Workman v. Rajneesh Foundation Intern.

• Decision Date: 11 March 1987
• Citation: 733 P.2d 908,84 Or.App. 226
• Parties: Roger Hill WORKMAN, Appellant, v. RAJNEESH FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL, a N.J. corp., Rajneesh Investment Corporation, an Oregon corp., Rajneesh Neo-Sannyas International Commune, an Oregon corporation, Ma Anand Sheela, an individual and Bagwan Shree Rajneesh, an individual, Respondents. Margaret HILL, Appellant, v. RAJNEESH FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL, a N.J. corp., Rajneesh Investment Corporation, an Oregon corp., Rajneesh Neo-Sannyas International Commune, an Oregon corporation, Ma Anand Sheela, an individual and Bagwan Shree Rajneesh, an individual, Respondents. CC84-142 & CC84-143; CA A37635 & A37636.
• Court: Oregon Court of Appeals

Page 908

733 P.2d 908

84 Or.App. 226

Roger Hill WORKMAN, Appellant, v. RAJNEESH FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL, a N.J. corp., Rajneesh

Investment Corporation, an Oregon corp., Rajneesh

Neo-Sannyas International Commune, an Oregon corporation, Ma

Anand Sheela, an individual and Bagwan Shree Rajneesh, an

individual, Respondents.

Margaret HILL, Appellant, v. RAJNEESH FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL, a N.J. corp., Rajneesh

Investment Corporation, an Oregon corp., Rajneesh

Neo-Sannyas International Commune, an Oregon corporation, Ma

Anand Sheela, an individual and Bagwan Shree Rajneesh, an

individual, Respondents.

CC84-142 & CC84-143; CA A37635 & A37636.

Court of Appeals of Oregon.

Argued and Submitted July 16, 1986.

Decided March 11, 1987.

John A. Goodall, Seattle, argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellants.

Robert J. McCrea, Eugene, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Ronald H. Hoevet, Portland, for respondent Rajneesh Inv. Corp., John R. Ransom, Portland, for respondent Rajneesh Neo-Sannyas Intern. Commune, Ma Prem Sheelu, Rajneeshpuram, for respondents Ma Anand Sheela and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and McCrea, P.C., Eugene, for respondent Rajneesh Foundation Intern.

Before RICHARDSON, P.J., JOSEPH, C.J., and DEITS, J.

RICHARDSON, Presiding Judge.

Defendants in these defamation actions moved for and the trial court granted summary judgment on the ground that plaintiffs did not bring the actions within the one-year limitation period of ORS 12.120(2). The defamatory statements were made at a public school board meeting which neither plaintiff attended. ¹ The decisive question is whether the time of discovery rule, under which the running of the Statute of Limitations is tolled until the plaintiff knows or reasonably should know that he has a claim against the defendant, applies to actions for defamations made in a public meeting. ²

The discovery rule was first judicially ³ endorsed in Oregon in Berry v. Branner, 245 Or. 307, 421 P.2d 996 (1966), a medical malpractice action: the defendant left a surgical needle in the plaintiff's body in 1956, the plaintiff suffered continuing problems and diligently attempted to discover their cause, and the needle was finally discovered in 1965. The court held that, although the plaintiff had a right of action as of the time the negligent event occurred, her cause of action did not "accrue" within the meaning of ORS 12.010 and the two-year Statute of Limitations did not begin to run until she discovered or reasonably should have discovered the "tort committed upon her person by defendant." 245 Or. at 316, 421 P.2d 996.

Since the decision in Berry, the rule has been extended to the Statutes of Limitations applicable to many other kinds of actions, a partial listing of which is given in White v. Gurnsey, 48 Or.App. 931, 935, 618 P.2d 975 (1980). We applied the discovery rule in White to a libel action, where the defamatory matter was contained in a memorandum which was mailed and received in March, 1978, but which the plaintiff did not discover until the following month, after he was discharged from his job as a result of the memorandum. We explained that, although "as a general rule, a cause of action for libel accrues for statute of limitations purposes on the date of publication [citing Bock v. Collier, 175 Or. 145, 151 P.2d 732 (1944) ]," 48 Or.App. at 935, 618 P.2d 975.

"[t]he memorandum here was confidential in nature and the initial publication was not of the type that plaintiff would be presumed to have known about, even in the exercise of reasonable diligence. Although, technically, at the time of the initial publication of confidential communications in employment contexts some damage occurs, which gives rise to a right of action, in many instances there is no reason for plaintiff to suspect such a publication until he is discharged, and perhaps not even then. * * * The statutory analysis in Berry v. Branner, supra, is equally applicable to the present statute of limitations, ORS 12.120(2) * * *." 48 Or.App. at 936-37, 618 P.2d 975. (Citation omitted.)

The question in this case is whether the rationale for the discovery rule warrants its extension to defamations which are expressed in open or public forums or media, as distinct from confidential or private ones, but which the defamed person does not learn about until after the fact. The corollary question is whether the protective purposes of the Statute of Limitations should be diminished or lost to the defendants under such circumstances.

The court said in Berry v. Branner, supra:

"The objective of a statutory limitation on the time within which an action may be brought is, in malpractice cases, the protection of medical practitioners from the assertion of stale claims. We do not believe the legislature intended to limit patients asserting malpractice claims, who by the very nature of the treatment had no way of immediately ascertaining their injury, to the same overall period of time that is allowed for bringing other tort actions that are normally immediately ascertainable upon commission of the wrong. The protection of the medical profession from stale claims does not require such a harsh rule. The mischief the statute was intended to remedy was delay in the assertion of a legal right by one who had slumbered for the statutory period during which process was within his reach." 245 Or. at 312-13, 421 P.2d 996. (Citation omitted.)

Thus, part of the rationale for the rule in Berry is that certain kinds of wrongs are categorically more capable than others of eluding immediate recognition and of lacking an obvious temporal or causal relationship to the injuries they produce.

No consistent analytical principles have been developed for determining whether to apply the discovery rule to particular statutes of limitations and particular kinds of wrongs. The decisions extending the rule to new contexts sometimes simply posit that there is no reason why it should not apply in that context if it applies in others. See, e.g., U.S. Nat'l Bank v. Davies, 274 Or. 663, 669, n. 1, 548 P.2d 966 (1976) (legal malpractice). Sometimes, the opinions have been elaborate analyses of the language and history of the particular statute in question. See, e.g., Dowers Farms v. Lake County, 288 Or. 669, 607 P.2d 1361 (1980) (Tort Claims Act). When all is said and done, however, the decisional explanations have generally been purely visceral. Even in cases such as Dowers Farms, where the starting point of the analysis assumes that there is a reasoned approach that can be followed to a logical answer, the analysis ends with the same kind of "if there, why not here" conclusion that appears in the opinions which begin more modestly. See 288 Or. at 678-79, 607 P.2d 1361.

The subsequent extensions of the discovery rule show a recognition that the court in Berry went too far in stating that all torts other than medical malpractice "are normally immediately ascertainable upon commission of the wrong." We nevertheless consider the kind of distinction the court drew in Berry to embody an appropriate analytical approach in any case where a new application of the discovery rule is considered. Unless the language or history of the statute dictates otherwise, the...