Greyhound Lines, Inc. v. County of Santa Clara

• Citation: 231 Cal.Rptr. 702,187 Cal.App.3d 480
• Parties: GREYHOUND LINES, INC., Plaintiff and Appellant, v. COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA, et al. Defendants and Respondents. H000984.
• Decision Date: 25 November 1986
• Court: California Court of Appeals

Page 702

231 Cal.Rptr. 702

187 Cal.App.3d 480

GREYHOUND LINES, INC., Plaintiff and Appellant, v. COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA, et al. Defendants and Respondents.

H000984.

Court of Appeal, Sixth District, California.

Nov. 25, 1986.

Review Denied Feb. 11, 1987.

James W. Henderson, Jr., Carroll, Burdick & McDonough, Sacramento, for plaintiff and appellant.

Kathryn K. Meier, Morgan, Morgan, Towery, Morgan & Spector, San Jose, for defendants and respondents.

AGLIANO, Presiding Justice.

Greyhound Lines, Inc. appeals from the denial of its petition seeking relief from the time requirements for filing a governmental claim for equitable indemnity. We affirm.

The operative facts are few. MaryAnn Schroeder claims to have suffered injury due to a slip-and-fall in a Greyhound bus depot in Santa Barbara on October 22, 1982. Sometime thereafter she received medical treatment from, among others, the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. On October 6, 1983, she filed suit in San Francisco County Superior Court for personal injuries, with her husband joining a claim for loss of consortium. Greyhound Lines, Inc. (Greyhound) was named a defendant in that suit and was so served on October 24, 1983.

In the course of discovery in the underlying suit, Greyhound counsel arranged for an independent medical examination of plaintiff in September 1984. On October 8, 1984, the examining doctor advised counsel plaintiff's injuries had been aggravated by medical malpractice.

On January 15, 1985, Greyhound sent a letter to the director of the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, as a health care provider, giving notice of a medical malpractice claim. (Code Civ.Proc., § 364). This letter was referred to the County of Santa Clara, which treated it as a governmental claim and rejected it by letter dated February 8, 1985. Thus did Greyhound learn the Medical Center was a governmental entity. Greyhound submitted an application to file a late claim with the County dated February 15, which was rejected by the County's letter dated February 25, 1985. ¹

On April 8, 1985, Greyhound filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court its petition for relief from governmental claim requirements. It was opposed by the County of Santa Clara. After a hearing on May 30, the trial court denied Greyhound's petition "most reluctantly" by order of the same date.

A public entity cannot be sued for tort unless (1) a timely written claim has previously been presented to the governmental entity, (2) any late claim has been presented to the public entity and been excused by it or the court, or (3) conditions described by Government Code section 946.4, not applicable to this case, have been met. (Gov.Code, § 945.4; all other code citations are to the Gov.Code unless otherwise noted.) A personal injury claim must be presented within 100 days from its accrual. (§ 911.2.) If a timely claim is denied, the claimant has a specified time to commence a lawsuit. (§ 945.6.)

An application to present a late personal injury claim must be presented within a reasonable time not to exceed one year from its accrual, with an excuse for the delay. (§ 911.4.) A claimant may obtain judicial relief from the entity's denial of leave to file a late claim by filing a petition under section 946.6, as Greyhound attempted here.

Since Greyhound sought to file a late claim seeking equitable indemnity from a governmental entity, we must interpret the statute governing the accrual of governmental claims, section 901, in particular its last sentence, added in 1981. (Stats.1981, ch. 856, § 1, p. 3286.) "For the purpose of computing the time limits prescribed by Sections 911.2, 911.4, 912, and 945.6, the date of the accrual of a cause of action to which a claim relates is the date upon which the cause of action would be deemed to have accrued within the meaning of the statute of limitations which would be applicable thereto if there were no requirement that a claim be presented to and be acted upon by the public entity before an action could be commenced thereon. However, the date upon which a cause of action for equitable indemnity or partial equitable indemnity accrues shall be the date upon which a defendant is served with the complaint giving rise to the defendant's claim for equitable indemnity or partial equitable indemnity against the public entity." (Emphasis added.)

This final sentence creates a special accrual date for pursuing equitable indemnity claims against the government. The Legislature thereby changed the rule established in People ex rel. Dept. of Transportation v. Superior Court (1980) 26 Cal.3d 744, 163 Cal.Rptr. 585, 608 P.2d 673 (hereafter Frost ). (State of California v. Superior Court (1983) 143 Cal.App.3d 754, 758, 192 Cal.Rptr. 198 (hereafter Shortstop ).) Frost had integrated into the governmental claim requirements the usual rule that an indemnity claim did not accrue until the party seeking indemnity paid the underlying liability. (Frost, supra, 26 Cal.3d at pp. 751-755, 163 Cal.Rptr. 585, 608 P.2d 673.) Also, the defendant was permitted to file an anticipatory cross-complaint for equitable indemnity against a public entity without being required to file a governmental claim on this cause of action which had not yet accrued. (Id., at p. 763, 163 Cal.Rptr. 585, 608 P.2d 673.)

The 1981 amendment of section 901 was applied in Shortstop. There the plaintiffs sued Shortstop (a corporation) and Brock (an individual) for personal injuries, property damage, and loss of consortium arising out of a collision between two trucks, one owned by Shortstop and driven by Brock. Over ten months after being served with the original complaint, Brock and Shortstop obtained leave to file a cross-complaint for equitable indemnity against the State of California, alleging their liability for the collision arose because the highway patrol and a local fire district had blocked the road. The State demurred on the basis of noncompliance with the governmental claims filing requirements, and a writ petition followed when the trial court overruled the demurrer.

The appellate court first determined that the amendment to section 901 applied to the indemnity claims of Brock and Shortstop. (Shortstop, supra, 143 Cal.App.3d 754, 758-760, 192 Cal.Rptr. 198.) Then the court confronted the defendants' contention that their claims had not accrued until the date they discovered the underlying facts. The court responded: "The so-called 'late discovery' rules for accrual of causes of action for limitations purposes were first applied to claims, such as for fraud or for professional malpractice, which in their nature might be difficult for a claimant to discover; there has been some recent tendency to expand the circle of claims to which late discovery rules will be applied. [Citations.] We decline to declare a late discovery rule for this action for two reasons: First, the record before us contains neither allegation nor basis for inference that the asserted delay in discovering a potential claim for indemnity was reasonable or excusable. Second, the amendment to section 901 is categorical and unambiguous, leaving no room for introduction of a late-discovery exception by judicial interpretation. We note that in the indemnity situation contemplated by section 901 as amended there is little or no likelihood of the kind of innocent oversight for which late discovery rules were originally intended to compensate: The limitation period is itself triggered by service of the complaint against which indemnity would be sought and thus commences with notice which should be sufficient to engender any necessary investigation, and a decision whether to file a Tort Claims Act claim, within the 100-day period." ( Id., pp. 760-761, 192 Cal.Rptr. 198; emphasis added.)

Greyhound characterizes as dictum Shortstop's literal interpretation of section 901. We read it as an alternative holding. When an appellate court bases its decision on alternative grounds, none is dictum. (King v. Pauly (1911) 159 Cal. 549, 554-555, 115 P. 210.) We acknowledge we are not bound by an opinion of another District Court of Appeal, however persuasive it might be. (Prescod v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd. (1976) 57 Cal.App.3d 29, 39, 127 Cal.Rptr. 540.) We respect stare decisis, however, which serves the important goals of stability in the law and predictability of decision. Thus, we ordinarily follow the decisions of other districts without good reason to disagree. (McGlothlen v. Department of Motor Vehicles (1977) 71 Cal.App.3d 1005, 1017, 140 Cal.Rptr. 168.)

The statute provides that an equitable indemnity claim against a public entity accrues when the "defendant is served with the complaint giving rise to the defendant's claim...." It is possible through strained construction to find in this phrase the premise that if the complaint does not expose the facts which in turn underlie the defendant's indemnity claim, it has not accrued. However, such an interpretation would probably subvert the intent of the Legislature, which was manifestly to fix a date certain for accrual of equitable indemnity claims against the government for purposes of claims filing requirements. It would introduce uncertainty to require close analysis of the facts of the complaint to determine whether it contained the predicate of the equitable indemnity claim. This is clearly not what this phrase means.

Greyhound argues with some force that the discovery rule has from the seminal medical malpractice case of Huysman v. Kirsch (1936) 6 Cal.2d 302, 312-313, 57 P.2d 908, on, been judicially engrafted onto statutes which did not, at first, specifically provide for it. Neel v. Magana, Olney, Levy, Cathcart & Gelfand (1971) 6 Cal.3d 176, 186-187, 98 Cal.Rptr. 837, 491 P.2d 421, catalogues cases in which the discovery rule has been applied without exception to delay accrual of causes of action for professional malpractice. More particularly, the discovery rule has been observed...