Koppes v. Pearson

• Citation: 384 N.W.2d 381
• Decision Date: 19 March 1986
• Docket Number: No. 85-761,85-761
• Parties: Robert J. KOPPES and Susan J. Koppes, Appellants, v. James A. PEARSON, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa

Page 381

384 N.W.2d 381

54 USLW 2513

Robert J. KOPPES and Susan J. Koppes, Appellants, v. James A. PEARSON, Appellee.

No. 85-761.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

March 19, 1986.

George A. LaMarca and Gregory W. Landry of Williams, LaMarca, Marcucci, Wiggins & Anderson, P.C., Des Moines, for appellants.

Robert M. Bertsch and Stephen C. Krumpe of O'Connor & Thomas, P.C., Dubuque, for appellee.

Considered en banc.

WOLLE, Justice.

Plaintiffs Robert J. Koppes and Susan J. Koppes brought this action to recover damages allegedly caused by defendant's negligent performance of back surgery on Susan. The surgery was performed on August 1, 1975, but the action was not commenced until January 10, 1985. Plaintiffs have attempted to avoid the effect of Iowa's statute of limitations directed at medical malpractice claims by contending (1) that the statute is unconstitutional and (2) that fraudulent concealment tolled the running of the limitation period. The district court granted defendant's motion for judgment on the pleadings, finding the special limitations statute constitutional and unaffected by the plaintiffs' claim of fraudulent concealment. We agree that the statute passes constitutional muster, but we reverse and remand because fraudulent concealment of the cause of action by the defendant would toll the period during which plaintiffs may commence their action.

The pleaded facts pertinent to the defendant's limitations defense were essentially uncontroverted, and therefore defendant's motion for judgment on the pleadings was an appropriate vehicle for presenting the legal issues we here address. Iowa R.Civ.P. 222; see Lamantia v. Sojka, 298 N.W.2d 245, 248 (Iowa 1980). Plaintiffs allege that defendant negligently failed to remove all of a herniated disc from Susan's back during surgery, causing personal injury damages. Plaintiffs also allege affirmatively that defendant "fraudulently concealed the fact that he had not excised the lumbar discs ... as represented to plaintiffs," and "because of the fraudulent concealment of the defendant it was not until on or about February 2, 1983 [that Susan] discovered that she had suffered injury." Defendant's answer raised as an affirmative defense the bar of Iowa Code section 614.1(9) (1983) which in pertinent part provided:

Actions may be brought within the times herein limited, respectively, after their causes accrue, and not afterwards, except when otherwise specially declared:

....

9. Malpractice. Those founded on injuries to the person or wrongful death against any physician and surgeon ... arising out of patient care, within two years after the date on which the claimant knew, or through the use of reasonable diligence should have known, or received notice in writing of the existence of, the injury or death for which damages are sought in the action, whichever of the dates occurs first, but in no event shall any action be brought more than six years after the date on which occurred the act or omission or occurrence alleged in the action to have been the cause of the injury or death unless a foreign object unintentionally left in the body caused the injury or death.

(Emphasis added.)

The district court found the statute constitutional and rejected the suggestion that fraudulent concealment of the cause of action by the defendant might toll the statute. We address first the plaintiffs' equal protection and due process challenges to the constitutionality of the statute, then the issues generated by plaintiffs' allegations of fraud.

I. Constitutionality of Section 614.1(9).

A. Equal protection. Plaintiffs ask us to strike down the medical malpractice statute as both facially and in their specific case violative of the equal protection clauses of the federal and Iowa Constitutions. U.S. Const.amend. XIV; Iowa Const.art. I, § 6. They first urge us to apply a strict scrutiny test on the theory that the statute deprives them of a fundamental right of reasonable access to court. We apply instead the traditional rational basis test for the reasons articulated in Argenta v. City of Newton, 382 N.W.2d 457 (Iowa 1986) and Rudolph v. Iowa Methodist Medical Center, 293 N.W.2d 550, 557 (Iowa 1980). Statutes of limitation do not implicate or affect fundamental rights. See Chase Securities Corp. v. Donaldson, 325 U.S. 304, 314, 65 S.Ct. 1137, 1142, 89 L.Ed. 1628, 1635-36 (1945); Fitz v. Dolyak, 712 F.2d 330, 332 (8th Cir.1983) ("As the majority of courts have held, legislation regulating medical malpractice litigation involves neither a suspect classification, nor a fundamental right so the strict scrutiny standard is inappropriate."); Conner v. Fettkther, 294 N.W.2d 61, 62 (Iowa 1980) ("Statutes of limitations go to matters of remedy which are not fundamental rights.").

Plaintiffs challenge two classifications resulting from section 614.1(9): the differing treatment accorded health care providers and other tortfeasors; and the distinction the statute draws between patients who belatedly find a foreign object in their body, yet are not subject to the statute's final limitation, and other patients whose right to sue is severed after six years. If those classifications bear some reasonable relationship to a legitimate public purpose, however, the statute will withstand our rational basis scrutiny. Plaintiffs have the heavy burden of negating every reasonable basis upon which the statute may be sustained. Argenta, 382 N.W.2d at 461. Pertinent here is our explanation of the rational basis test in Bishop v. Eastern Allamakee Community School District, 346 N.W.2d 500 (Iowa 1984):

Under the rational basis test, a legislative classification is upheld if any conceivable state of facts reasonably justify it. Additionally, the guarantee of equal protection does not exact uniformity of procedure. The legislature may classify litigants and adopt certain procedures for one class and different procedures for other classes, so long as the classification is reasonable. All that is required is that similarly situated litigants be treated equally.

Id. at 505 (citations omitted).

The limitations statute here challenged was part of a package of legislation enacted in 1975. See 1975 Iowa Acts ch. 239, § 26. The legislation was prefaced with the statement, "a critical situation exists because of the high cost and impending unavailability of medical malpractice insurance." Id. § 1. The legislature undertook a comprehensive study of this problem. See Malpractice Insurance Study Committee, Report to Sixty-Sixth Iowa Gen. Assembly (Jan.1976).

We conclude that the deferential treatment accorded health care providers was reasonably related to the legislature's goal of reducing malpractice premiums. See Rudolph, 293 N.W.2d at 558-59. Other courts have upheld similar classifications created by statutes enacted in response to what legislators perceived to be a malpractice insurance crisis. See, e.g., DiAntonio v. Northampton-Accomack Memorial Hospital, 628 F.2d 287, 291-92 (4th Cir.1980); Woods v. Holy Cross Hospital, 591 F.2d 1164, 1172-75 (5th Cir.1979); Lacy v Green, 428 A.2d 1171, 1177-78 (Del.Super.Ct.1981); Beatty v. Akron City Hospital, 67 Ohio St.2d 483, 491-97, 424 N.E.2d 586, 591-95 (1981); and State ex rel. Strykowski v. Wilkie, 81 Wis.2d 491, 506-12, 261 N.W.2d 434, 441-44 (1978).

We also find fairly debatable, and thus rational, the line drawn between patients who belatedly find foreign objects in their bodies and patients asserting other claims of medical malpractice. A traditional purpose of statutes of limitation is to prevent stale actions from arising after a considerable lapse of time, when the parties may encounter severe proof problems. The legislature could reasonably have determined that foreign object cases should be kept alive after other malpractice claims have expired on the theory that the presence or absence of foreign objects left in the body may readily be verified despite the passage of time and do not present such difficult problems of proof. Fitz, 712 F.2d at 333; See Ross v. Kansas City General Hospital & Medical Center, 608 S.W.2d 397, 399 (Mo.1980); Saultz v. Funk, 64 Ohio App.2d 29, 39, 410 N.E.2d 1275, 1282 (1979).

Our equal protection analysis and conclusion in this case are the same under the Iowa and United States Constitutions. Inapposite are cases decided by other courts that apply a heightened scrutiny under state constitutions, or whose constitutional provisions have different wording than ours. See, e.g., Kenyon v. Hammer, 142 Ariz. 69, 79-83, 688 P.2d 961, 971-75 (1984) (construing provision for open courts in Arizona Constitution and holding right to pursue action constituted a "fundamental" right); Carson v. Maurer, 120 N.H. 924, 424 A.2d 825 (1980) (applying a heightened scrutiny not required under the U.S. Constitution). Iowa Code section 614.1(9) does not violate equal protection provisions of the United States and Iowa Constitutions.

B. Due process. Plaintiffs assert that the medical malpractice statute of limitations denies them due process of law under the Iowa and United States Constitutions. We ordinarily consider the Iowa and federal due process provisions to be "identical in scope, import, and purpose." Shearer v. Perry Community School District, 236 N.W.2d 688, 691-92 (Iowa 1975); see Argenta, 382 N.W.2d at 461.

Iowa Code section 614.1(9) has already withstood a due process challenge in federal court. Fitz, 712 F.2d at 333. Other courts have repeatedly declared that statutes of limitations serving a valid public purpose do not deprive litigants of due process. See, e.g., Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, 437, 102 S.Ct. 1148, 1158-59, 71 L.Ed.2d 265, 279 (1982); Reese v. Rankin Fite Memorial Hospital, 403 So.2d 158, 160-62 (Ala.1981); Reyes v. Kent General Hospital, Inc., 487 A.2d 1142, 1146 (Del.1984); Saultz, 64 Ohio App.2d at 39, 410 N.E.2d at 1281.

The plaintiffs' due process challenge is without merit because it does not...