Nelson v. Nelson

Summary

The Montana Supreme Court considered whether a personal-injury negligence action arising from pesticide exposure and a vaccine injection was barred by the three-year statute of limitations. Applying Montana's discovery rule and relying on Hando v. PPG Industries, Inc., the Court held that the causal connection between the plaintiff's ailments and the exposures involved potentially self-concealing facts. The Court reversed the grant of summary judgment and remanded the case for trial.

Holdings

1. When the facts constituting a personal-injury claim are by their nature concealed or self-concealing, the statute of limitations does not begin until the injured party discovers those facts or, through due diligence, should have discovered them. The causal relationship between Elizabeth's ailments and the chemical and vaccine exposures was self-concealing, and the district court erred in treating her immediate loss of consciousness as establishing accrual of the entire claim in 1989.
2. Summary judgment was improper because the record did not establish as a matter of law that Elizabeth discovered or should have discovered the causal relationship more than three years before filing suit.
3. Judicial estoppel did not bar Elizabeth's claim because her prior statements that doctors believed her problems might stem from ranch chemicals were speculative and were not inconsistent with her later assertion that a medically established causal relationship was not identified until 1996.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the district court erred in granting summary judgment on the ground that Elizabeth's negligence claim was barred by Montana's three-year statute of limitations.
2. Whether the discovery rule delayed accrual until Elizabeth discovered, or in the exercise of due diligence should have discovered, the causal relationship between her ailments and the chemical and vaccine exposures.
3. Whether Elizabeth's statements in a prior motion to modify a marital settlement judicially estopped her from asserting that the causal relationship was not established until 1996.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded