SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) – Don't waste your 18th birthday worrying about your future lawsuit, the California Supreme Court has told the state’s teens.
Minors with personal injury claims have until the applicable statute of limitations runs out following their 18th birthday – not from the time they are injured - to file a lawsuit. Theoretically, a person injured at 2 could wait until they are 20 to file suit.
And in a case in which one day made a big difference, the court has ruled the actual 18th birthday is not when the statute begins to run. Instead, it is the next day – the first full day a person is 18.
“More than a century ago, the Legislature enacted section 12 to exclude the first day in calculating the applicable limitations period,” Chief Justice Tami Cantil-Sakauye wrote.
“A general rule governing the computation of time serves to promote order and certainty. Even assuming, as defendants suggest, that section 12’s first day exclusion rule was originally meant only to exclude partial days, we agree with the Minnesota Supreme Court that ‘certainty and uniformity in the application of the rule for the computation of time is of more importance than the reason for its application at common law.’”
On Dec. 3, 2013, Luis Shalabi sued the City of Fontana and several of its police officers over the shooting death of his father in 2011.
The lawsuit was filed on Shalabi’s 20th birthday. Had his 18th birthday counted against a two-year statute, that would have meant his lawsuit needed to be filed by Dec. 2, 2013.
A trial court agreed with the defendants but an appellate court reversed, noting there was case law to support the defendants’ argument but that it was not binding.
So, the appellate court ruled the two-year statute began on Dec. 4, 2011. It didn’t matter that Shalabi was already 18 for the entirety of business hours the day before.
“Defendants argue that an exception to the general first day exclusion rule applies when, as here, the plaintiff has the whole of the first day to sue,” Cantil-Sakauye wrote.
“They maintain that the law recognizes no fractions of a day, and the purpose of section 12’s exclusion of the first day is to give parties the full measure of days to satisfy statutory deadlines.
“We are unpersuaded. Although defendants claim that section 12 was enacted to ensure that fractions of a day are not to be counted in calculating the applicable limitations period, no such purpose is apparent from the statutory language or legislative history.”