Blaine Edward Large v. Bucyrus-Erie Co. And Northwest Engineering Co.

CHAPMAN, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff takes appeal from the orders¹ of the district court granting summary judgment to defendants. The issue presented here is whether the plaintiff’s personal injury claim accrued within the two year period circumscribed by the Virginia statute of limitations. Va.Code § 8.01-243(A) (1977). Because we hold that the injuries complained of occurred outside the two year period, we affirm.

I

Blaine Edward Large was employed by Luck Quarries, Inc. in Burkeville, Virginia from April 2,1962 until November 17,1978. During the course of this employment, Large operated and maintained two power shovels, one of which was the product of Bucyrus-Erie Company and the other of Northwest Engineering Company.

Large filed suit against Bucyrus-Erie and Northwest Engineering on November 3, 1980 alleging that their negligence in designing, manufacturing and selling the power shovels; breach of express and implied warranties; and failure to warn plaintiff of the dangers of exposure to dust and noise resulted in certain respiratory illnesses and a bilateral hearing loss.² Factually, the foundation of his complaint is that the placement of the operator’s station exposed him to excessive noise, silica dust, stone dust and asbestos dust emanating from the engine, clutch, drums, fans, winches and other parts of the machines when operational; and that the power shovels are designed so that the engine cooling air is sucked or blown by the operator’s station, thereby exposing the operator further to the high levels of dust surrounding him.

Because of this exposure, Large claims he experiences a bilateral hearing loss and suffers from silicosis, industrial bronchitis and asbestosis.³ He asserts that the defendants’ conduct was a continuing tort that occurred up to the last day he worked, November 17, 1978. Defendants argue that the plaintiff’s injuries occurred prior to November 3,1978; therefore, his cause of action accrued outside the statute of limitations.

The district court correctly characterized the necessary determinations to be: (1) the date of injury and (2) the relevance of the two weeks of exposure that occurred within the limitations period. Large v. BucyrusErie Co., 524 F.Supp. 285, 287 (E.D.Va.1981). The statute of limitations requires that every action for personal injuries be brought within two years after the cause of action shall have accrued. Va.Code § 8.01-243(A) (1977). The court below held that under Locke v. Johns-Manville Corp., 221 Va. 951, 275 S.E.2d 900 (1981), the injury occurred, and therefore the cause of action accrued, more than two years before the suit was filed. Because the two week exposure did not cause any injury, the court found plaintiff’s action to be time-barred. We agree with the court’s reading and application of Locke.

II

This case involves the application of a statute of limitations and defendants bear the burden of proving facts necessary to establish that the action is untimely filed. Locke v. Johns-Manville, 221 Va. 951, 958, 275 S.E.2d 900, 905 (1981). A motion for summary judgment is to be granted only when there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R.Civ.P. 56(c).

In the instant case, the district court granted two motions for summary judgment: one, a partial summary judgment as to liability on respiratory illnesses, Large v. Bucyrus-Erie Co., 524 F.Supp. 285 (E.D.Va.1981), and, two, a judgment on the remaining issue of bilateral hearing loss. These motions were granted on the uncontroverted medical evidence before the court.⁴

On the motion as to respiratory illnesses, the evidence was an affidavit by one of the defendants’ expert witnesses. The doctor states that as of November 1980 the plaintiff “was suffering from no pulmonary disease or process which was not evident in August 1978 or before” and that all of the respiratory injuries complained of occurred more than two years before the suit was filed. 524 F.Supp. at 288-89. The affidavit by defendants’ expert on the hearing loss states that plaintiff “experiences moderate to severe sensori-neural hearing losses in both ears and that he has experienced these problems since at least April 1977.” The expert also stated that “as of January 4, 1982, [plaintiff] was experiencing no process, disability or impairment of the ears, auditory nerves, or other system related to hearing, which was not evident in April 1977. ” The only medical testimony before the court was that all the plaintiff’s injuries had occurred outside the two year period in which the cause is required to be brought. Therefore, the district court held that Locke v. Johns-Manville Co. required it to dismiss the action as time-barred.

Locke is a products liability case wherein the plaintiff alleged he had contracted mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung, because of exposure to asbestos in the workplace. The Virginia Supreme Court was faced with the same issue presented here, the determination of the date of injury for a condition that did not come into existence at one specific point in time.

Locke’s exposure to asbestos had ended in September 1972, but his suit was not filed until July of 1978, nearly six years later. The first evidence of any lung-related disease was some impairment of lung function in November 1977 and an x-ray taken on May 22,1978. Plaintiff filed suit in July of 1978, within two years of the first evidence of the disease, but well outside two years from the last exposure. The defendants argued that because the statute ran from the date of last exposure, plaintiff’s suit was untimely. Locke argued, however, that the statute of limitations could not begin to run until he had suffered some injury that was legally cognizable.

The Virginia court began its analysis by noting that no right of action may accrue until the essential elements of a cause of action have occurred. These three elements are (1) a legal obligation of a defendant to the plaintiff, (2) a violation or breach of that duty or right, and (3) harm or damage to the plaintiff as a proximate consequence of the violation or breach. The court then held that all of these factors must be present for a cause of action to accrue; therefore, a plaintiff’s cause of action for damages for a personal injury does not accrue until he is hurt. Locke, Id. 221 Va. at 957, 275 S.E.2d at 904. See, Caudill v. Wise Rambler, Inc., 210 Va. 11, 13, 168 S.E.2d 257, 259 (1969); Barnes v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 406 F.2d 859, 861 (4th Cir.1969); Sides v. Richard Machine Works, Inc., 406 F.2d 445, 446 (4th Cir.1969). (All cited in Locke).

The court next coupled this rule with Va.Code § 8.01-230 (1977) that specifies “a cause of action for personal injuries shall be deemed to accrue and the prescribed limitations period shall commence to run from the date the injury is sustained.” 221 Va. at 955, 275 S.E.2d at 904. Thus, the occurrence of an injury, not the wrongful act by a defendant, triggers the running of the statutory time period. Moreover, the court explicitly held that the crucial question in a case such as this one is: “When was the plaintiff hurt?” Id. at 958, 275 S.E.2d at 905.⁵

Applying this rule to the facts of the case, the Locke court held that the “ ‘time plaintiff was hurt’ is to be established from available competent evidence, produced by a plaintiff or a defendant, that pinpoints the precise date of injury with a reasonable degree of medical certainty.” Id. at 959, 275 S.E.2d at 905. Explaining that while mesothelioma occurs from inhalation of asbestos dust the tumor does not form until some later date, the court found plaintiff’s injury did not occur in harmony with the wrongful act of exposing plaintiff to asbestos fibers, but occurred with either the impairment of lung function or the x-ray showing a lung abnormality. Id. at 959, 275 S.E.2d at 905.

It is instructive to note both that the court stated the running of the statute is not tied to the date of the wrongful act and that the court concluded the accrual point to be when the damage occurs, not when the symptoms manifest the injury. Id. at 957-59, 275 S.E.2d at 904-05. Keeping these principles in mind, this court must apply Locke to the facts of the case and make the determination whether the trial court was correct to grant the summary judgment motions.

The illnesses complained of by plaintiff do not arise at a given point in time; instead they result over a period of time, the beginning being unknown. Therefore, the competent evidence produced by the parties must be used to determine, with a reasonable degree of medical certainty, the precise date of injury. As stated above, the uncontroverted testimony of the expert witnesses established that both the respiratory diseases and the hearing loss existed and were evident more than two years prior to the institution of the suit. Although this evidence does not pinpoint the exact date of injury, it is competent evidence that establishes, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that the injury occurred outside the two year period allowed by Va.Code § 8.01-243(A).

Ill

The only relevant inquiry remaining is the significance of the two week period of exposure to noise and dust that occurred within the statutory period. The plaintiff argues that this two week period constitutes part of a continuing wrong by defendants that injured plaintiff, consequently, the action was timely filed.

Plaintiff draws support for his argument from the case of Farley v. Goode, 219 Va. 969, 252 S.E.2d 594 (1979). Farley was a malpractice suit in which plaintiff sued her dentist for negligently failing to diagnose and treat a periodontal disease. The plaintiff had first been treated by the dentist in 1966 and the course of treatment lasted through 1976. The disease had existed in a state that a general dentist exercising ordinary care would have diagnosed it as early as 1971. The suit was not filed until 1976, well after the two year period following the “injury.”

The Virginia Supreme Court rejected the defendant’s argument that under Caudill v. Wise Rambler, Inc. the plaintiff’s cause of action had accrued outside the statute of limitations. The court, specifically limiting its holding to the facts, held that when

malpractice is claimed to have occurred during a continuous and substantially uninterrupted course of examination and treatment in which a particular illness or condition should have been diagnosed in the exercise of reasonable care, the date of injury occurs, the cause of action for that malpractice accrues, and the statute of limitations commences to run when the improper course of examination, and treatment if any, for the particular malady terminates.

219 Va. at 976, 252 S.E.2d at 599. The rationale of this holding is that the dentist, while in a physician-patient relationship, engages in an “undertaking which requires a continuation of services [and] the statute of limitations does not begin to run until the termination of the undertaking.” While at first blush this case may seem appealing and helpful to plaintiff, it can be distinguished both factually and legally; therefore, it cannot avail plaintiff here.

First, the plaintiff has not alleged any injury that occurred during the two week period. As discussed above, the uncontroverted medical evidence proved that the injuries all occurred and were complete more than two years before plaintiff filed his cause of action. Therefore, no injury has occurred to plaintiff within the two year period.

Second, Farley was specifically limited to its facts. Those facts were that there existed a relationship of professional to client wherein the professional had undertaken to perform a duty that required a continuation of services. Thus, each time the dentist examined the patient, he failed to diagnose the disease and committed a wrongful act that actually injured the plaintiff. The duty imposed by the court was to make an accurate diagnosis, something the dentist failed to do, injuring the plaintiff each time because her gum disease worsened. Appellant Large was not injured by any act, whether negligent or not, that occurred within the limitations period. Moreover, selling a piece of equipment to plaintiff’s employer is a far different relationship than that of physician to client because there is no undertaking to provide a continuation of services to plaintiff.

Third, while the Supreme Court of Virginia did recognize the adoption of a continuing negligence theory, it also recognized that the theory was explicitly limited to professional relationships that required a continuation of services. Farley, 219 Va. at 980, 252 S.E.2d at 601. The court affirmed its general rule that the statute runs from the date of the injury and stated that the mere fact that the physician-patient relationship survived did not mean a cause of action did. Rather, the continuous service must relate to the illness or injury alleged to be malpractice; if the act were a single act, such as leaving a needle inside a patient, the statute ran from that negligent act because the only injury occurred on that date. Id. at 979-80, 252 S.E.2d at 600-01.

There being no undertaking to provide a continuous service, nor an injury occurring within the statutory period, it is clear that the plaintiff’s action is untimely. Locke is on point with the present case factually and teaches that the statute runs from the date of injury determined to a medical certainty, not the date of last exposure. In cases based upon facts such as Locke and this one, the running of the statute is triggered by the injury even if it occurs years before the symptoms, not the date of the wrongful act, an entirely different element in the cause of action. 221 Va. at 957-59, 275 S.E.2d 904-905. Locke is clearly controlling on these facts, not Farley; it is clear under Virginia law that the statute has run.⁶

IV

There was no injury to the plaintiff within the two week period falling within the statute of limitations. The uncontroverted competent evidence established that all medical injuries complained of by plaintiff occurred more than two years prior to the filing of suit. There was no undertaking by defendants to provide continuous service to plaintiff such as occurs in a physician-client or attorney-client relationship; therefore, Farley cannot apply to these facts. We hold that the district court correctly interpreted and applied Locke v. Johns-Manville when it granted the summary judgment motions. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is

AFFIRMED.

1 . On October 20, 1981, the district court granted the defendant’s motion for partial summary judgment on the respiratory injuries. Large v. Bucyrus-Erie Co., 524 F.Supp. 285 (E.D.Va.1981). The claim for bilateral hearing loss was disposed of on March 22, 1982 when the court granted summary judgment on all remaining claims. Although the second order was not published, the court applied identical legal reasoning to similar facts.

2 . Plaintiff also has pled strict liability and reckless disregard of his rights by defendants.

3 . For a detailed discussion of the facts of this case see the district court’s order granting defendant’s motion for partial summary judgment. 524 F.Supp. at 286-289.

4 . See, 524 F.Supp. at 289. As stated above, the order relating to the motion on the claim for hearing loss was not published. In his order, however, Judge Merhige stated that the only evidence provided the court was an affidavit filed by the defendants; therefore, the plaintiffs again produced no evidence to controvert the findings in the doctor’s affidavit.

5 . The Locke court specifically noted that it was not adopting a “discovery rule” that triggers the running of the statute only when the injury is, or reasonably should have been discovered. It held that the trigger date is the date of injury, even if the symptoms were not manifest for years afterward.

6 . We would, at this point, like to note our approval of the lower court’s discussion and treatment of the Virginia Supreme Court’s decisions regarding the statute of limitations at 524 F.Supp. at 289-292. Because of the court’s thorough and excellent discussion of the cases in its opinion, we see no need to rediscuss them here. See also, Locke v. Johns-Manville Co.