Brown v. Quimby Material Handling, Inc., Unpublished Decision (6-15-2000)
Brown v. Quimby Material Handling, Inc., Unpublished Decision (6-15-2000)
Opinion of the Court
OPINION
On October 25, 1995, appellant, Jon Brown, suffered injuries when he fell from a hydraulic lift truck while working for Andreas Furniture Company in Sugarcreek, Ohio. At the time of his fall, appellant was not secured by any type of safety tethering device as none was provided. On March 12, 1997, appellant, together with his wife, filed a complaint against Andreas Furniture and Hyster Company alleging various claims (hereinafter "first lawsuit"). During discovery of the first lawsuit, appellants learned appellee, Quimby Material Handling, Inc., was under a contractual agreement with Andreas Furniture to perform repair work and periodic maintenance work on the lift trucks. On February 17, 1998, appellants filed a complaint against appellee (the underlying complaint sub judice). On March 22, 1999, appellee filed a motion for summary judgment claiming the complaint was untimely pursuant to R.C.I. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN GRANTING DEFENDANT-APPELLEE'S SUMMARY JUDGMENT MOTION ON PLAINTIFF JON BROWN'S COMPLAINT.
II. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN DISMISSING PLAINTIFF LINDA BROWN'S COMPLAINT WHEN NO SUMMARY JUDGMENT MOTION WAS PENDING WITH RESPECT TO IT.
1. The discovery rule applies to toll R.C.
2125.02 (D), the two-year statute of limitations for a wrongful death claim. (Shover v. Cordis Corp. [1991],61 Ohio St.3d 213 ,574 N.E.2d 457 , overruled.)2. In a wrongful death action that stems from a murder, the statute of limitations begins to run when the victim's survivors discover, or through the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered, that the defendant has been convicted and sentenced for the murder.
However, the dicta of the Collins opinion requires further discussion. At 509, Justice Sweeney discusses the history of the expansion of the discovery rule as it applies to specific causes of action: In each of these cases in which we invoked the discovery rule, we found that the injury complained of did not manifest itself immediately. Therefore, rather than adhere to the rigid application of a particular statute of limitations, we liberally interpreted the time of accrual of the cause of action until the plaintiff knew, or by the exercise of reasonable diligence should have known, that he or she had been injured by the conduct of the defendant. Ault [v. Jasko (1994),
The lattice work of cases leads this court to find that the basic discovery rule as stated in O'Stricker at paragraph two of the syllabus is controlling for each of these expansions: When an injury does not manifest itself immediately, the cause of action does not arise until the plaintiff knows or, by the exercise of reasonable diligence should have known, that he had been injured by the conduct of defendant, for purposes of the statute of limitations contained in R.C.
We therefore conclude the discovery rule is predicated on the "discovery of the injury" not the perpetrator of the injury. Based upon the foregoing cases, the discovery rule does not expand the statute of limitations sub judice. Upon review, we find the trial court did not err in granting summary judgment to appellee as against appellant. Assignment of Error I is denied.
HOFFMAN P.J. and EDWARDS, J. CONCUR.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.