Corsey v. State, Through Dept. of Corrections

• Decision Date: 08 October 1979
• Docket Number: No. 63931,63931
• Citation: 375 So.2d 1319
• Parties: James CORSEY, Plaintiff-Appellant-Relator, v. The STATE of Louisiana, Through the DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Defendants-Appellees-Respondents.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 1319

375 So.2d 1319

James CORSEY, Plaintiff-Appellant-Relator, v. The STATE of Louisiana, Through the DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Defendants-Appellees-Respondents.

No. 63931.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Oct. 8, 1979.

Joseph S. Russo, Jefferson, for plaintiff-applicant.

William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., J. Marvin Montgomery, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant-respondent.

TATE, Justice.

The plaintiff Corsey was a prisoner at the state penitentiary. He sues the state department of corrections for personal injuries sustained on June 18, 1972. He did not file suit so as to interrupt prescription until June 25, 1974. ¹ Since this legal demand was made more than one year after the tortious injury was sustained, La.Civ.C. arts. 3536, 3537, his suit was dismissed as prescribed. 366 So.2d 964 (La.App. 1 Cir. 1978).

We granted certiorari, 368 So.2d 127 (February 23, 1979). We desired to consider whether prescription could run against the plaintiff (a prisoner within the total control of the defendant state agency) when, due solely to the defendant's negligence, the tort-caused physical and mental (brain) injuries to the plaintiff so mentally incapacitated him that he lacked any understanding of what had happened to him and of his possible legal remedies until July 1973, when he began to recover an awareness of the events and of his condition. ²

For the reasons set forth more fully below, we hold that, under these facts, prescription did not begin to run against the plaintiff until July 1973. Therefore, his legal demand of June 1974 was timely. In so holding, we rely upon the principle that prescription does not run against a party who is unable to act (a principle often denoted by the maxim Contra non valentem agere nulla currit praescriptio ). The principle is especially applicable in the present instance, where the plaintiff's inability to act is due to the defendant's willful or negligent conduct.

I.

The specific issue before us ³ is whether the year within which the plaintiff must bring his tort action for personal injuries negligently caused by the defendant, La.Civ.C. arts. 3536, 3537, is interrupted or suspended during the period in which, due to the defendant's negligent conduct, the plaintiff had incurred such mental incapacity as to be unable to assert a legal demand to recover for such injuries.

Article 3521 of our Civil Code provides, "Prescription runs against all persons, unless they are included in some exception established by Law (i.e., legislation)." (Italics ours.) Despite the express statutory provision, our Louisiana jurisprudence has recognized a limited exception where in fact and for good cause a plaintiff is unable to exercise his cause of action when it accrues. French jurisprudence (despite an identical provision in the French Civil Code) likewise recognizes this exception. Comment, The Scope of the Maxim Contra Non Valentem in Louisiana, 12 Tul.L.Rev. 244 (1938); Planiol, Civil Law Treatise, Volume 1, Section 2704-05, Volume 2, Section 678 (LSLI translation, 1959).

The exception is founded on the ancient civilian doctrine of Contra non valentem agere nulla currit praescriptio, predating and within the penumbras of modern civilian codes, and it has been recognized from Louisiana's earliest jurisprudence. ⁴ Comment, 12 Tul.L.Rev. 244, cited above; Henson v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 363 So.2d 711 (La.1978); Hyman v. Hibernia Bank & Trust Co., 139 La. 411, 71 So. 598 (1916); McKnight v. Calhoun, 36 La.Ann. 408 (1884); Quierry's Ex'r & Faussier's Ex'rs, 4 Mart. (O.S.) 609 (1817).

II.

As the cited comment notes, 12 Tul.L.Rev. at 253-54, this court in Reynolds v. Batson, 11 La.Ann. 729, 730-31 (1856), authoritatively lays down the three categories of situations in which our early jurisprudence held that the principle Contra non valentem applied so as to prevent the running of liberative prescription: (1) Where there was some legal cause which prevented the courts or their officers from taking cognizance of or acting on the plaintiff's action ⁵; (2) Where there was some condition coupled with the contract or connected with the proceedings which prevented the creditor from suing or acting ⁶; and (3) Where the debtor himself has done some act effectually to prevent the creditor from availing himself of his cause of action. ⁷

Modern jurisprudence also recognizes a fourth type of situation where Contra non valentem applies so that prescription does not run: Where the cause of action is not known or reasonably knowable by the plaintiff, even though his ignorance is not induced by the defendant. (This principle will not except the plaintiff's claim from the running of prescription if his ignorance is attributable to his own willfulness or neglect; that is, a plaintiff will be deemed to know what he could by reasonable diligence have learned. Cartwright v. Chrysler Corporation, 255 La. 597, 598, 232 So.2d 285 (1970); Sumerall v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 366 So.2d 213 (La.App. 2 Cir. 1978).)

See: Henson v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 363 So.2d 711 (La.1978); Lakefront Land Co. v. Department of Highways, 212 La. 16, 31 So.2d 280 (La.1947); Brulatour v. Teche Sugar Co., 209 La. 717, 25 So.2d 444 (La.1946); Walter v. Caffal, 192 La. 447, 188 So. 137 (1939); McGuire v. Monroe Scrap Material Co., 189 La. 573, 180 So. 413 (La.1938); Succession of Williams, 168 La. 1, 121 So. 171 (La.1929); McClendon v. State, Through Dept. of Corrections, 357 So.2d 1218 (La.App. 3 Cir. 1978); Brown v. State, Through Dept. of Corrections, 354 So.2d 633 (La.App. 1 Cir. 1978) ⁸; Aegis Insurance Co. v. Delta Fire & Casualty Co., 99 So.2d 767 (La.App. 1 Cir. 1957). See also: Dean v. Hercules, Incorporated, 328 So.2d 69 (La.1976).

This fourth or more modern situation, which has been judicially characterized as a Contra non valentem exception to the running of prescription, is generically similar to instances provided by statute where prescription does not begin to run until the claimant has knowledge of his cause of action. ⁹ In these, the cause of action does not mature (so prescription does not begin to run) until it is known or at least knowable.

The fourth situation is thus generically somewhat distinguishable from the earlier three situations first recognized to justify exceptions to prescription on the basis of Contra non valentem. In them (as in the present case, as we will show), the cause of action had accrued, but nevertheless the plaintiff was prevented from enforcing it by some reason external to his own will the courts closed by wartime conditions, some contract or administrative condition preventing his access to the courts, or some conduct of the defendant which prevented him from availing himself of his judicial remedy.

In concluding our general discussion of the application of Contra non valentem, we should finally note that the Louisiana jurisprudence, as does the French, ¹⁰ distinguishes between personal disabilities of the plaintiff (which do Not prevent prescription from running) and an inability to bring suit for some cause foreign to the person of the plaintiff (which does suspend its running).

Thus, a person whose ignorance of his cause of action or inability to assert it is the result of his own mental incapacity cannot claim the benefits of this rule unless he has been interdicted. ¹¹ Israel v. Smith, 302 So.2d 392 (La.App. 3 Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 303 So.2d 183 (La.1974); ¹² Buvens v. Buvens, 286 So.2d 144 (La.App. 3 Cir. 1973), Lassere v. Lassere, 255 So.2d 794 (La.App. 4 Cir. 1972), cert. denied, 257 So.2d 434 (La.1972). Perrodin v. Clement, 254 So.2d 704 (La.App. 3 Cir. 1971). Cf., Vance v. Ellerbe, 150 La. 388, 90 So. 735 (1922).

Likewise, a plaintiff cannot invoke Contra non valentem to escape the running of prescription based merely upon his inability to attend to his affairs because of his personal illness, Ayres v. New York Life Ins. Co.,219 La. 945, 54 So.2d 409 (1951) at least when this illness arises independently of any fault on the part of the defendant.

III.

In the present instance, we are not, strictly speaking, concerned with whether the plaintiff Corsey's cause of action had accrued or matured at the time of the incident, for it had: the damage was immediately discernible to a person of ordinary diligence and capacity. Nor are we concerned with his mental competency Per se, since (as he was not interdicted) he is a person subject to having prescription run against his cause of action.

Here, however, unlike mere mental incompetency (which will not suspend prescription), the defendant's own tort has produced the plaintiff's mental and physical inability to file suit during the period of tort-caused incompetency. The values at issue are not similar to those which control in cases of mere mental incompetency; they are more analagous to those which permit invocation of Contra non valentem to suspend prescription because the defendant has concealed information or has otherwise prevented the plaintiff from bringing the action within the prescriptive delay.

Due to the defendant's wrongful conduct, until July 1973 the plaintiff was unable because of the tort-caused mental incompetency to know he had a cause of action or to have the mental ability to pursue it. We hold that, consequently, prescription did not begin to run against the plaintiff (under the facts stipulated for purpose of the exception pleading prescription) until July, 1973.

The fault or wrongful conduct of the defendant which prevents the plaintiff from suing timely is a traditional Contra non valentem reason to except the plaintiff's claim from prescriptive extinguishment (see footnotes 7 and 11 above). We find this principle here applicable.

It is true that the usual case in which Contra non valentem was applied on this ground has involved conduct of the defendant preventing the plaintiff's pursuit of his claim conduct separate from the wrongful conduct giving rise to the...