Nachtsheim v. Wartnick

• Decision Date: 08 September 1987
• Docket Number: No. C0-87-99,C0-87-99
• Citation: 411 N.W.2d 882
• Parties: Betty NACHTSHEIM, as trustee for the heirs and next-of-kin of Robert P. Nachtsheim, Respondent, v. Norman WARTNICK, et al., Appellants.
• Court: Minnesota Court of Appeals

Page 882

411 N.W.2d 882

Betty NACHTSHEIM, as trustee for the heirs and next-of-kin of Robert P. Nachtsheim, Respondent, v. Norman WARTNICK, et al., Appellants.

No. C0-87-99.

Court of Appeals of Minnesota.

Sept. 8, 1987.

Review Denied Oct. 28, 1987.

Syllabus by the Court

1. Minn.Stat. Sec. 573.02 (1984) does not deprive appellant of due process of law by reviving respondent's time-barred action for wrongful death based on murder.

2. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying appellant a new trial.

3. The trial court did not err by submitting the punitive damages issue to the jury.

Ronald I. Meshbesher, Minneapolis, for respondent.

Phillip Gainsley, Minneapolis, for appellants.

Heard, considered and decided by LESLIE, P.J., and SEDGWICK and LANSING, JJ.

OPINION

SEDGWICK, Judge.

Respondent Betty Nachtsheim (Nachtsheim) brought this wrongful death action under Minn.Stat. Sec. 573.02 (1984) against appellant Norman Wartnick (Wartnick), alleging that he had murdered or procured the murder of her husband. The jury found that Wartnick had committed or caused the murder, and it awarded Nachtsheim $2,350,000 in damages. Wartnick appeals from the judgment and order denying him a new trial. We affirm.

FACTS

Wartnick is a shareholder and officer of Midwest Florist Supply Co. (Midwest), a wholesale floral company. Midwest is a family-run business founded by Wartnick's father. Robert Nachtsheim (the decedent) worked as a salesman for Midwest between 1959 and 1972.

In April 1970, Wartnick bought a $100,000 "key man" insurance policy on the decedent's life from Prudential Insurance Co. (Prudential). Midwest was the named beneficiary.

In August 1972, the decedent left Midwest to begin a competing business. On May 11, 1973, three days before the life insurance policy was to lapse, Wartnick paid the annual premium to keep it in effect, even though the decedent no longer worked for Midwest.

On the morning of May 24, 1973, the decedent was fatally shot shortly after he arrived at work. The evidence suggested the killer was someone the decedent knew he apparently had let the killer in before opening for business; there was no evidence of robbery or struggle; and the killer shot the decedent in the head at close range from a visible position. A large box of orchids, normally only sold to other wholesalers, had been removed from the cooler and was upside down on the floor near the decedent's body; the cooler door was still ajar when the body was discovered. The police and the Hennepin County District Attorney's office investigated the killing, but no one was charged and it remains officially unsolved.

Prudential paid Midwest the life insurance proceeds (over Nachtsheim's protests). In October 1976, Nachtsheim sued Prudential, Midwest, and Wartnick to recover the proceeds on a theory of unjust enrichment. She alleged that her husband had been overinsured; that he had told Prudential not to renew the policy since he no longer worked for Midwest; that when the premium was paid Midwest had no insurable interest in his life; and that Wartnick had murdered or procured the murder of her husband.

On June 9, 1984, Nachtsheim brought this action against Wartnick and Midwest under Minnesota's wrongful death statute, Minn.Stat. Sec. 573.02 (1984). At the time of the shooting, the statute required that the action be brought within three years of the wrongful act causing death. The statute was amended in 1983, however, to remove any time limit for actions based on murder.

Both lawsuits were consolidated for trial. Prudential settled with Nachtsheim before trial for $75,000.

The jury found by special verdict that Wartnick had murdered or caused the murder of decedent, but that Midwest, acting through Wartnick, had not murdered him or caused the murder. It awarded Nachtsheim $350,000 in compensatory damages and $2 million in punitive damages.

Judgment was entered against Wartnick in the wrongful death action. (The other suit was dismissed since the jury found for Midwest.) Wartnick appeals from the judgment and the trial court's order denying his motion for a new trial or judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

ISSUES

1. Does Minn.Stat. Sec. 573.02 (1984) deprive appellant of due process of law by reviving respondent's time-barred wrongful death action against him?

2. Did the trial court abuse its discretion by denying appellant's motion for a new trial?

3. Did the trial court err in submitting the punitive damages issue to the jury?

ANALYSIS

I. Revival of Barred Wrongful Death Action.

Nachtsheim brought this wrongful death action under Minn.Stat. Sec. 573.02 (1984), which provides:

Subdivision 1. * * * An action to recover damages for a death caused by an intentional act constituting murder may be commenced at any time after the death of the decedent. Any other action under this section may be commenced within three years after the date of death provided that the action must be commenced within six years after the act or omission.

* * *

Subd. 4. This section shall not apply to any death or cause of action arising prior to its enactment, nor to any cause of action or proceeding now pending in any court of the state of Minnesota, except * * * this section shall apply to any death or cause of action arising prior to its enactment which resulted from an intentional act constituting murder * * *.

(Emphasis added.)

The underlined language was added by 1983 Minn.Laws ch. 347, Secs. 2-3, effective June 15, 1983. It removes retroactively the three-year time limitation for wrongful death actions based on murder.

The time for Nachtsheim to bring a wrongful death action had expired before the 1983 amendment was enacted: the decedent was shot in May 1973, and the statute then in effect required that the action be brought within three years after the act causing death. Minn.Stat. Sec. 573.02, subd. 1 (Supp.1973). Nachtsheim started this suit in May 1984. Thus, the 1983 amendment, as applied to this case, would revive a cause of action that had previously expired. Wartnick argues the removal of the time limitation deprives him of property without due process of law.

Initially, we reject Nachtsheim's contention that Wartnick cannot raise this constitutional argument because he did not plead the statute of limitation in his answer. When Wartnick answered, he had no statute of limitation defense--the time limitation had been removed by the 1983 amendment. His constitutional defense was raised in his answer.

The leading Minnesota case analyzing whether a time-barred claim may be revived is Donaldson v. Chase Securities Corp., 216 Minn. 269, 13 N.W.2d 1 (1944), aff'd, 325 U.S. 304, 65 S.Ct. 1137, 89 L.Ed. 1628 (1945). Donaldson involved legislation that revived a common law tort action based on a violation of state securities laws. 325 U.S. at 310-11, 65 S.Ct. at 1140-41. The Minnesota supreme court reasoned that whether this was constitutional depended on which of three types of time limitations was involved. 13 N.W.2d at 4-5.

In the first class of cases, typically involving adverse possession, the passage of time extinguishes not only the plaintiff's remedy, but also his right, and it gives the defendant a vested property right. In such a case, lifting the bar of the statute of limitations violates the defendant's due process rights. 13 N.W.2d at 4.

In the second class of cases, the time limitation only affects the plaintiff's remedy, not the parties' rights, and the legislature is free to restore the barred remedy. Id. The Donaldson court held that the legislation at issue there was constitutional because it removed a limitation of the second type. 13 N.W.2d at 5. Its decision was based in part on Campbell v. Holt, 115 U.S. 620, 6 S.Ct. 209, 29 L.Ed. 483 (1885):

In Campbell v. Holt, the Supreme Court held that a statute which applied merely to the remedy did not vest such a right in the defendant that the Legislature * * * could not lift the bar of the limitation and thereby revive the cause.

13 N.W.2d at 4.

The court noted, however, that certain statutory tort actions could not be revived:

The case at bar is to be distinguished from a third class of cases where a cause of action is created by statute, such as Lord Campbell's Act * * *, and the same statute prescribes a period of limitation within which the cause must be brought. The weight of authority in such cases is that the period of limitation is a part of the cause of action, and if it is not brought within the time specified, it may not be revived.

13 N.W.2d at 5 (citations omitted).

Lord Campbell's Act is the generic name for wrongful death statutes and is the model for Minnesota's statute. Bonhiver v. Fugelso, Porter, Simich and Whiteman, Inc., 355 N.W.2d 138, 141 (Minn.1984). Actions for wrongful death did not exist at common law; they are a statutory creation. E.g., Cashman v. Hedberg, 10 N.W.2d 388, 390 (Minn.1943). The statute's time limit is part of the cause of action itself, rather than an ordinary statute of limitation merely affecting a remedy. Berghuis v. Korthuis, 228 Minn. 534, 536, 37 N.W.2d 809, 810 (1949).

The principle that a statutory cause of action cannot be revived where the time limitation is part of the action itself was established in William Danzer & Co. v. Gulf & Ship Island Railroad Co., 268 U.S. 633, 45 S.Ct. 612, 69 L.Ed. 1126 (1925). In Danzer, plaintiff's time-barred cause of action under the Interstate Commerce Act would have been revived by a retroactive tolling provision in the subsequently-passed Transportation Act. The Supreme Court held it would be unconstitutional to revive the barred action:

We need not re-examine the doctrine of Campbell * * *, as it is plain that case does not apply. * * * That case belonged to the class where statutory provisions fixing the time within which suits must be brought to enforce an existing cause of action are held to apply to the remedy only. But such provisions sometimes...