tex.1977) (per curiam) (noting that if defendant moves for summary judgment on limitations, the burden of proving fraudulent concealment to avoid summary judgment is on the plaintiff, but the burden of proving the date plaintiff knew or should have known of injury to obtain summary judgment is on defendant); Nichols v. Smith, 507 S.W.2d 518, 521 (Tex.1974) (noting that plaintiff asserted fraudulent concealment only and not the discovery rule). See also Murray, 800 S.W.2d at 831 (Spears, J., dissenting) ("Fraudulent concealment gives rise to another such practical exception [besides the discovery rule] to the injury based rule of accrual."); Moreno, 787 S.W.2d at 367 n. 6 (Doggett, J., dissenting) (referring to "common-law tolling principles such as the doctrine of fraudulent concealment and the discovery rule.") Strictly speaking, the cases in which we have deferred accrual of causes of action for limitations purposes fall into two categories: those involving fraud and fraudulent concealment, and all others. The deferral of accrual in the latter cases is properly referred to as the discovery rule. We observe the distinction between the two categories because each is characterized by different substantive and procedural rules. Weaver, 561 S.W.2d at 793-794. See American Petrofina, Inc. v. Allen, 887 S.W.2d 829 (Tex.1994); Woods v. William M. Mercer, Inc., 769 S.W.2d 515, 518 (Tex.1988).

We have considered the applicability of the deferred accrual exception to the legal injury rule in an assortment of settings. See Willis, 760 S.W.2d at 646 (attorney malpractice in drafting divorce decree led to forced partition of home; held discovery rule applies when lawyer's expertise and client's ignorance of the law make wrong undiscoverable); Nelson v. Krusen, 678 S.W.2d 918, 923 (Tex.1984) (child born with muscular dystrophy after doctor informed parents that mother did not carry muscular dystrophy gene; held statute precluding discovery rule was unconstitutional); Weaver, 561 S.W.2d at 794 (negligently performed hemorrhoidectomy damaged plaintiff's rectal nerves and muscles, causing loss of bowel control; held doctor's affidavit of last examination date was insufficient to negate discovery rule); Robinson, 550 S.W.2d...