JACKSON, Tenn. (Legal Newsline) - A Tennessee trial court’s dismissal of a wrongful death action filed by the widow of a man killed in a head-on collision with a county fire truck has been affirmed by an appeals court.
The Court of Appeals of Tennessee at Jackson in an opinion filed Dec. 8 agreed with the trial court that the widow, Susan Durham, filed the action beyond the one-year statute of limitations under the state’s Governmental Tort Liability Act (GTLA).
The GTLA grants immunity from civil action to Tennessee counties with some exceptions -- one involves claims that arise form the negligent operation of motor vehicles.
The case stems from a 2014 head-on collision of a truck driven by Christopher Durham and a fire truck driven Gus Losleben, a volunteer firefighter with the Hardin County Fire Department. Both men died.
Durham filed her wrongful death case one year and three weeks after the date of the accident, but her lawyer Benjamin Scott Harmon, of Savannah, Tenn., argued that Durham did not learn until weeks after the accident that the volunteer fireman was at fault. (WBBJ Channel 7 News reported that the firetruck, responding to a call, crossed the center line and struck a log truck driven by Durham.)
Citing case law, Judge J. Steven Stafford wrote in his opinion that “we cannot agree that Appellant’s claimed lack of certainty as to the exact manner in which the accident occurred is sufficient to toll the statute of limitations. While we concede that Appellant must have knowledge of the manner in which the injury occurred, this requirement can be met through either actual or constructive notice.”
“And the Tennessee Supreme Court,” the judge added, “has explained that constructive or inquiry notice means only that the plaintiff has ‘information sufficient to alert a reasonable person of the need to investigate the injury.’”
Attorney Harmon also cited Tennessee Code Annotated Section 28-1-110, which suspends the statute of limitations for that period of time between a death and the appointment of a representative of the estate, limited to a period of six months.
Stevens wrote that section 28-1-110 “only applies to causes of action against personal representatives of decedents, not against county governments. Thus, while section 28-1-110 may apply if Appellant were suing Mr. Losleben’s estate as a separate entity, as explained above, the trial court found that Mr. Losleben’s estate is immune from suit (because the suable entity in this situation is his employer, Hardin County, under the GTLA), and Appellant does not contest that finding.”